Guns for Painkillers

The police chief of Killian, Louisiana, has been arrested on drug charges after exchanging guns for pain pills he said his wife needed. According to an affidavit filed in federal court, a local paper reports, "Acting Killian Police Chief Joseph Guy Crawford Jr., 38, allegedly told federal agents that his wife's prescription did not provide enough pills to keep her pain-free." The affidavit did not specify the condition from which Crawford's wife suffers, but the scenario is sadly plausible, given doctors' tendency to undertreat pain.

Crawford, who faces both state and federal charges, is accused of two illegal transactions with undercover agents: trading a 12-gauge shotgun and $40 for 30 hydrocodone pills on December 17 and trading a .38-caliber pistol and $40 for 20 doses of fake oxycodone on January 2. Under federal law, these two trades could be enough to put him in prison for 30 years, since they count as using a firearm in the course of a drug trafficking offense, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for the first offense and 25 years for subsequent offenses.

[Thanks to Daniel Archibald for the tip.]