Via WQAD: New law could mean bad news for allergy sufferers

even if you’re not making meth, if you go over that limit — of one maximum strength pill per day — you will be arrested.

“Does it take drastic measures? Absolutely. Have we seen a positive result? Absolutely,” Sandoval [Director of the Quad Cities Metropolitan Enforcement Agency] stressed.

But for Tim, the law is going too far.

“I believe I’m a good citizen,” he said. “I don’t believe I’m doing anything wrong. And I believe they’re going after the wrong people.”

Sandoval says the law applies to everybody. So everybody needs to keep track of how much pseudo ephedrine is in the medicine they’re buying.

Tim Naveau went to several different pharmacies to buy Claritin-D.
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He was charged with a Class-B misdemeanor.

The fellow in question bought Claritin-D for himself and then bought some for his teenage son. The combo effect was the possession of more pseudoephedrine than local law allowed. The result? Two months after the purchases the man was arrested.

First off, from an efficacy point-of-view, if Naveau had bought the drugs to cook up some meth, isn’t two months later a tad on the late side?

Second, and more importantly, it is insane to arrest a man for having purchased more than a month’s supply of allergy medication. I understand the ill effects of crystal meth, but harassing otherwise law-abiding citizens in this way is an affront. And for law-enforcement to adopt this type of attitude like those displayed by Ms. Sandoval are chilling. There are great number of “drastic” measure that could be adopted that might have “positive” results in terms of decreasing criminal activity. Random searches of residences, for example, might be quite effective in curtailing crime, but also rather problematic.

At a minimum, a more reasonable restriction on the amount of pseudoephedrine that can be purchased by a family in the Quad Cities might be a good idea.

h/t: OTB