Man, jailed for 3 months, released after "drugs" turn out to be vitamins

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I’m sure there are lots of positive aspects to living in the US of A; unfortunately they never seem to make the news.

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Yes, this Cuban sandwich I’m eating is one of them. Poor socialist Eurotrash have to go without.

I dunno if the poor guy can even sue. The police can probably demonstrate reasonable suspicion, and it may not be their fault the lab test took forever to arrive… etc. I had to take a piss test for my current job and it was a SNAFU. The lab kept sending the kit and the local clinic kept losing it. It didn’t stop them from hiring me, but it did create ripples.

The problem is not this one case - it’s the War on Drugs.

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This is a particularly sensitive issue for Mark, however.

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Don’t worry, the negative ones hardly ever make the mainstream American news.

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That’s debatable. Ask any chemist how many substances naturally exist as a nondescript powder. The answer is practically limitless - compared to the dozen or so the police would like to find.

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That would be a positive, were it true. I want news. Not propaganda. This isn’t Soviet Russia.

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Well, I certainly hope that the guy can hold the cops feet to the fire on this. I am finding it all rather surreal based on the details here. Common sense tells that there’s got to be more to this than just the usual law enforcement cluster**** on such things. As if common sense applies to the cops anymore…

Never mind the fact that pretty much every drug (licit or illicit) that is a little too active to be pressed into a pill in pure form will mostly just look like whatever food-grade starch and colorant they used to bulk it out into a pill of appropriate size and dissolving characteristics. A fair few drugs don’t actually look like much of anything in quantities you’d see outside of a production plant, they just look like whatever colored starch they’ve been mixed with.

Also a confounding factor, of course, is every scheduled drug that isn’t schedule one. I’ve so far avoided this coming up, mostly by dint of matching social expectations of respectability; but I’d fail the hell out of a test for amphetamines, as honestly and accurately as anyone else totally legally taking adderall…

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The irony is that, after reading this, it’s possible the vitamins didn’t actually contain any vitamins.

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After a guilty plea, that would be tough.

The Police States of America make Soviet Russia look mild.

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And he was jailed for refusing to plead guilty and being unable to pay ransom.

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The original article actually says they found a half ounce of crystal shards. I imagine it must have looked a fair bit like crystal meth. I can’t think of any vitamin that would be crystallized except for maybe vitamin C - and even then, not in shards. Then again, who is to say it wasn’t mostly sugar.

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I recall my mother calling the cops because she found a bag of white powder under the sink at our house. She apparently thought my teenage sister was hiding cocaine in the kitchen. It turned out to be flour or some other common household powder.

Did he turn down the anal probe option?

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Wow, just wow…
Mother tries to scare kid straight, if actually arrested she could have forever locked sister out of any student aid or subsidized loans as well as (is this still the case?) a lifetime ban on any social safety net programs other than social security.
Calling the cops on family to scare them straight is a great way to ruin their life.

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After being forced to plead guilty, though? Wait, I didn’t check: what color is his skin?

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I, too, figured this was all down to “black vitamins.” But no…

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$250k?

Is that reasonable bail? I don’t know bail was that high for someone with “criminal history and just left a drug treatment program”.