“It’s a fishing expedition, plain and simple,” LaCoursiere said after the hearing. “We’re hopeful that the plaintiff’s requests will be denied by the court. The second point is the public has been fighting on a local, state and national level to curtail the harmful effects of synthetic drug use in our communities by banning the sale of these products. The modus operandi of this multi-billion dollar synthetic drug industry has been to work to dodge these efforts by constantly tweaking synthetic drug formulas as soon as the industry knows what is on the chopping block next. And that is why it is important that active criminal investigative data remain confidential so that synthetic drug makers and sellers do not destroy, hide or re-label existing products, or simply start fresh with modified synthetic compounds” (Duluth News Tribune).
Demonstrating a typical belief held by law enforcement agencies and prosecutors, one prosecutor admits to purposely keeping victims of his prosecutions in the dark about what activities are considered illegal by law enforcement.
The quote above really illustrates that perception is everything. This prosecutor believes that keeping this information away from businesses prevents evasion of prosecution. That is his perception. However, imagine that you are a person who is just trying to comply with the law. That quotation then says that prosecutors don’t want you to know what is legal so they can then entrap you and take your property. What property you ask? The billions of dollars that the government wants to get their hands on, which the prosecutor above purposely referred to, as if being successful on terms that he personally considers unacceptable is a crime by itself.
Consider this sentence: “And that is why it is important that active criminal investigative data remain confidential so that synthetic drug makers and sellers do not destroy, hide or re-label existing products, or simply start fresh with modified synthetic compounds.”
Now think about what that really means – so that manufacturers do not COMPLY with the law by re-labeling existing products that they are compliant with the law, or simply start fresh with compounds that are COMPLIANT with the law.
In other words, this prosecutor and other law enforcement and government agencies across the country are basically saying that they don’t want manufacturers to be able to figure out how to follow the law. They WANT manufacturers to BREAK the law, so they can seize property and cash lawfully.
This doesn’t seem to us to be about protecting the public. In a country where the rule of law is supposed to be respected, it seems to us that preventing people from complying with the law by keeping information from them that allows them to do so is wrong, dishonest, and immoral. It especially seems hypocritical when these same parties who are boasting of their dishonest and shady practices are accusing the businesses they persecute of immorality.
