This morning I signed for Sudafed and had the pharmacy take my ID so they could make a log of me buying this cold medicine. This is what you have to do in Washington State because the drug is not simply an effective cold reliever but an active ingredient in meth.
The pharmacist said, "Sorry, I have to ask for your ID, this is truly the dumbest law in the world."
I asked him, "Has making the log made a difference?"
He said, "No, in fact it does no good at all. We have the same people in here all the time and it doesn't stop them. So we make you wait in line and bother you with all of this just because you have post-nasal drip." I let him continue.
"I called the police and showed them the log and told them that if they stopped this guy in the parking lot he'd probably have 30 boxes of sudafed in his car. They didn't care and they didn't do anything about it. This law is pointless."
I signed for my cold medicine and had my Washington State Driver's License recorded and then walked away. Here's my full take on the situation:
1. Lawmakers should really consider talking to the police...not police unions, but actual beat cops and ask them if they'll likely enforce a law if it were put on the books. They'd probably be surprised to hear that most laws are not enforced and the police has no interest in doing so...not to mention the lack of resources.
2. What an adult decides to put in his own body is his own business. This goes for both pot and sudafed.
3. Since stores are requiring signatures and ID checks, the meth problem has not gone away in this state.
4. Our state spends millions of dollars in anti-smoking campaigns while the product is completely legal...then makes me sign for a completely legal cold product...all while not enforcing our own controlled substance laws.
5. The war on drugs is lost. The drugs have won. All must bow down to our new drug rulers and surrender our citizenship. Just kidding, sorta.
3 comments:
Not so fast, Rasta Man. The state of Oregon has the same law and reports that the manufacturing of meth is down significantly.
Maybe the meth cooks in Oregon are less resourceful and lazier than good old Washington drug dealers.
If so, it's probably because they smoke more weed.
True, but get this. He said that there are groups of people who come here from Oregon to get Sudafed because there is no enforcement here. They canvas all of the pharmacies getting two boxes at a time and apparently it's worth it to them.
Maybe they're using it for assisted suicide.
I disagree on the drug points (I think controlled substances should be controlled), but I agree on the lawmaker issue. Here in my town they just passed a law which states that no one can have a dog tied on a lead for more than ten hours in a 24 hour period. Who is going to sit there for ten hours to see how long a dog is tied up? Well, in this town, your neighbor will, but the police won't care anyway. They also described what type of lead you can use to tie a dog, down to what kind of clip you would use to hook its collar. Most cops would probably be too afraid of getting bit to walk up to the dog and check out the clip on its collar.
Anyway, on drugs, I think the Feds went about the war on drugs all wrong. They should have worse penalties for people who sell drugs not people who are addicted to and buy them. And they should do a campaign to show the problems that illegal drugs can cause a person (something more scientific than "this is your brain on drugs"). Choking the incentives of the market would work way better than the way the drug war has been conducted. (Calling it a war was stupid too.)
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