Kudzu Queen

By Tamara Ducote

I went to buy some cold pills the other day, and discovered that this formerly simple task has become more complicated. Used to be, you could blithely pluck a box of Sudafed off the shelf, saunter up to the cash register, pay, and be done with it. You could have pseudoephedrine coursing through your sick, snot-ridden system two minutes after you walked into the store.

The new system requires one to take a ticket up to the pharmacy. Next, you have to present your driver’s license. I left my license out in the car because I had not anticipated either driving or being pulled over while in the store.

“You’re serious?” I asked the pharmacy technician.

“It’s the law, ma’am,” she replied.

I trudged back out to the car and retrieved my license. The tech scanned it through a card reader and then I had to sign a form stating I understood if I misrepresented my reasons for buying Sudafed, I would be subjected to a fine of 14 gazillion dollars, hard time in Tutwiler prison and various other draconian penalties. Plus, the offense would probably go on my Permanent Record.

“I really have to sign this?” I asked, incredulous.

“It’s the law, ma’am.”

So I signed the form, but here’s the thing: Nobody ASKED me what I wanted to use the Sudafed for. If the pharmacy tech had queried me, I probably would have said, “Oh, I’ve got family coming in from out of town, and I want to cook up a fresh batch of methamphetamine for them,” just to be flip. Or, if I was in a foul mood, I might have said, “I want to stick it up my dog’s behind. What’s it to you?”

“Let me get this straight,” I said to the tech. “Do you mean if a person doesn’t have official identification, they can’t buy Sudafed?” She nodded, and said, for the third time in five minutes, “It’s the law.”

Jesus. I’ve bought REAL drugs with less aggravation than this.

If I have to show a driver’s license and sign a form to buy cold pills, so be it. But it’s a dumb law. All the drug addicts I know are much too creative and diligent to be stymied by this minor inconvenience. All this law does is create an unnecessary hassle for people who legitimately have colds.

Besides, methamphetamine manufacturing is pretty much a self-limiting thing. All those people blow themselves up, sooner or later. Our government and our vigilant pharmacy techs can relax, because Darwinism will attrite the meth cookers.

I suspect some esteemed members of our government sat down one day and said, “Hey, we don’t have enough stupid, pointless laws on the books. How ‘bout we create another one?” It makes me wonder what THOSE folks are cooking.

I’m curious about the driver’s license card-reader thing. Is somebody actually keeping track of how often I have a cold? Not even my own mother is that interested in the minutiae of my life. I’m tempted to run around to every drug store on the Gulf Coast, buying up Sudafed, just to see what happens. If you buy more than x amount in y days, do the police put you under surveillance? Does the narcotics task force search your home? Can I pet the pretty drug dog?

I imagine some poor sniffling soul with a sinus infection trying to buy Sudafed, and getting irritated because he left his driver’s license at home.

“Aw, screw it,” he finally tells the pharmacy tech. “I’ll just go score some cocaine to treat this pesky nasal congestion.”

I’m sure a pseudoephedrine black market will blossom, if it hasn’t already. The meth cookers cannot effectively blow themselves, their trailers, and their chained-up pit bulls to smithereens without this stuff. They’ll find a way to get it.

I wonder what our government will try to protect us from next. Potting soil, maybe? Miracle-Gro? After all, some folks do use these things to grow marijuana. How about soda cans? When empty, aluminum cans are easily adapted to smoke a variety of illegal chemicals. Tampons? Every pothead worth his roach clip knows that in a pinch, the thin, crinkly wrappers of Tampax tampons make excellent rolling papers.

Here’s an idea: Why don’t the authorities sell Sudafed in the ABC stores? After all, the incidences of alcoholism and alcohol-fueled crime have plummeted to 0 percent since the government started regulating ethanol, right? Since THAT was such a smashing success, it’s no wonder the same strategy has been applied to pseudoephedrine.

The government could also pull other grocery store products enterprising minds use to get high, and stock them on the ABC shelves. I’m thinking of nutmeg, bananas, morning glory seeds, Roquefort cheese, rye bread, and a certain variety of lettuce. Yes, these things are all used to make illicit drugs and no, I’m not going to give you the directions. Get your own Internet connection.

I have a bad relationship with my government. A bad relationship is where one of the parties involved sends mixed signals to the other party. On the one hand, my government actively works to protect me from myself (“You cannot be trusted with OTC sinus meds. You might make meth, or put an eye out.”). On the other hand, this is the same government that has no qualms about shipping our youth over to Iraq to serve as targets in a senseless war based on lies.

Since when is a Sudafed tablet more hazardous than a roadside IED?

We don’t need our government to protect us from ourselves. We need somebody/something to protect us from our government.

Contact Tamara Ducote at TDDucote6@aol.com.

Archives