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CVS Will Pay $75 Million After ‘Smurfers’ Bought Meth Ingredients.
WSJ ^ | October 15, 2010 | Katherine Hobson

Posted on 10/15/2010 9:03:59 AM PDT by jaydubya2

If you’d been in a CVS in Los Angeles during 2008, you might have witnessed people coming into the store and clearing the store’s shelves of cough and cold medicines. It also might have occurred to you that they weren’t just facing a bad case of the sniffles.

According to federal prosecutors in L.A., those folks were “smurfing”: making “multiple purchases of pseudoephedrine in small amounts with the intent to aggregate the purchases for use in the illegal production of methamphetamine.” And CVS became smurfing central as those folks discovered that those stores, “unlike other large chain retail pharmacies, allowed customers to make repeated purchases of pseudoephedrine that exceeded federal daily and monthly sales limits,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California says.

That big whoopsy-daisy is costing CVS $75 million in civil fines (and the estimated $2.6 million it made on the medications).

(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...


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Wow!
1 posted on 10/15/2010 9:04:01 AM PDT by jaydubya2
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To: jaydubya2

Jeez....Lawyers are going to make it so you need security clearence and dozen forms of ID to buy some dang cold meds.....


2 posted on 10/15/2010 9:08:28 AM PDT by jakerobins
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To: jaydubya2

My Grandfather was a wholesale grocer during WWII. He had many sales of bulk sugar with ration cards and all to the local bootleggers. Where there is a will, there is a way.


3 posted on 10/15/2010 9:08:28 AM PDT by equalitybeforethelaw
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To: jaydubya2

That law that made it tougher to sell Pseudoephedrine just helped the Communist Chinese and the Mexican Drug Cartels.

The ChiComs are the biggest maker of Pseudophedrine...and the Mexican Cartels use the ChiCom P-eph to cook up the Meth.

There is still just as much meth out there than before the restriction....instead of some rural American cooking up Meth...it is now the Mexican cartels

Anyone with allergies prefers Pseudophedrine over the PE crap. The Pseudophedrine ban just helped out the ChiComs and the Mexican Drug Cartels


4 posted on 10/15/2010 9:08:46 AM PDT by UCFRoadWarrior (They don't let you build churches in Mecca)
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To: jakerobins

only an idiot would blame lawyers for this.


5 posted on 10/15/2010 9:10:06 AM PDT by jdub (A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.)
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To: jaydubya2
And CVS became smurfing central as those folks discovered that those stores, “unlike other large chain retail pharmacies, allowed customers to make repeated purchases of pseudoephedrine that exceeded federal daily and monthly sales limits

Which are found where in the Consitution?

This stuff is handled just fine at the state level.

6 posted on 10/15/2010 9:12:47 AM PDT by B Knotts (Just another Tenther)
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To: jaydubya2
That big whoopsy-daisy is costing CVS $75 million in civil fines (and the estimated $2.6 million it made on the medications).

It's just a tax excuse.

7 posted on 10/15/2010 9:13:03 AM PDT by Gorzaloon ("Mother...My Couric itches.")
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To: jakerobins
Jeez....Lawyers are going to make it so you need security clearence and dozen forms of ID to buy some dang cold meds.....

It is already that way. I went to CVS to get my wife some Sudafed so she could breathe and I had to show my drivers' license and sign a "statement." A royal hassle.

8 posted on 10/15/2010 9:16:29 AM PDT by Guyin4Os (A messianic ger-tsedek)
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To: jakerobins
Lawyers are going to make it so you need security clearance and dozen forms of ID to buy some dang cold meds.

That's already in place. I had a bad cold a couple years ago and went to buy some of the stronger cold medicine. It was kept behind the counter and I had to show ID. It was all recorded in their computer.

I hated the medicine. All I took was one pill and the effects were worse than the cold. It made me jittery and unable to sleep. Nasty stuff. I returned it the next day.

9 posted on 10/15/2010 9:18:07 AM PDT by Shannon
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To: jaydubya2

And with all the hassle, is there less meth on the street or more? The govenment never admits what it does is wrong, it only claims it hasn’t done enough of it yet.... nothing learns slower than government....


10 posted on 10/15/2010 9:19:43 AM PDT by Bones75
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To: jdub
only an idiot would blame lawyers for this.

And who are you blaming?

11 posted on 10/15/2010 9:19:48 AM PDT by subterfuge (BUILD MORE NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS NOW!!!)
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To: jaydubya2
I think I might have seen those guys...


12 posted on 10/15/2010 9:20:31 AM PDT by reagan_fanatic (Today, Congress. Tomorrow, the White House!)
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To: UCFRoadWarrior

American owned pharmaceutical companies sell many times more of ephedrin and pseudo-ephedrin to Mexican “companies” than is need to produce cold medicine. There was a Frontline special on that documenting the trail directly to US based companies. I have never heard of the Chi-coms being involved, but it makes sense also.


13 posted on 10/15/2010 9:20:50 AM PDT by runninglips (Don't support the Republican party, work to "fundamentally change" it...conservative would be nice)
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To: jakerobins

phenylephrine sucks...

that’s all I have to say.


14 posted on 10/15/2010 9:21:51 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a (de)humanist and a Satanist is that the latter knows who he's working for.)
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To: jakerobins

Maybe hard labor? I have allergy and sinus issues and it is a pain to buy these meds due to those tweekers, I think Id like to see the tweekers have to clean up parks and stuff for making life hard for the average people who need those meds.


15 posted on 10/15/2010 9:44:56 AM PDT by Munson
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To: UCFRoadWarrior
There is still just as much meth out there than before the restriction....instead of some rural American cooking up Meth...it is now the Mexican cartels

Honestly, I'd rather the Mexicans cook this crap up than my neighbor.

16 posted on 10/15/2010 9:54:22 AM PDT by Drew68
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To: jaydubya2

They have to be kidding. It has to be much cheaper and more efficient to ‘import’ pseudoephedrine through MS 13.

Just another excuse to extend the nanny state and collect some ‘protection’ money from CVS.

The federal daily limit is 3.6 grams of pseudoephedrine; monthly limit is 7.5 grams of pseudoephedrine.

(one 10 tablet box of adult 24 hour 240mg pseudoephedrine = 2.4 grams)

FYI this is part of the Patriot Act signed by GW.


17 posted on 10/15/2010 10:48:09 AM PDT by algernonpj (He who pays the piper . . .)
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To: subterfuge; jakerobins

I blame drug warriors.

Make everyone a criminal, to stop a few from abusing a legal substance.


18 posted on 10/15/2010 10:57:32 AM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: jaydubya2

$75 million is nothing to sneeze at.


19 posted on 10/15/2010 11:21:57 AM PDT by crosshairs (If I agreed with a liberal, then we would BOTH be wrong.)
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To: subterfuge

lawmakers who pander to those who clamor for more and more restrictions to try to solve an unsolvable problem. Some of those legislators might be lawyers, but that has nothing to do with it. So I blame big government and those that want such control exerted over their lives.


20 posted on 10/15/2010 2:16:21 PM PDT by jdub (A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.)
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