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Jewish World Review August 11, 2005 / 6 Av, 5765 Presumed guilty By Debra J. Saunders
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The latest insanity in the war on drugs comes to you from
Georgia. As The New York Times reported last week, the feds arrested 49
convenience store clerks and owners — essentially for selling legal cold
and allergy pills.
"Operation Meth Merchant" is the government's way of making
store clerks act as drug-enforcement agents — or if they don't, they could
face jail time. The feds enticed informers to tell the clerks they were
buying cold pills or other products so they could "cook up"
methamphetamines. That would make the store clerks guilty of a crime, if
they knowingly sold to would-be meth-makers.
Most of the defendants are Indian immigrants who don't
understand English particularly well — and certainly don't know American
slang. They're not drug dealers. They're working stiffs — yet they face
sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
"We really wanted to send the message that if you get into that
line of business, selling products that you know are going to be used to
make meth, you're going to prison," U.S. Attorney David Nahmias told The New
York Times.
Sorry, the feds should save prison for real drug dealers and
stop scaring the daylights out of law-abiding immigrants. Several of the
defendants refused to sell customers more than two bottles of cold pills, so
they were charged with selling another two bottles to the same customers the
next day.
"It's just a continuing strategy — that we have to have a drug
panic," noted former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara, now a fellow at
the Hoover Institution. When he first became a cop, the big target for law
enforcement was marijuana. "I remember the crackdown on pipes and the
paraphernalia," he added. "The hysteria has to be maintained. The public
alarm has to be maintained. And they have a real problem because some
people, including myself, think the threat of terrorism is a lot worse than
busting about 650,000 people a year for pot."
No lie. The feds are arresting convenience-store clerks selling
cold pills when they should be investigating possible terrorist cells.
Then there's the fairness issue. Bill Piper of the anti-drug war
Drug Policy Alliance noted that Walgreens agreed to pay a $1.3 million fine
for selling over-the-counter cold medicine to a Texas methamphetamine
dealer: "They have two standards, one for corporate chains and one for
independent store owners — basically giving fines to corporate chains,
while arresting the independent store owners."
Last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a measure by
Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jim Talent, R-Mo., that would require
stores to keep cold medicines with pseudoephedrine behind the counter and
limit the amount one person can buy to about 250 pills a month.
Feinstein spokesman Howard Gantman explained, "We hope that this
legislation will provide a clear signal to the pharmaceutical industry that
alternatives to pseudoephedrine should be found. Companies sell cold
medications in Europe without pseudoephedrine, and the same could be true
here."
Even Bill Piper sees the behind-the-counter requirement and
purchase limits as reasonable regulations. But the bill goes too far in
requiring consumers to sign a logbook and show identification to buy
Sudafed.
Oregon lawmakers passed a measure that will force consumers to
get prescriptions to buy Sudafed. It makes no sense. First, the push to make
emergency contraception available over-the-counter and now a law to make you
see a doctor to get allergy medicine?
McNamara, who believes the government should end this modern
prohibition on drugs, said, "There's no end to this, once you begin to do
something you shouldn't be doing in the first place."
Certainly it has come to this: Prosecutors are treating innocent
store clerks as if they are drug dealers; the Feinstein bill treats
law-abiding citizens as if they are lawbreakers. If you want to treat a cold
or allergies, you have to check with the government. When drug warriors go
after people who aren't drug users or dealers, they've made the conscious
decision to treat innocent people like enemies.
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Comment JWR contributor Debra J. Saunders's column by clicking here. © 2005, Creators Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
