If I was selling a bag of flour and sugar to a CI who thought it was meth or coke can I get in trouble? How or why when I am selling a legal substance?
Yes. Selling something advertised as a prohibited product, whether or not it's true, is technically a crime. Assuming we're talking about the US, in most jurisdictions this would be treated just about the same as if you were actually selling the same volume of the advertised product. I believe the reasoning behind it is that even if it's fake, you're creating a market for the real product to be traded, or something like that.
So if you sell a 1 lb bag of flour calling it cocaine, you'd get charged as if you sold 1 lb of coke. The final judgement may not be as severe as actually selling a pound of coke, but the initial charges typically will be.
Also, flour and sugar do not look like coke or meth up close. It would be immediately obvious a user/seller the moment it's in their hands, so this is also a really good way to get your ass kicked.
Never used the stuff but had it pop into my mind. I was just considering its all white.
I've not handled meth, myself, but I know that coke usually clumps up into flakes that have a "fishscale" like appearance to them with the way light reflects off of it. That slightly pearlescent appearance is the first thing a buyer would be looking for, because there's not a whole lot of other white powdery materials that look like that. It also clumps up with a consistency slightly similar to something like Comet cleaner, so it wouldn't be as fine-grain as sugar or flour would be.
I dunno why I'm helping you disguise your fake drugs lmao, just be careful.
Unlike Chozo, I have a firsthand account of meth (interned at a crime lab in Idaho for my college degree). The meth we received was in crystal form. The really good meth was much more clear than the impure meth. Impure meth was cloudy, and without having had access to both kinds this next point won't mean much, but upon pouring the samples out into the table to take a smaller sample, the more pure samples sounded nicer. The impure stuff sounded dull. Now, finely grinding the meth into a fine powder MIGHT help disguise it in a sample of other white substances, but that came with its own issues. When I was there, if a sample of a whole was found to contain a controlled substance, the entire specimen was considered a controlled substance (something like the excuse that pot was being shipped with tomato plants was storied to me). I know I got a little off track, but the point is that meth has vastly different properties to that of sugar or flour.
I used to have this friend we called Blaster Taylor. He was cool as fuck until he started abusing Adderall, and that Adderall addiction turned into meth pretty quick. Started shooting it, that's when I stopped kickin it with him.
Anyway a couple years after that he got busted selling a bag of rock salt to an undercover cop saying it was meth, and he did a couple years for that as I recall. I don't talk to any of those dudes anymore but last I heard he's out by now, complete with swastika face tats.
To paraphrase John Darnielle, selling fake meth was a bad idea; but selling it to a cop was a worse one.
I’m sorry for both you and your friend.
Meth literally ruined my life, my kid's mom started doing that shit and it was a catastrophe. Fortunately I've been clean pretty much the whole time because meth is a shitty drug and I've picked up the pieces pretty well, I'm currently the happiest ive ever been.
He's not though 😬 don't do meth. Don't hang out with people who do it. It's pretty much a hassle all the way around, and who needs that? Especially for a drug that makes you pick at your face and chain-smoke fucking gross ass Pall-Malls in the driveway for three straight days
A) Flour
B) Fraud
[Warning: I'm not a lawyer.] As people answered it mostly for USA, I gave it a check for other countries.
For both Italian law (article 640 of the Penal Code) and Brazilian law (the famous article 171 of the Penal Code), this behaviour falls neatly into fraud laws, and leads to a few years of reclusion. I couldn't find any law specifically for selling it as if it was a drug though.
For Portugal I actually found a paper about the topic. It claims that it isn't a crime per se, but it's usually filled under other crimes, and the paper proposes the creation of specific laws against it. [EDIT: as AdNecrias correctly highlights, this is a sci paper, not legislation.]
I kind of expect other countries and their legal systems to be the same in this regard. It's simply not a pressing issue.
Just want to add that the Portuguese document there is a scientific paper, not legislation. Not sure on how proposals might have been changed the law in the 4 years after it but it's become more pertinent because the increase of tourism was accompanied by these scams (my source for this is word of mouth, take it with a grain of salt)
I added it to the comment - thank you!
it’s become more pertinent because the increase of tourism was accompanied by these scams (my source for this is word of mouth, take it with a grain of salt)
Yup, and the paper confirms it: "Esta atividade é regularmente realizada nas grandes cidades do nosso país, mormente nas zonas de grande afluência turística" (this activity is regularly conducted in the larger cities of our country, mainly in the zones with great touristic affluence).
One Google search later,
Selling counterfeit illicit drugs is illegal even if the substances used to make the imitation drug are not illegal on themselves
I imagine that's only if you market it as drugs.
"Hey you got the good drugs?" "Yeah here"
But what if you played the long con, started....say a salt distribution ring. Have a run down house full of it, sell it in baggies, make it look as suspicious as possible only for them to do stakeouts, get informants in there, just to find you are not doing anything illegal at all, it just has all the signs without the actual law breaking. If you call it salt they'll probably think it's a code name for a drug
"Hey you got the good salt?" "Yeah here"
goes back to the police lab
"wtf? It's just salt?"
Then they would just think the informant got compromised and have to raid the house lol
As with every legal topic on the Internet: depending on your (international) jurisdiction.
In which jurisdiction is it legal to sell fake cocaine? :)
Continuous Integration?
Confidential Informant
There are laws against selling fake drugs. Why does he think your product is a drug? Has it been represented to him as a drug by you or by someone with whom you are conspiring to sell fake drugs?
CI? Criminal Informant?
If you're law enforcement or part of the DoC, you probably have better places to ask. I you're caught in an undercover sting, you can talk with a public attorney at the very least. eitherway, there's more reliable sources of information.
They’re confidential informants where I’m from - regional differences isn’t surprising, wonder how it’s abbreviated for other languages.
Confidential informants are a bit different, here.
One is a low level perp you let slide because they nark on bigger fish, the other is just a random person who may have information that’s sensitive, not necessarily themselves criminal.
Either way, though, that probably goes to entrapment. And if OP’s not a LEO, and still trying to get some one jammed up, there’s probably a slew of charges there- especially if the motive is leverage.
I suppose it is fraud. If they do hurt themselves after trying to consume they might end up in an ER and a hospital might be required to report (even if user would not have for obvious reasons)
Depends on the state. I imagine over the years, enterprising drug dealers have done just that to dupe unsuspecting buyers. It wouldn't be far fetched that a state would write laws to capture just such an instance.
You can get arrested, you could be detained under a reasonable articulable suspicion of having committed a crime.
As to whether or not that would ultimately lead to trouble? No. Could it still cost you money, time, etc? Yes.