In a wide driftnet-type sting operation, heavy-handed, hard-headed Georgia law enforcement officers and DEA agents swept up 49 convenience store clerks, and 16 companies, on charges of “selling items like antifreeze, matchbooks and ephedrine to people who said they intended to make the highly addictive drug known as ‘crystal meth’.” Those found guilty could “face as many as twenty years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.”
The thing is, 44 of the 49 clerks “were of Indian descent, three of them undocumented, according to Rediff, a newspaper for Indian expatriates,” reports NewStandardNews (a great online newspaper), in its new article, “Store Clerk Meth Sting Challenged as Misguided, Racist.” NewStandard News says that “[d]rug-law reform activists and advocates for immigrants rallied in Georgia Tuesday to challenge the recent arrests …”
The involved groups include the ACLU and its legal team, the South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow (SAALT), “a national nonprofit advocate for South Asians living in the US,” and the Drug Policy Alliance, “a national advocate for the decriminalization of drugs.”
As you all know already — and were vividly reminded if you caught last week’s PBS Frontline, “The Meth Epidemic” (you can watch it online now) — the problem is deadly serious and has particularly decimated rural regions because it’s cheap, ingredients have been readily obtained, and it’s highly addictive.
The other night, I warned Darcy the other night to remember that, when she’s driving, “On Highway 101 perhaps as many as 10% of the other drivers are high on meth or crack or some other drug.” (On a two-lane highway that’s too narrow for the state DOT to install barriers, and where head-on collisions result in numerous fatalities yearly, that’s a scary consideration for cautious drivers like Darcy.) Add to their drug use that most of these addicts don’t eat properly or don’t sleep regularly, and it’s terrifying.
The first sane step would be to decriminalize drug use, and shift the money wasted on roughshod round-ups to treatment programs, health care, living assistance, and help for the children of addicts. But rounding up an overwhelmingly immigrant group of minimum wage store clerks — and 23 of the merchants have pled guilty (probably due to plea bargain pressure) — is not only useless, it’s a waste of government time and the repercussions for the clerks, their families, and their communities must be unbearable. What Washington state has done to curb retail store sales, to date, is far better … continued below …
From The Seattle Times:
A measure signed into law this year aims to restrict access to methamphetamine ingredients by forcing stores to keep many cold and allergy medications behind pharmacy counters.
The ingredients — pseudoephedrine, ephedrine and phenylpropanoline — are found in nonprescription cold and allergy medications. Store clerks are being told to ask for photo identification to ensure those purchasing the medication are at least 18. The ID and new storage requirements took effect Oct. 1.
Customers also are limited to buying no more than two packages in a 24-hour period. …
With that simple law in place in Georgia, 49 clerks might not have found themselves in legal hot water, and the DEA and state of Georgia wouldn’t come off looking like a bunch of racist cops.
US Attorney David Nahmias “alleged that the arrestees were greedy business owners”:
These businesses and their owners and employees need to understand that they are feeding the meth epidemic,” Nahmias said. “They need to understand – and today’s arrests demonstrate – that if people sell products knowing or having reason to believe that the products will be used to make meth, they will face federal prosecution, lengthy prison sentences, and forfeiture of their businesses and other assets.”
So, minimum wage clerks — most of them immigrants these days — are supposed to be policemen too?
Is it too much to ask the U.S. Attorney and the state of Georgia to take a far more practical path, and pass a law that restricts the quantity of sale, as the state of Washington has done?
As for the criminalization problem:
In a statement released Tuesday, the Drug Policy Alliance, a national advocate for the decriminalization of drugs, termed the practice of expecting store owners to police customers’ purchase of legal products “ridiculous.”
“The war on drugs has failed so miserably that overzealous law enforcement officials are arresting law-abiding citizens for legally doing their jobs,” the Alliance said. “Ending methamphetamine abuse is an important goal, but we need to focus our resources on treatment, not on locking up convenience-store clerks who are neither making nor selling methamphetamine.” (NewStandardNews)
I can’t say that all of Washington state’s ideas and plans are positive. In the same SeattleTimes article, these are the results of a task force convened by state attorney general Rob McKenna, a Republican elected in 2004 when the the Democrat attorney general Christine Gregoire left to run for governor. (By the way, McKenna is regarded as the kind of “moderate” Republican who’s been quashed for years by the religious right that took over the state GOP.)
What do you think of the task force’s conclusions?
Among task-force subcommittees’ recommendations for the state:
• Create a crime, separate from manufacturing, for possession of large quantities of precursor chemicals used in the manufacturing process.
• Seek parity with Oregon and Idaho on penalties, so that meth traffickers and cooks aren’t moving back and forth across state lines to avoid stricter sanctions.
• Reduce time off for good behavior to 33 percent from 50 percent for offenders sentenced under the Drug Offender Sentencing Alternative.
• Propose support for adults who are victims of drug manufacturing in their homes and possible exemptions in current forfeiture-of-homes law due to drug manufacture when an elderly person is an innocent victim.
• Push for secure funding for state and local health departments to ensure cleanup at meth labs.
“This is not a quick fix,” McKenna said. “These are longer-term approaches. This problem didn’t pop up overnight, so it’s going to require a sustained effort to beat it.”