On Saturday, February 2, 2002, at 12:52 PM, Neil Johnson wrote: > Still believe that the government doesn't snoop in your private life ? > Read > on: > > Everyone in my Family has a bad cold this week. > > So my wife is in Wal-Mart and she has in her cart (among the usually > household items): 1 Box of Advil Cold & Sinus (for my Wife), 1 Bottle of > Children's Tyenol Cold with Cough (for our youngnest), 1 Bottle of > NyQuil > (for me), and 1 Bottle of Children's NyQuil (for our oldest). > > She's checking out when when the words "Limit 3" appears on the cash > register display. The check-out person informs her that this is because > Wal-Mart (in co-operation with law enforcement) is limiting the amount > of > over the counter cold remedies one can buy to prevent their use in the > manufacturing of meth. > > A Friend of my wife's is behind in line and offers to purchase one of > the > cold medicines with her stuff so my wife can check out. The clerk > says to > my wife "I trust you" and let's her pay for 1 bottle as a separate > transaction. > > Needless to say my wife was pretty embarrassed.
Why would she possibly be embarrassed over something like this? And this has been going on for a while. I used to be able to buy 50- and 100-count bottles of generic pseudoephedrine (IIRC this was it...don't quote me on it), the same ingredient in Actifed, a cold/sinus pill. These generic bottles have vanished, to be replaced by blister packs of vastly more expensive pills containing the same ingredient. Pseudoephedrine is related to speed, and I presume can be used to make purer forms of speed. But all of the pills I saw were in blister packs, in big boxes, with a limited count. (My guess is that there is some packaging rule and "bulk" rule, to blister pack and "fluff up" the package. I recall the blister packs I bought had 3 sheets of 6 or so pills, for a total of about 18 pills. All for much more than the 50-count bottles used to sell for at Long's or Sav-On stores.) Perhaps the manufacturers are happy: no longer are the generic bottles competing with them. What would happen if a manufacturer sold the 18-count packages at the same per--pill price as they used to sell for? I wonder if there are price controls in effect, or other limits besides just the obvious packaging and total count limits. > > I've got to wonder how effective this really is, and if now my family > is some > sort of "potential drug manufacturers" database with the government. Unlikely, but this should be a reminder to you and others not to pay with credit cards and not to use a store's "Frequent Shopper" surveillance card. (I wonder what happens if one "seeks to evade tracking" by using someone else's card, or a card with a phony name, or one swapped with others? Nothing now, as there is no legal requirement nor verification system in place to stop people from using "Random J. Cipher" on their Frequent Shopper cards...that happens to be what's now on my Safeway card, courtesy of a "mix" we did a few years ago at a Cypherpunks meeting.) We are hurtling toward a full surveillance state. --Tim May "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists." --John Ashcroft, U.S. Attorney General
