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Posted on 09/28/2009 12:56:53 PM PDT by bamahead
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.
When the police came knocking at the door of Harpold’s Parke County residence on July 30, she was arrested on a Vermillion County warrant for a class-C misdemeanor, which carries a sentence of up to 60 days in jail and up to a $500 fine. But through a deferral program offered by Vermillion County Prosecutor Nina Alexander, the charge could be wiped from Harpold’s record by mid-September.
Harpold’s story is one that concerns some law-abiding citizens who fear that innocent people will get mistakenly caught in the net of meth abuse roundups.
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...I’m simply enforcing the law as it was written,” Alexander said.
(Excerpt) Read more at tribstar.com ...
Sounds like a local prosecutor thinks she has found a way to gain fame. She did, but I think the wrong kind.
requiring housewives to be chemists in order to comply with the law....yeah, that sounds about right....
Man oh Man! I just purchased several cold medicines here in Florida at different stores. I hope I’m not going to get in trouble. Had to even sign at one of the stores. That’s it...I’m moving!
Pretty soon it will be an ammo ration, only 5 rds per hunting season.
Give the meth-heads all the meth they want. In short order, there won’t be any more meth-heads, and the rest of us can stop having to deal with the various nasty societal effects of meth-head infestation.
Another win in the zero-tolerance War on Drugs.
This is a very stupid law. Mitch needs to get it changed!
I suppose Alexander never considered Letter of the Law vs Spirit of the Law.
This person needs a good tarring and feathering.
The law here is an ass ... and apparently so are you.
I take Zyrtec-D daily and buying it at the local drugstore is damn near as complicated as getting a mortgage. And every time I go to the store to buy Zyrtec-D, I have to count back to see how many days it has been since I bought my last box.
Stupid Nanny State
Stupid Police State
Spirit of the Law is what liberals love to use, however I do agree with you in this situation.
oh geez
America, great while it lasted - 233 years is a long time to be free.
Based on what I see on the local news, law enforcement personnel around here (Indiana) have a lot more important things to work on.
Of course going after middle aged housewives for cold meds violations is likely a lot easier (and safer) than rounding up illegals and gang members.
Overzealous prosecutor, laws that anyone could innocently break.
But don’t let an American interrogator so much as speak loudly to a terrorist, that would be cruel!
We’re all breaking some law at this very moment.
here, in our town, we are not allowed to go over the set amount because we have to show our drivers’ licenses when we request the medicine—all of which has been removed from the shelves... during the months of April and May, this causes a hardship for my friend because all five members of her family suffer from seasonal hay fever... it’s stupid!
Yep. For cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine, it’s been going on for a few years now.
I’m not sure what other OTC drugs are logged.
Bought a box of Zyrtec-D last Thanksgiving Day and in the process of signing my name and showing the pharmacist my ID, I said, “Just a family tradition, roast a turkey, watch the Cowboys and cook up a batch of meth.”
The pharmacist laughed.
Wouldn’t every one have been better off if they had just done an investigation to determine if she was using these drugs illegally. When the arrest was made they could have verified what she was doing with the drug.
Why on earth would anybody need to kill 5 deer? Probably can't get that many tags anyway.
“The law does not make this distinction...I’m simply enforcing the law as it was written,” (Prosecutor Nina) Alexander said.
You know, sometimes a little common sense goes a long way. How do these brainless prosecutors get elected?
"I vuss only followink orders!" You're the prosecutor, you do have discretion. If you know the law is wrong or wasn't intended to apply to a specific incident, don't prosecute. If you keep doing that I hope you end up like Mike Nifong.
OK, what I don't get is you can buy bulk packages of Zyrtec at Sams that I'm sure total well more than 3.0 grams. Heck, bought one of these big packs earlier year.
Yea! He’s buying it every eight days.
Great minds think alike.
Was it the pseudoephedrine free kind? Those aren’t database and tracked.
You're counting right up to this year? Why? I say take about 80-100 years off that total. Prohibition, NFA, income tax, etc.
The law was poorly written. The police acted “stupidly”. The “rule of law” however, did it’s job. It blindly prosecuted a woman without the burden of human reason.
Alexander, you are an excrement head if you chose to prosecute. Really, you should be fired or recalled, which ever fits, and frog-marched out of office if that is an example of your common sense. There are plenty of qualified people looking for work and you sure seem to be just taking up space.
Actually the same law has existed here in Texas since 2005 and on the Federal level since 2006.
And yes, these laws were brought to you by Republican legislatures and executives.
Good question, I didn’t pay attention, just grabbed what my wife asked for. Are there different types of Zyrtec?
Yes he is an ass, also likely that he wants this law off the books. Sympathetic defendant, stupid law, tons of publicity. This will likely force a change in a bad law by the time this is over.
Sometimes the best way to force a change in a stupid law is to enforce it vigorously,
If they have pseudoephedrine in them, yeah, in a lot of states they are.
It would have to get passed a grand jury as well, hopefully one with enough common sense to No Bill it.
Ms Alexander should move next door here to Chicago. Operating meth labs is an Olympic sport here. As a matter of fact, they will need to relocate several of them just to build the Olympic venues.
And using those less deadly bullets the Surgeon General was talking about.
Anything containing pseudoephedrine. Pretty much anything labeled “D.”
-Abraham Lincoln
Or wait a month or so and see if she’s still averaging over the allowed usage per week. If she’s cooking meth, she ain’t going to make very much with 3.6g. It would have to be an ongoing thing.
Last fall during Biketoberfest in Daytona Beach, I happened to be in a local drugstore chain and checking out in front of me was an older woman from Canada. She was trying to buy one package of Claritin-D for her bad cold. The cashier would not sell to her because she did not have her passport with her since the drivers license numbers in Canada have too many characters to be input into the drugstores computers! I was outraged.
THAT HAPPENEED INM cONNECTICUT TO ME LAST SPRING, i WAS STUNNED
EVER WONDER WHY YOU CANT GET VICKS FORULA 44 ANYMORE??
That's right, use the letter of the law to undermine the spirit of the law.. common sense is dead in government.
Yeah, most manufacturers of major brands (Sudafed, Zyrtec, etc) are now making at least two kinds - with pseudoephedrine, and without - mainly because of the meth issue.
In most states now, the pseudoephedrine brand is not even sold in the pharmacy aisles any longer - you have to go to the counter and ask for it, and fill out a form when you purchase it. Law enforcement now tracks the amount purchased using that data.
Some major brands have now forgone using pseudoephedrine altogether. I forget exactly which. This all started about 3-4 years ago if I recall.
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