Barbecue or Meth?

This article describes how Georgia officials are attempting to deal with the meth problem in rural Georgia--by apparently targeting Indian-American merchants who speak only limited English. The article ("Cultural Differences Complicate a Georgia Drug Sting Operation," NY Times, 4 August 2005) includes the following: "Many states, including Georgia, have recently enacted laws restricting the sale of common cold medicines like Sudafed, and nationwide, the police are telling merchants to be suspicious of sales of charcoal, coffee filters, aluminum foil and Kitty Litter."

So even setting aside the questions of cultural and linguistic issues in these cases, and those tied to using merchants as extensions of law enforcement (while selling basically legal products--I'm certainly not advocating the elimination of gun merchants being forced to participate in doing background checks on potential customers, nor do I want cigarettes or alcohol available to underage kids), the issue remains: how can you restrict the sale of charcoal, coffee filters, aluminum foil and cat litter? When I buy charcoal, I buy a very big bag (but maybe Kingsford is OK, since it's not cheap), and when I buy cat litter, I buy 3 bags at a time, since I buy the kind the cats like from an unusual store where I buy nothing but that (that's suspicious, isn't it?) Luckily, I've stopped buying coffee filters. Phew.