Of course my experience is skewed (allergist) and I've seen hundreds of Afrin addicts in my career - some with nasal septal perforations which the ENTs usually can't fix. Some lose their sense of smell/taste eventually. If you talk with allergists or ENTs who practiced in certain cities in the 80's they will tell you that cocaine caused similar problems.

Afrin addiction isn't a psychological issue. I guess you could call it dependence since it doesn't impair other aspects of life.

We usually have to use prednisone or other tricks to get people like jbob off Afrin.

It's a dirty drug. There are much safer and more elegant ways to accomplish the same decongestion.

The FDA is not good at re-evaluating OTC drugs and pulling them from the US market when needed.

Benadryl should also be pulled - there is no longer a reasonable indication for Benadryl. It used to be a cost issue, but you can now get generic Zyrtec as cheap as Benadryl. Benadryl leads to dementia, aspiration pneumonia, falls, car accidents, etc in the elderly.