Sally Harpold is a Sudafed Head . . . or is she an Actifed Head? Well, the important thing is that she has been finally locked away in Clinton, Indiana where she was caught buying two cold medicines within seven days. Vermillion County Prosecutor Nina Alexander (left) racked up the major coup four months after the purchases and charged her with violating 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.
What is amazing is that Harpold thought that she could get away with this. Here is her crime spree: she bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at a Rockville pharmacy and then less than seven days later she bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her adult daughter at a Clinton pharmacy — a total of 3.6 grams total of pseudoephedrine in a week’s time.
Not only is the grandmother of triplets a criminal in the eyes of Alexander but she is an enabler pushing cold medicine on her family. Police have been able to learn the “drug signals” in the family — usually members with cough repeatedly to signal their need for another fix.
Alexander charged her with a class-C misdemeanor, which carries a sentence of up to 60 days in jail and up to a $500 fine. She is willing to expunge the crime from her record, if Harpold pays the court costs, stays clean for 30 days, and presumably comes to terms with “her problem.”
What is astonishing is that officials expect citizens to calculate their amounts of the pseudoephedrine in over-the-counter drugs, but as the list below shows there are about 1000 such products that you might buy containing the substance. People are expected to drag themselves with the flu to the store and then calculate the exact amount of the substance in purchases over the last week. Alexander, however, blames pushers like Harpold: “If you take these products, you ought to know what’s in them.”
The law itself is obviously poorly written. The burden and expectation for the consumers to track these amounts is unrealistic. Stores may be barred from sales to individuals, but either take these products off the market or regulate sales through the stores. Criminalizing a population of sneezing, coughing citizens is not the solution.
One would at least expect police and particularly prosecutors to show some common sense and discretion. Even though Vermillion County ranked as the state’s fifth-largest producer of methamphetamine and this is viewed as a law to combat such production, one can make simple and obvious judgments in cases like this.
Alexander, however, appears to protect her office against the ravages of discretion or common sense. She insisted “[t]he law does not make this distinction. . . I’m simply enforcing the law as it was written.” Well, there are lots of laws that fail to make distinctions but prosecutors are not required to charge in every case. Prosecutors are not robots. They play a role in the system of justice to avoid injustice.
In Harpold case, the police came for her four months after her purchases in the middle of the night. She was thrown in jail and eventually released on bond.
For those of you who do not want to land in an Indiana jail with a head cold, here is the list of roughly 1000 medicines sold over the counter that are covered by these laws.
For the full story, click here.
“Summer in northwest Indiana has been known to produce wistful longings for hell.”
–Bill Moyers
Now, I know why. The robots have taken over the government!!!
Wow. Just wow. And I thought they had the ephedrine-stupids bad here in Oregon!
The limit here is 9g per month. Luckily, we can usually get through allergy season at that rate, but it takes an Rx! AND luckily we’ve had the same GP for 20+ years, so for-allergy-Rx-renewals are not a big deal (he KNOWS us, he knows about the allergies, and that they are real, and that the PE version DOES NOT WORK, for us). We actually hardly ever use the stuff for colds and flu, it’s allergies in this house.
Also, my husband’s usual rant when this subject comes up is… the SOLVENTS are usually what makes it possible to find a meth kitchen, and it takes REALLY large quantities of the solvents, and it would be REALLY easy to control the solvents without disrupting innocent people’s lives…
AND we have yet to see reliable evidence that it’s even possible to get usable meth ingredients out of OTC sources. Unless you’re starting with a couple of pallet-loads of the OTC sources… MAYBE that actual documentation is out there somewhere, but we have yet to encounter it.
Of course, we’re not looking very hard, because we CAN manage under the current situation, but we’d really like also to see some evidence that all this draconian stomping of flu and allergy sufferers has actually made any dent in the amount of home-cooked meth being produced, or the numbers of convictions of REAL meth cooks….
She’s lucky she wasn’t forced to the ground with a cops knee on her neck while she was being handcuffed.
Some people need to justify thier existence and this prosecutor obviously had nothing better going on. Is it too much to as for little, just a wee bit, of common sense from our goverment.
Excellent Mike, excellent! I hope others on the blog read it as well. You continue to give me a “barrels worth of entertainment”. Great posts..
I would just like to state for the record that some backwoods/mountain hick did not invent meth nor the chemistry behind it. This epidemic is far more of a conspiracy than we as a nation would like to admit. The fact that we lock up so many minorities or poverty stricken people with the war on drugs and hardly any of the real wealthy kingpins is just more evidence that there are other hands in this game we do not see.
Arresteing some woman who just didn’t like one brand over another sends the message that we can imprison you albeit temporarily for any reason… it’s a scare tactic that works another way than what was intended.
Thanks Billy,
Just to go off topic for a second what do you think of this article?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-breggin/conference-on-stopping-th_b_301272.html
Nina Alexander is obviously high on something – sudafed? or maybe just her own stupidity…
We’re going to take this up in Criminal law this week. An instance of strict liability in criminal statutes, and I suppose, whether you can read in a mens rea element into the statute (probably not).
Spot on Mike..
To BuelahMan: It’s called a police state, the confluence of war crimes for which there are no longer consequences, and law enforcement, which sees what is now acceptable, absent prosecutions. And when tough law enforcement is the actual answer, we chose war.
We will soon long for the quaint day when all that spiked our outrage were a few random taserings. Very soon, indeed.
TAFKAF,
Your correction is correct, but you must remember that I’m an older guy and so less direct in my words. I agree though totally and should have outright stated it.
“While I do believe the War on Drugs is idiotic and HAS FAILED and is responsible for suffering and death on a massive scale…”
There, Mike, fixed that for you.
We know that pseudoephedrine is used as a base to make meth. We also know that one can purchase it over the counter because of its’ use in various non-prescription medications for coughs colds etc. While I do believe the War on Drugs is idiotic and bound to fail, but on even the idiotic terms of the War on Drugs this Indiana law is absurd. In the War on Drugs terms you could make medicines containing pseudoephedrine require prescriptions, thereby controlling the quantities used. While I think that would be doomed to failure and only allow the price of meth to rise, this at least would have some sort of logical consistency.
However, if requiring prescriptions for these medications were put in effect the profits of their corporate makers would fall drastically. We could never have that, so the Indiana legislators, provided this compromise in order to appear to be doing something positive. Due to that we get this ridiculous result and a woman gets cuffed and jailed for two acts that literally anyone could have performed unknowingly.
Dredd said it first, but let me agree and second. The law was stupid, but we have seen the rise of these silly arrests due to an over-zealousness in law enforcement at all levels. Surely the police and prosecutors should not have had this woman arrested and by their so doing they expose their own bad judgment. These days in law enforcement bad judgment is rampant.
What is this country coming to?
The Chinese have a saying, something about killing an animal of one type to warn an animal of another. I think the animals are chicken and monkey.
The law against drugs works something like this. Of course everyone knows that this granny is not going to make meth, but punishing her severely still sends a righteous message to potential purchasers of pseudoephedrine to make meth.
By the way Australia has followed the US in the absurd restriction of effective cold medications containing PSE. One can still get small amounts of these medicines at the cost of revealing all one’s details but it’s not worth the hassle.
If I were not an atheist I would be praying that there is a really nasty corner of the infernal regions reserved for warriors against illegal drugs.
cough cough idiot prosecutor cough cough
“One would at least expect police and particularly prosecutors to show some common sense and discretion.”
I am wondering if that is the growing problem that needs the most attention.
The framers taught us not to expect good from power but rather to expect corruption. That way we could fashion protections.
Perhaps that is why they are trying to regulate away the constitution these strange daze … because it is a good medicine?
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/07/constitution-is-quite-medicine.html
You have to watch out for those grannies.
Damn,
Thank goodness real criminals use their real ID 100 percent of the time. What the hell is wrong with you Indiana, not enough real crime?
You have to be careful with that sudafed,after awhile you may not see things,that should be there:
http://www.break.com/index/absolutely-hilarious-bathroom-mirror-prank.html