When people think about criminal drug charges, they often think about prohibited or banned substances like methamphetamine and heroin. However, plenty of people get arrested and charged with a crime over legal substances.
In fact, a medication that is available over-the-counter at most businesses with a pharmacy could put you at risk of drug charges. You may realize that there are agencies monitoring over-the-counter purchases of cough medicines that include pseudoephedrine. What you may not realize is that buying that same medicine at more than one store could put you at risk.
Changing where you buy may seem like a common-sense solution
Maybe you have terrible seasonal allergies and down cold medication like it is going out of style for half of the year. Perhaps you have a very big family and the children constantly infect one another with the bacteria and viruses they bring home from school and daycare.
If you need to buy cough medicine with pseudoephedrine more than once or twice a year, you might think that buying from different stores every time would be a smart choice. That way, your name won’t keep coming up in their records as a habitual buyer. Still, making multiple smaller purchases at several stores can look just as bad as always buying the same amount every week at the same store.
Simply put, the more cold medicine you buy, the more attention you may draw to yourself regardless of where you purchase it. Eventually, you could find yourself accused of criminal activity despite only ever purchasing legal substances. Understanding when normal behavior might put you at risk of criminal charges can help you better handle accusations of misconduct.