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NOTE 42. All Laws Have Teeth

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Public Crimes All laws have teeth.

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It's been nearly a decade since the Feds took aim at nasal decongestant.

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Under George Bush, a normal part of everyday civilized life became a criminal act, namely

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the over-the-counter purchase of Sudafed and many other products containing pseudoepidrine.

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You can get it now, but it is seriously rationed.

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You have to present your driver's license, and no one without one may purchase it.

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The limits on quantities you are permitted to purchase fall far below the recommended

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dosage, and buyers rarely know when they are buying too much.

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The rationing and criminalization of this product appeared as part of the Patriot Act.

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The replacement drug, phenylofrene, is far less effective on noses, but more effective

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Live in Washington, the company that makes it, Boehringer Ingelheim, spent $1.6 million

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lobbying Washington in 2006 and the same amount the year before.

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The makers of the drug everyone actually wants are diffuse and spread all over China.

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Pseudoephedrine was targeted in the name of the drug war, because apparently you can use

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it to make methamphetamine.

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Since the near ban, there are indications that production of the drug has gone up, mostly

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I've written with sympathy toward those who have been caught in the legal tangles.

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Many buyers are not actually doing anything wrong.

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Anyone who attempts to buy it is treated like a criminal, and one never knows for sure when

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one is buying more than the legal limit.

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In several cases I've highlighted, people have bought without the intent to manufacture

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to Drugs, but were ensnared in any case.

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In other cases, people have been asked to buy for friends, who may or may not have been

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plotting to make meth.

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Still, other cases involve shady figures with criminal records and suspicious associations

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who are thereby discredited and hounded by police and judges.

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In my view, every person who is ensnared deserves to be defended.

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Their Rights Are Being Violated

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One lady in my own community faces 20 years in jail solely for buying four boxes in a

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12-day period.

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News reports suggest that she is a bad person for many other reasons, and for that reason,

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there has been little public sympathy for her, in the same way that people under alcohol

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prohibition were snagged on alcohol grounds, even though the motivation for getting them

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was different.

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could be taxes or something else.

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Something as serious as laws and jails should be used for punishment of those who infringe

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on person and property, not for self-medicating.

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If this lady is bad, she should be punished for things she did wrong, not for some trumped

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up reason.

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In any case, as with all stupid laws like this, the innocent are eventually harmed.

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It's strange how most people are willing to give the police and the courts the benefit

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of the doubt, and pretend as if the system somehow knows something that we do not know.

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Anyone hauled off to jail probably deserved what is coming to him, even if we don't know

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the specifics.

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People should do a better job of staying out of harm's way, or of being beyond reproach.

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Don't play with fire and you won't get burned.

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This is how people tend to think of these cases.

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They Are Blaming the Victim

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Somehow I suspect that the same sentiments were pervasive, even in the worst totalitarian

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states.

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By the time people wake up to the reality that the law and the law enforcers are the

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problem, it is too late.

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Just this morning, the following email arrived.

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In doing some internet research, I came across your article, Free the Clogged Nose 25, and

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And I want to thank you for showing me that I'm nowhere near alone in my way of thinking,

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and that the current situation that my husband and I find ourselves in is most certainly

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not uncommon.

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You see, we have three teenage children still living at home.

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In April of this year, their ages were 17, 16 and 15.

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Both my husband and I, along with our three teenagers, suffer from terrible seasonal allergies,

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and we have tried every over-the-counter medicine available, as well as a few prescription meds.

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The only one that offers us any relief is Sudafed or the generic equivalent.

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So as you already know, my husband and I are the only ones in our family who can buy Sudafed.

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I will and have been the first to admit that in order to keep enough of the medicine for

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all of us, both my husband and I made purchases from more than one drugstore.

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I knew we were exceeding our allotted amount, but I also knew that the code of Alabama stated

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that purchasing over the allowed 6 grams per month was only unlawful with intent to manufacture.

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So since we had no intent to manufacture anything, I didn't see it as we were breaking the law.

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In March of this year, local news media released word that a law was passed that would create

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a statewide database for all businesses selling pseudoephedrine so that customers could not

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Not Bypass the Limit by going from one pharmacy to another.

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That was the extent of the press release related to that new law.

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About the middle of May, my husband and I learned the hard way that they had conveniently

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left out a very important part of that new law when announcing it to the public.

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Apparently, with intent to manufacture, had been dropped from the Alabama law regarding

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pseudoephedrine purchases.

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I'm sure you can easily guess the rest of the story.

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He and I were arrested for buy, sale, precursor chemicals, which on the first offense is a

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Class C misdemeanor.

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My husband is a USMC veteran, so he has a criminal record – bar fights, etc. – but

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never any drug charges.

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I have never had so much as a speeding ticket, and I'm a criminal justice major in college.

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Even after explaining the situation to the judge and pointing out that we are law-abiding

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citizens just trying to offer some comfort to our kids during allergy season, the judge

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still found us guilty.

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We have appealed that decision and will go back to court in December.

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We cannot hope to beat this with just the truth, because obviously the truth doesn't

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matter.

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So I am going to pray that mistake of law will get us a not guilty verdict this time

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At the time we were arrested, our oldest daughter, not living at home, was a 4.0 GPA college

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student majoring in Forensic Investigation.

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Our middle daughter was just days away from graduating historian, upper high school senior

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class after already having lettered in softball and volleyball and serving as secretary in

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the beta club.

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Our youngest daughter was finishing her 10th grade year and an AB student, who had just

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And just days before, made the color guard drill team for the fall, and our son was finishing

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his 8th grade year, an AB student and hardworking junior varsity and varsity football player.

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We are very, very proud of our kids and hate the fact that they have had to endure any

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negative associations that have come from our arrest.

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They are so resilient though.

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They know that we weren't actually doing anything wrong, so they hold their heads up

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As I suspected, these cases are not isolated.

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Thanks to Google News, we can learn of many such tragic cases.

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So far as we know, the majority of cases of arrest involve innocent people trying to unclog

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their noses.

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But even if only one in ten cases involves injustice, that is plenty of reason to repeal

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the law.

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I don't favor laws against consuming or producing math, but if those laws are retained, then

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it's the taking or making of math that should be punished, not actions that merely seem

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vaguely associated with illegal activities.

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In the end, this isn't about drug use or production.

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It is about special interests.

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It is about the use of fear and coercion and the expansion of state power.

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It is about human rights and liberty.

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Should we care about these things?

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Yes, if we care about saving civilization from its enemy, the State.