Those stories are both true. The fake-drug one was covered in great detail tonight on All Things Considered. Scroll down to "Dallas Police Still Reeling from Fake Drug Busts." The feds really fell down on investigating it, sent one street-undercover guy as the fall-guy when clearly there is a big pattern and many people way up involved. 80 non-English speaking men don't just get arrested over a couple of years and lots of people get paid a fee for fingering them (when in fact they planted ground up pool chaulk on them) without a lot of people knowing what is happening. Dallas is now investigating and no longer deferring to the feds, now that the trial is over.

The vibrator incident is just plain stupid. Some law enforcement official has their head up their ass. The woman was in her office, and the person kept pressuring her to sell the item there instead of waiting for the party. It'll probably get thrown out as a case of entrapment, but for gods sake, why on earth would anyone be arrested for selling a vibrator? You can buy them in any drugstore or grocery store. Albertson's, owned by the Mormons, sells vibrators, they're over near the alarm clocks, coffee makers, irons, and other small appliances. Walgreens. Eckerds. They're right out there in front. They're labled "massager."

The top seller at Good Vibrations (this is a new window--you may want to keep it up to shop around!) is the Hitachi (same folks as make electronics) Magic Wand. You might want to check out their vibrator museum. I've seen this in places like the old Service Merchandise.

One of the industry standard brands is Wahl and a search on the term "Wahl Massager" will bring hits all over the place.

Then look here and here at Walgreens.

Eckerd has a Conair knockoff of the one by Wahl.

KMart has one also.

They're everywhere. And unless they start arresting store cashiers any time they ring one up, they're not going to be able to make that charge stick.

SRS