An Indiana grandmother has been arrested for buying more sudafed than the law allows:
CLINTON — When Sally Harpold bought cold medicine for her family back in March, she never dreamed that four months later she would end up in handcuffs.
Now, Harpold is trying to clear her name of criminal charges, and she is speaking out in hopes that a law will change so others won’t endure the same embarrassment she still is facing.
“This is a very traumatic experience,” Harpold said.
Harpold is a grandmother of triplets who bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at a Rockville pharmacy. Less than seven days later, she bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her adult daughter at a Clinton pharmacy, thereby purchasing 3.6 grams total of pseudoephedrine in a week’s time.
Those two purchases put her in violation of Indiana law 35-48-4-14.7, which restricts the sale of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, or PSE, products to no more than 3.0 grams within any seven-day period.
I say it’s about time we got tough on these criminal hoodlums who think they can flout the law with impunity.
The woman is trying to claim that she had no intention of running a meth lab, and didn’t know that she was violating the law. But that’s beside the point, folks, for society has to send a loud and clear message that actions have consequences, the law is the law, and no one is above the law!
While the law was written with the intent of stopping people from purchasing large quantities of drugs to make methamphetamine, the law does not say the purchase must be made with the intent to make meth.
“The law does not make this distinction,” Alexander said.
If the law said “with intent to manufacture methamphetamine,” no one could be arrested until it was proven that the drug actually was used to make meth, the prosecutor said.
And that certainly wasn’t the intent of the law, either. It was written to limit access to the key ingredient in meth — pseudoephedrine — and thereby to stop the clandestine “mom and pop” meth labs that were cooking drugs throughout the area.
Just as with any law, the public has the responsibility to know what is legal and what is not, and ignorance of the law is no excuse, the prosecutor said.
Hear hear!
There’s a slippery slope, and permissiveness only runs in one direction. Next thing you know, this woman will become emboldened enough to move up to even more serious crimes, like illegally allowing neighbor’s children to wait for the bus in her house. Or selling them deadly children’s books printed before 1987!
You know what also angers me? Those tiny little scofflaws who run illegal lemonade stands! In this neighborhood, the underaged criminals engage in illegal sales to football game patrons, while their conscienceless parents cheer them on.
One town had the sense to do something to protect the public, and it’s about time!
Listening to her criminal father prattle on about the “work ethic,” I’m wondering why he wasn’t prosecuted for aiding and abetting a criminal conspiracy, violating the child labor laws, as well as RICO. So where are the feds when we need them?
And why no SWAT Team?
Clearly crime is out of control and criminals are everywhere, with potential career criminals in the form of children, parents and grandmothers lurking in almost every household.
Obviously, the only solution is to redouble our efforts and pass more laws! But the more laws we have, the more criminals there necessarily will be by definition.
So we cannot let down our guard — especially when we’re losing the war!
Comments
8 responses to “Lock ’em up and throw away the key!”
While its easy to ridicule a city for shutting down a little girl’s lemonade stand, the idea of requiring permits and inspections for food products sold to the public is not crazy. These people just went too far. Here in Berkeley, before the city starting licensing street vendors around campus, people were selling prepared food that was being made and stored under very unsanitary conditions. There was a guy who sold chicken kebaobs at Sproul Plaza. He kept a box of raw chicken on the sidewalk next to his booth. No refrigeration, and lots of flies.
This is just another case of American laws running manufacturing out of the country.
Now the Mexicans make the meth and we have to import it adding another ding to our balance of trade.
I actually did not stock up on benedryl when it was on sale for this reason. My dog and I both have allergies during the fall, and need to take the full dose of 4 pills per day. (he is pretty big)
I saw them on sale at my local drugstore and thought great I can buy the 2 month supply for both of us at half price! But then I realized, I might get arrested, for god knows what. And so I didn’t and paid full price a couple weeks later for more benedryl.
Oh no! A street vendor selling street meat!
I figure that anyone who buys food from a vendor with flies swarming on his food is accepting a risk.
Of course this pathetic story rooted in drug war hysteria has
many tragic correlates, A CIA monitored operation shooting down and killing a missionary, Roni Bowers, and her infant child, Charity, when they were misidentified as drug runners is an example.
So much of the rationale for drug prohibition is based on false assumptions. Some little known but elementary facts are at
Drug Use, Abuse and Dependence (Addiction) In America
Which leads to another serious criminal violation: harvesting roadkill.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2287666/posts
Friends don’t buy friends decongestant, family neither.
We will clear no nose before its time.
“The law is the true embodiment
Of everything that’s excellent,
It has no kind of fault of flaw,
And I, m’luds, embody the law!”
– The Lord High Chancellor, Iolanthe