Grigg?s Liberty Minute

January 12 2011

Since 2005, over-the-counter cold remedies containing pseudoephedrine have been treated as a controlled substance. Pharmacies are required to limit customers to no more than 3.6 grams a day, supposedly to make it more difficult for would-be traffickers to obtain the raw ingredients of methamphetamine.

Predictably, this simply created a flourishing black market for pseudoephedrine. Cash-strapped people are eagerly acting as ?smurfers? ? that is, proxy buyers who buy huge quantities of Sudafed and other cold remedies on behalf of meth dealers.

The crack-down on meth has resulted in deeply entrenched corruption and perversions of due process: . Pharmacy Giant CVS, whose corporate leadership admits that it knowingly allowed meth manufacturers to buy huge amounts of pseudoephedrine, was spared criminal charges and given a large fine that will be passed along to customers

Meanwhile, several small-time defendants who bought excessive amounts of cold medicine from the company face more than a decade in prison ? where meth and other illegal drugs are readily available.

The madness of drug prohibition must end.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.