When it is clear that a legal product is being legitimately purchased for its intended purpose, a prosecutor ought to make a common sense decision to drop charges against someone who committed a technical violation of the law.

But for some reason, prosecutors in Indiana simply refuse to do so.

When Sally Harpold bought cold medicine for her family back in March, she never dreamed that four months later she would end up in handcuffs.

Now, Harpold is trying to clear her name of criminal charges, and she is speaking out in hopes that a law will change so others won’t endure the same embarrassment she still is facing.

“This is a very traumatic experience,” Harpold said.

Harpold is a grandmother of triplets who bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at a Rockville pharmacy. Less than seven days later, she bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her adult daughter at a Clinton pharmacy, thereby purchasing 3.6 grams total of pseudoephedrine in a week’s time.

Those two purchases put her in violation of Indiana law 35-48-4-14.7, which restricts the sale of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, or PSE, products to no more than 3.0 grams within any seven-day period.

That the purchase of two boxes of over-the-counter cold medicine is a crime is ludicrous. Moreover, that law enforcement and prosecutors still insist upon prosecuting this woman despite freely admitting that these over-the-counter purchases were not for illicit drug production and were, in fact, intended for legitimate use by sick family members is a serious abuse of the judicial process and waste of taxpayer money.

My diagnosis in this case? Indiana is clearly suffering from too many laws and too much government.