The law in question is an Indiana state law ( a dumb one IMHO) so I think having the manufacturers relabel for this state may be reaching,if it were a federal law maybe.

Arrested and fined for doing absolutely nothing wrong. Sounds like its time to sue the state and get out of methtown.

I could see this happening fairly often. Usually when you're in a family household and one person gets sick, everybody gets sick. It usually goes in stages as it gets passed around.

My mom got in trouble at a pharmacy once because the doctor told her to get me the regular children's version of tylenol for the day time and then use the prescribed tylenol 3 at night. The pharmacist said that I couldn't take both. My mom had to explain to her that she was just trying to follow the doctors orders after I had just had major surgery.

I think she just ended up buying the regular tylenol at a different store.

All hail the state, which in its infinite wisdom jails you for buying legal products and takes your children away because you took a cute picture of them in the bath.

And y'all still want to put these people in charge of your health and you REALLY believe they'll do a better job of it.

Amazing.

There should be a network that all pharmacies are required to be logged into that can instantly check the eligibility of a customer to purchase cough medicine to avoid accidentally exceeding the limit. It really isn't something that would cost the pharmacies that much money to do, especially considering most of them are tied into a network for checking what drugs their customers are taking that could potentially cause an adverse interaction.

I know that my company actaully uses photo ID's electronically to prohibit the sale of PSE outside of the alloted timeframe. We don't call the cops because it's usually an accident that they are buying more than they need, most instances it's being used by more than one person in the house.

Arresting this woman is MASSIVE overkill. There was no need for that. NONE. An interview with this woman would have sufficed, as well as making her return the Mucinex. ANother example of a country trying to get money out of its citizens through shady means.

@shibblegritz: Oh man, this has nothing to do with healthcare reform! Come on people. I am so sick of commenters on here saying crap like, "Well this story just proves that [choose one: government or private industry] will do so much better with insurance [add sarcasm tag if needed]" when the article has nothing to do with that.

The article is pretty lengthy and gives very good background information as to what constitutes the kind of drug that would be used to make meth, as well as a little background into the law itself.

It's really ironic, too, that the grandmother is employed at a women's correctional facility.

Wow.....Just wow. I tried to wrap my head around this, but it just doesn't make sense. You can't put a law like this in effect without having some infrastructure behind it. There's a reason that "controlled" drugs have rules that are backed up by registration systems. 4 months down the road is NOT a good amount of "due process" time. Just wow. This is one case where the state screwed up royally, and this will result in a lot of time and money being spent to correct it.

What an odd law. It seems like there would be many relatively easy ways to thwart it.

It also seems like if the system knows how much pseudoephedrine someone purchased in X days, it could be configured to prevent those who are innocently ignorant of the limit from exceeding it, in order to prevent incidents such as this.

To dust off an old chestnut: Doesn't law enforcement have better stuff to be doing than prosecuting grannies...like catching meth producers?

that's Sad, just sad

Why in the world should she have to enter diversion as SHE DID NOTHING WRONG- she should plead not guilty and make them PROVE BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT that yes, she is a meth dealer.

@squinko: The article has to do with the overreaching power of the state. It has to do with the state, in direction violation to the Constitution, of assuming people are guilty of a crime (ie making meth) because they purchase "too much" of a particular ... legal ... item.

My point is that the giving the government power gets you in these kinds of messes, and I'll make the point in any venue or circumstance I can, thank you very much!

Why did it take them 6 months to arrest the "Meth-maker?" If she was doing the deed, wouldn't have it all been gone on the stree anyways by now?

I guess I'm just asking why it took the police so long to get her?

So sad that it has come down to this. There is no win situation in this until the drug companies find a suitable replacement for the chemical that yields the same benefits for cold-suffers, but doesn't offer the highs and energy that it offers to the abusers.

Saddens me much b/c every time I get a cold I always reach for Aleve Cold and Sinus, and that drug contains the chemical. I can only buy it at the counter, sign my name, and have my ID be scanned into their databases.

@shibblegritz: Wow. Way to post something not remotely relevant to the article.

The 'law' sounds pretty defensive in that article. They seem to realize that grandma isn't part of a meth ring but want their court costs etc. so they refuse to drop it.

Legitimate consumers of decongestants shouldn't have to be so burdened for the actions of the meth lab MF'ers. The criminal justice folks should be spending their time finding better ways to eliminate the production and sale of meth.

@Grabraham: I was referring to pharmacists actually explaining how the law works, not to relabeling.

@JGKojak: She's not being charged with making meth. She's being charged with violating the legal purchase limit, which she did do. I agree it's a massively stupid law, but it would be equally stupid for her to take it to court and demand to be proven guilty. It would take the prosecutor about 20 seconds to do exactly that, and then she'd go to jail.

If they are able to track how much she had bought, why don't they just not sell the individual the overage amount. Rather than arresting us folk that have a legitimate need for decent cold medicine (that PE stuff is garbage, ever wonder why they never marketed it before? Because it doesn't work).

@JGKojak: Well, according to the article, she *did* violate Indiana Code 35-48-4-14.7 (subsection "d" to be exact).

According to the code, the law applies to any "person". You don't have to be a meth dealer to break that law...so it doesn't make any sense that the state would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she is a meth dealer.

Look, the point of the article is NOT that she didn't do anything wrong (she clearly broke the law as it is written). The whole point of the article is that the law is written very broadly and it probably sweeps up a lot of people who are really not meth dealers.

At least you can buy the drugs in Indiana. In Oregon, you had to have a prescription to buy anything with psudoephedrine in it. (I'm sure I spelled that wrong).. A prescription, to buy Sudafed. Yeah, I'm going to pay $100+ dollars, or at least my insurance company is, to get a $8 drug?

Even the pharmacists think its crap, and that the replacement, Ephedra free versions that the companies sell in Oregon don't work nearly as good.

@shibblegritz: Yeah, the justice system in Indiana is a great analogue for how the Federal Government will run a public option insurance plan.

Just like a racial profiling story in Arkansas means that no black people can qualify for social security...

...Oh wait, that's a stupid conclusion to draw, huh?

Not would be a great time to show all the compelling statistics on how we're much safer now due to our inability to buy two boxes of Sudafed in one week.

@dwasifar:
yes, but then you could challenge the law itself on appeal--that's what I would do.

"I feel for her, but if she could go to one of the area hospitals and see a baby born to a meth-addicted mother..."

What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Seriously...SHE WASN'T MAKING METH!

I use Mucinex D Max Strength and like to pack all my pills into a 2-week dose kit every other week. I can't buy enough to fill the kit, so I have to send my partner to buy some for me. (This was also an issue when packing for a 2-week vacation to where this is not available.) This is in Georgia, where all stores require an ID to buy it. On this week's CVS receipt, it includes the following statement. Note that it references Federal law:

Daily Pseudoephedrine purchase limit 3.60 gram, pursuant to federal law.
Pseudoephedrine total purchased this transaction 2.88 grams.

The problem is that it's apparently not a daily limit, but a weekly one. If I go to a different Georgia store later this week, they won't sell me another pack.

Legalize Drugs. Problem Solved.

@Chris Walters: Reading comprehension FTW! I skipped the words "pharmacies made that" in the explicitly clear sentence

It would appear that a law allowing innocent citizens to be lumped in with criminals would be declared unconstitutional somewhere down the road.

@ceilingFANBOY: Maybe we could spend our resources busting people actually using or creating meth, rather than trying to prevent ordinary people from buying cold medicine out of fear they may use it to create meth?

The ends don't justify the means. Meth, as horrible as it is, shouldn't justify taking a woman's freedom that did nothing wrong at all.

So she has no connection to meth fabrication but is arrested anyway? For purchasing a legal product for a legally intended use? Just because a product can be used illicitly doesn't mean that it will be. Arresting everyone that exceeds Y limit without further substantiating proof is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Whatever happened to the police investigating why someone exceeded an arbitrary allocation, likely unknowningly, and at least generally see what's going on before they clog up the legal system for frivilous reasons? This is not how this country was intended to operate. Paying the court costs to be able to have the case "removed" from your record for a frivilous arrest sounds like extortion. If they don't feel the need to genuinely prosecute someone for this infraction, and if they're willing to let them go and remove the incident from their record, then it sure sounds like to me that they never did something wrong in the first place.

@JGKojak: FTFA, the law doesn't require the prosecutor to prove intent. They made it broad on purpose, so they could arrest anyone over the limit, assuming the buyer was going to make meth.

@ceilingFANBOY:

No thank you... if you want to track it that way, revoke it's OTC status and dispense by prescription.

Well that's wonderful. Nobody was prevented from obtaining meth, and a woman was arrested for buying cold medicine twice in a week. Way to go, Drug enforcement! Keep up the good work.

Seriously, who the hell would manufacture meth from an uber-expensive Mucinex-D package? It probably requires some special procedures to extract the guaifenesin and whatever else it includes, and is also probably the most expensive possible way to buy pseudoephedrine.

Common sense, people.

@DashTheHand:

I am not sure she would have a legal leg to stand on. She did do something wrong, she broke the 7-day law.

I am not trying to defend the law, just playing devils advocate.

@Smashville_makes his own comments at home: Ridiculous, this whole thing seem like a bit of an old fashioned witch hunt.

@Kimaroo - 20% More Kitty Added!: My mom runs into this issue all the time. I have 3 brothers, all of whom have pretty bad allergies, as does my mom. She can't get the good Sudafed very often because she hits the limit, and my dad travels a lot, so she can't always ask him. So irritating.

I heard the author of "Three Felonies a Day" on a radio show. It speaks to the problem of the how the laws are misused for many different reasons. It used to be standard that in order to be charged you had to have have knowledge and intent, now you don't- a huge break from common law.

Something to think about when opponents of new laws being proposed bring up ways the laws could me misapplied and lawmakers say that would never happen, prosecutors use discretion. Well, no they don't.

[www.harveysilverglate.com]

@Grabraham: I seems that you might live in Indiana? If so, why do you suppose they made an arrest for a Class C misdemeanor? Would she have received a summons to court and failed to appear?

It does feel like a warning letter for first offense would solve a lot of misunderstandings

@shibblegritz: It's not a "direct violation to the Constitution". The crime is buying too much of a certain substance. She is clearly guilty of that. The crime is not making meth (as you suppose). Is it a poorly-written law, for sure, but it doesn't assume that people are guilty of anything other than the stated charge. Moreover, it's not even an assumption that people are guilty: they get to have a trial if they want.(see Coffin v. Unite States). In short: you've confused some terms and what they actually mean.

And you must be aware that legal items can become contraband in certain situations. If that weren't true, there wouldn't be any arrests for meth production. (see the definition of "derivative contraband".)

It's just a shame that you've chosen to make some assumptions and comparisons about the state, healthcare, the Constitution, etc. They don't really make any sense.

@Notsewfast: If you are interviewing a candidate for a job, wouldn't you look at past performance on other jobs, even if they were different? Doing that with our government makes sense!

Since it wasn't the Federal government making the arrest you could say this is like looking at someones cousin's past job performance, which wouldn't be a fair comparison. But I will say the government is government.

@treimel:

You can't challenge a strict liability in any reasonable way law if you've broken it and there's no technicalities to squeeze through on. I suspect this would be a strict liability offense.

The only way out of strict/absolute liability if for you, the accused, to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that you didn't do it.

Yes, that really is how those levels of liability work. The prosecution doesn't need to prove your guilt, they just need to be able to convince the judge it was more likely it happened than it did not.

She's basically out of gas on this one. The only option for her other than taking the deal is to be convicted and become a poster-grandma for the anti-meth-watch cause. Which, oddly enough, might actually work.

Well, there is one other out, and that's the challenge the law on constitutional grounds. However, I don't think you'll find anything in the constitution guaranteeing you to free access to cold medication, so no luck there.

Burn the witch, burn her!!!!

Sounds like I can have a lot of fun by getting someone to grab me some cold medicine on my next road trip?

@wgrune:

She did break the law, and ignorance of the law is no excuse. But the prosecutor ought to give her a better deal than the one listed above. I'm assuming this woman has no priors and there is no reason to believe that she is involved in production of meth so she ought not to be punished.

Also, meth is still being produced just with a different recipe so these laws do nothing to prevent the production of meth.

If the pharmacy knew about the restrictions, why didn't they just stop her from purchasing the second time? "Ma'am, we can see you already bought this once this week, you'll have to wait until next week to get more."

So no one arrested the "drug dealer" (aka pharmacist) for his/her participation in the crime?

@Notsewfast: My point was generically about the accumulation of power by government, Notsewfast, a syndrome we have seen since the dawn of time and for which we have a Constitution that was meant to strictly limit how much power the government could accumulate.

Politicians and the courts have steadily chipped away at that firewall such that they can find a way around virtually any prohibition, thus we find ourselves with a law that jails individuals for buying a legal product, the presumption of innocence of the crime for which the law was intended to thwart ... drug-making ... be damned.

Yes, perhaps my parting shot was slightly off topic in the sense that the original post did not deal with health care, but the bulk of my sarcastically started argument ... "All hail the state," is as spot on as it can get.