Julian Sanchez | February 23, 2006
John Berlau explains how the PATRIOT Act is keeping us safe from terrorism by... uh... hiding cold medicine.
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Once you sign for your medicine, your name becomes part of
"a functional monitoring program" that would "allow law enforcement
officials to track and ultimately prevent suspicious buying
behavior of ingredients for meth production," according to a
Feinstein press release describing a similar stand-alone
bill.
I wonder how exactly they plan to prevent "suspicious buying
behavior"?. Will there be a magic number where police break down
your doors looking for the meth lab? Or will you go on a "not
allowed to buy" list?
Since I've had a nagging cold and runny nose for two weeks, and
have bought cold medicine several times, would I be in violation of
the arbitrary standard?
It would be less confusing if congress would just pass a law
stating "We can jail you at any time, for any reason" instead of
doing it incrementally like this.
David:
The effort to curb "suspicious buying behavior" means you have
absolutely NOTHING to worry about if you haven't done anything
wrong. Right?
I hope no one finds a way to make meth from Diet Coke with Splenda. I drink so much of that crap, I would be busted in a week.
The effort to curb "suspicious buying behavior" means you
have absolutely NOTHING to worry about if you haven't done anything
wrong. Right
Since that depends upon who's defining the wrong, we have
everything to worry about. In the end, I have no doubt that some
people will wind up in prison due to a bad headcold and it will be
viewed as a victory to have such dangerous people off the
streets.
I wonder if I can challenge the law - claiming that I get colds a lot, and therefore the law discriminates against my "disability".
Sorry if my sarcasm wasn't clear. The "only the guilty need fear anything" line is a bit of a running gag around here.
God forbid if an acutal terrorist strikes this country with a militarized cold virus!
Andy: very funny. I might have to spread that one around.
Regarding the latest legislative nonsense: who cares? There are
other possible ways to make meth and they will so become the
fashion. If all else fails, Mexico is already the major supplier of
meth to the Southwest. I'm sure they can ramp up production to feed
the rest of the country. The politicians saw something about meth
and pseudoephedrine on 20/20 once and haven't learned a thing about
it since.
new liberty-threatening items are poised to slip by as
"bipartisan" and "non-controversial."
Heh. If it's "bipartisan" you know it's bad news!
To me, all forms of government are evil. However, one mitigating aspect of systems were government officials are elected is that those who voted for the winners get exactly what they deserve.
No mention, none at all, of the stone cold fact that as soon as
you make pseudoeph difficult to get, the meth heads just find
another way to make it. The reason they're using pseudoeph to begin
with is because the gov't criminalized that previous
ingredients.
In the states where they've tried these laws out already, meth use
hasn't abated; instead, the cookers in Mexico just get a bigger
payday, while the cookers here have to look for another illegal
income stream.
Not only is it wrong to piggyback this crap onto antiterrorism
legislation; it's a fools errand in general. Might as well try to
stop the tides from going in and out.
In the states where they've tried these laws out already,
meth use hasn't abated; instead, the cookers in Mexico just get a
bigger payday, while the cookers here have to look for another
illegal income stream.
So this will increase imports from Mexico and put domestic
amnufacturers out of business. Someone should alert Lou Dobbs.
The Mexican shit is stronger, leading to a bunch of meth heads overdosing, and the Mexican gangs bringing the stuff up are a lot more dangerous than the yokels who were making it in their trailer.
The Mexican shit is stronger, leading to a bunch of meth heads overdosing, and the Mexican gangs bringing the stuff up are a lot more dangerous than the yokels who were making it in their trailer.
The Mexican shit is stronger, leading to a bunch of meth heads overdosing, and the Mexican gangs bringing the stuff up are a lot more dangerous than the yokels who were making it in their trailer.
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