Ridiculous law of the week

By | September 7, 2011

So get this:

Cops are called to a hotel because someone thinks one of the guests is selling cocaine. When they get there, they find little baggies of white powder. After testing the powder, they find out it’s baking soda.

It’s not illegal to sell baking soda, but it IS illegal to sell fake drugs. In fact, it’s a felony to con a druggie out of his hard-stolen cash. I imagine that this law is in place to prevent law enforcement from being embarrassed.

Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-423

4 thoughts on “Ridiculous law of the week

  1. Pingback: SayUncle » Sounds about right

  2. Jake

    Actually, it looks like the statute was designed around punishing medical fraud, not illegal drugs. It would apply equally to someone selling fake over-the-counter medications like Tylenol or aspirin, or a pharmacist passing off sugar pills as birth-control pills. It just applies to illegal drug sales as well as legal ones.

    I’d say this one isn’t that ridiculous, except for section (d), which punishes the victim of the fraud as well, and is extremely badly written for it’s apparent purpose (the lady who unknowingly buys the fake BC pills from the crooked pharmacist would be legally guilty of a misdemeanor, despite the fact that she followed all the laws to legitimately buy real ones, and believed she was doing so).

    Reply
  3. divemedic

    The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

    Reply
  4. tac

    The original concept for the creation of these laws (Not TCA specific) was the retribution that took place after someone was conned out of their “hard stolen money” and didn’t get their high. Now… if they were so concerned about the law then they wouldn’t be using illegal drugs (or the fake ones) and thus it wouldn’t be necessary to have the law in the first place.

    I’m dizzy.

    Tac

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