Driving under the influence of NyQuil banned in New Hampshire

If a cold has you feeling woozy and you take NyQuil or Sundafed to make it through your drive home, you could be a criminal in New Hampshire.

A new law that took effect at the beginning of 2013 bans driving under the influence of not just illegal drugs, alcohol and prescription painkillers, but all over-the-counter drugs as well, along with "any other chemical substance, natural or synthetic, which impairs a person's ability to drive."

That means driving on Sudafed or NyQuil or even ibuprofen is out of the question if it affects your mental state, according to The Eagle-Tribune.

The bottom line is, if an officer suspects a driver is impaired and that driver admits to taking any kind of drug, an arrest will be made. “There is no shortage of these drivers out there,” a state police spokesperson told the Tribune. “We are targeting them aggressively.”

The change was part of a law signed in June that was meant to address the problem of narrowly written legislation interfering with the prosecution of drivers who were impaired on prescribed or over-the-counter medicines.

States all around the country have been widening legal terminology in recent years thanks to the explosion of prescription drug abuse and influx of synthetic chemicals in products like "K2" and "bath salts" that mimic the effects of illegal drugs.

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