I initially assumed you were talking about cocaine.
While I agree with the sentiment here, I do believe that the FDA is not the only party involved. For example, the vast majority of cognitive enhancement drugs aren't illegal because of the FDA, but rather, because of the DEA & related.
More broadly, marketing something that's "totally a drug" as "not a drug" seems possible (?) -- FDA approval for food ingredients is rather trivial, and if you can argue it's an "x extract" then you're good if "x" is approved.
Heck, take it one step further and setup a company in a country that's not the US and ship it to people in the US. You'd be able to sell almost anything.
The actual problem here is that "drug" and "medicine" and "pharmacy" are in a way "protected categories". Circumventing them seems possible, it's just that people don't care, and that's a people problem not an FDA problem.
I initially thought you were talking about inorganic antiseptics, eg ClO2(aq) ;)
I know regularly inhale 1% H2O2 (free from "stabilizers") and add some hypochlorite 400ppm, Dead Sea salt or Zechstein salt, something rich in trace elements, perhaps some DMSO if your inhaler is plasticizer free in the parts that get touched by the fluid: the older inhaler heads mostly are, the newer often have silly soft-plastic inserts and do not tell you what they consist of. I'm searching for a glass inhaler head or corrosion-resistant stainless steel industrial nebulizer nozzle (they used in a paper inhaling preventively hypochlorite, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7837568/ "The Potential Use of Hypochlorous Acid and a Smart Prefabricated Sanitising Chamber to Reduce Occupation-Related COVID-19 Exposure"
)
My little one was pre-term born, had breathing difficulties till respiratory system developed, and became caffeine on intensive care unit. DE, LE.
For (allergic or mast cell based) asthma, (imho, in preparation of CoV train,) Cromoglicic acid (Cromolyn sodium) was taken from marked for dosing aerosols, as it was monopolized by lnthal (San0fi), so easily "retractable" in the right moment, as of spring 2019. Stock waned from international pharmacies in September 2019.
The substance itself is not completely gone, but for such an old drug astonishingly wide-spread "shortages" are there.
I took it for 45 years, and if I took it as preventive, it always did its job free of side-effects, no waning, nothing.
No one can tell me corticosteroids now prescribed for asthma are the better choice over topical chromoglicic acid and some allergy tablets to stabilize mast cells (best pure racemic like levy-ceterizine (or ruptatatinde as also stabilizing against clotting, PF-4-stabiliser, so good after astra and Johnson CoV shot;)
So now we are told asthma is not treatable (lie, treat all axis of being, not only physiology, and symptoms become unnecessary) and corticosteroids are the only choice!
(Except for the ones using a mobile membrane inhaler, but this works only for things not too viscous, so not for anti-allergic nasal sprays you can also inhale (azelastine, chromoglicic acid, CPM, ... ;)
We have not talked about the dewormers, that also soothe the immune system and where studies exist that inhaled them. The combo niclosamide and ivermectin is not only systemically, but also topically, superior for CoV. I suspect against asthma, also.
The Indians published, while Drosten in B DE sleeps soothed by the system he represents (he has claimed some study, imho only to prevent another team from really doing one ;).
So we have to find ways to do inhalation preparations ourselves.
(Like doing horse chestnut water, which makes an immune soothing solvent... do some ultrasonic mixing or invent a solvent way you reclaim the solvent for the next round, to form small bubble like 0.1µm.)
Probably, it is sufficient for some people if citizens can not treat themselves properly (in hippocratic ways) in the average. It is all about R-values, for news as for "illness cases".
It clogs the chlorine channels of the spike molecules, rendering them non-infective. Probably also helping in vax induced asthma as long as spike in the lungs is participating (many more inflammative paths).
It is also a mood enhancer-- eg, it improves your mood. An enjoyable effect for everyone of course, but literally theraputic for depression, or it would be if caffeine was prescribed for it.
More seriously, most people buy caffeine as a food, so it's regulated as such. Even caffeine heavy candies fall into this category. My two favorite tag lines: (1) Not intended as a substitute for sleep (2) When you don't have time for coffee. Caffeine sometimes shows up in pharmaceuticals, usually as a stimulant or anti-allergen. Then it gets regulated as a drug.
I always liked that kynurenate hypothesis as an explanation for the anti-Parkinson effect of caffeine, i.e. that caffeine is boosting the protective effect of melatonin. Basically if the kynurenate pathway is disrupted, then you'll have less melatonin around (since its made from tryptophan) and hence some of the sleep/circadian issues in people who eventually develop PD. Caffeine inhibits CYP1A2 and therefore decreases melatonin metabolism.
Its been a few years though and I havent paid attention to whether the hypothesis went anywhere; I do vaguely remember some indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase inhibitors in trials, but that was oncology.
I initially assumed you were talking about cocaine.
While I agree with the sentiment here, I do believe that the FDA is not the only party involved. For example, the vast majority of cognitive enhancement drugs aren't illegal because of the FDA, but rather, because of the DEA & related.
More broadly, marketing something that's "totally a drug" as "not a drug" seems possible (?) -- FDA approval for food ingredients is rather trivial, and if you can argue it's an "x extract" then you're good if "x" is approved.
Heck, take it one step further and setup a company in a country that's not the US and ship it to people in the US. You'd be able to sell almost anything.
The actual problem here is that "drug" and "medicine" and "pharmacy" are in a way "protected categories". Circumventing them seems possible, it's just that people don't care, and that's a people problem not an FDA problem.
My original guess was nicotine.
I initially thought you were talking about inorganic antiseptics, eg ClO2(aq) ;)
I know regularly inhale 1% H2O2 (free from "stabilizers") and add some hypochlorite 400ppm, Dead Sea salt or Zechstein salt, something rich in trace elements, perhaps some DMSO if your inhaler is plasticizer free in the parts that get touched by the fluid: the older inhaler heads mostly are, the newer often have silly soft-plastic inserts and do not tell you what they consist of. I'm searching for a glass inhaler head or corrosion-resistant stainless steel industrial nebulizer nozzle (they used in a paper inhaling preventively hypochlorite, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7837568/ "The Potential Use of Hypochlorous Acid and a Smart Prefabricated Sanitising Chamber to Reduce Occupation-Related COVID-19 Exposure"
)
My little one was pre-term born, had breathing difficulties till respiratory system developed, and became caffeine on intensive care unit. DE, LE.
For (allergic or mast cell based) asthma, (imho, in preparation of CoV train,) Cromoglicic acid (Cromolyn sodium) was taken from marked for dosing aerosols, as it was monopolized by lnthal (San0fi), so easily "retractable" in the right moment, as of spring 2019. Stock waned from international pharmacies in September 2019.
The substance itself is not completely gone, but for such an old drug astonishingly wide-spread "shortages" are there.
I took it for 45 years, and if I took it as preventive, it always did its job free of side-effects, no waning, nothing.
No one can tell me corticosteroids now prescribed for asthma are the better choice over topical chromoglicic acid and some allergy tablets to stabilize mast cells (best pure racemic like levy-ceterizine (or ruptatatinde as also stabilizing against clotting, PF-4-stabiliser, so good after astra and Johnson CoV shot;)
So now we are told asthma is not treatable (lie, treat all axis of being, not only physiology, and symptoms become unnecessary) and corticosteroids are the only choice!
(Except for the ones using a mobile membrane inhaler, but this works only for things not too viscous, so not for anti-allergic nasal sprays you can also inhale (azelastine, chromoglicic acid, CPM, ... ;)
We have not talked about the dewormers, that also soothe the immune system and where studies exist that inhaled them. The combo niclosamide and ivermectin is not only systemically, but also topically, superior for CoV. I suspect against asthma, also.
The Indians published, while Drosten in B DE sleeps soothed by the system he represents (he has claimed some study, imho only to prevent another team from really doing one ;).
See https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-1069947/v1/e46b69c1-de8c-4c9f-949e-0cc8bf93ed05.pdf?c=1640289394
Here controlled opposition charite work - and look how old it is ;) https://www.charite.de/en/service/press_reports/artikel/detail/a_new_treatment_strategy_against_mers/
So we have to find ways to do inhalation preparations ourselves.
(Like doing horse chestnut water, which makes an immune soothing solvent... do some ultrasonic mixing or invent a solvent way you reclaim the solvent for the next round, to form small bubble like 0.1µm.)
Probably, it is sufficient for some people if citizens can not treat themselves properly (in hippocratic ways) in the average. It is all about R-values, for news as for "illness cases".
It clogs the chlorine channels of the spike molecules, rendering them non-infective. Probably also helping in vax induced asthma as long as spike in the lungs is participating (many more inflammative paths).
It also, in micellarly form, helps treat or prevent Alzheimers, Israeli researchers found, as it can traverse barriers in this packaging. See https://www.israel21c.org/one-new-drug-may-treat-both-covid-19-and-alzheimers/
But there remains nature, the plants. Let us protect it. Against nano stuff.
(Same way H2O2 and Sodium Bicarb vanished from shelves, or was taken out forever in the waves.)
(Same way, Hydroxochloroquine was changed from over-the-counter to Rx only in Nov. 2019.)
...
It is also a mood enhancer-- eg, it improves your mood. An enjoyable effect for everyone of course, but literally theraputic for depression, or it would be if caffeine was prescribed for it.
Isn't there a movement to outlaw coffee because it makes people "woke"?
More seriously, most people buy caffeine as a food, so it's regulated as such. Even caffeine heavy candies fall into this category. My two favorite tag lines: (1) Not intended as a substitute for sleep (2) When you don't have time for coffee. Caffeine sometimes shows up in pharmaceuticals, usually as a stimulant or anti-allergen. Then it gets regulated as a drug.
I always liked that kynurenate hypothesis as an explanation for the anti-Parkinson effect of caffeine, i.e. that caffeine is boosting the protective effect of melatonin. Basically if the kynurenate pathway is disrupted, then you'll have less melatonin around (since its made from tryptophan) and hence some of the sleep/circadian issues in people who eventually develop PD. Caffeine inhibits CYP1A2 and therefore decreases melatonin metabolism.
Also separately accounts for the very interesting protective effects of nicotine and ibuprofen against PD: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23844687/
Its been a few years though and I havent paid attention to whether the hypothesis went anywhere; I do vaguely remember some indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase inhibitors in trials, but that was oncology.
Great succinct, information dense post.