I also live in Arkansas and I know exactally what your talking about. This state is crazy when it comes to that law. But then again, we do have a big problem with meth around here so I understand somewhat why the law is the way it is.
I read up on some pretty interesting info tho. The police will track down anyone who's name they see appear on the tracking system who they believe is a meth user or cook suspect, even if they haven't reached their limit. They will also track you down if your buying habbit seems suspicious.... like if you buy a box at one store and then buy another box at another store in the same day or very close days apart, even if you still haven't exceeded your "limit".
All of the stores are linked in, online, with the law enforcement AND remember, the dates show up on each purchase. So it doesn't matter if you buy a box at one store and then buy another box at another store because the only reason why people do that is because the store will not allow them to buy more than one box in a day FROM THAT PARTICULAR STORE. The police will still be able to tell what you bought, where you bought it, and when you bought it & when it comes down to it, its what the police see that counts.
So, pretty much...
*If you buy more boxes than a "normal sick person who needs the pills" would take within a sensible amount of days that you'd actually be sick (wheither you buy them in one day or within a couple days), your gonna be a suspect to the law and may be arrested. Even tho that actually isn't against the law. The federal law says that the legal limit for purchases is 9 grams per MONTH!
*If you buy a box and you are already suspected of being a frequent meth user, a meth cook or you associate with anyone who is a suspect & the law knows this info, your gonna be a suspect to the law and again.
*If your seen getting in or out of a car at the store with other people who are also buying boxes, your gonna be a suspect to the law.
And they will use all of those as reasons to arrest you... because your doing something suspicious.
Now, in my personal opinion....
Yes, it is obvious that if someone's name appears on the tracking system more than one time in a day or someone buys 3 boxes within a week, that person is more than likely up to something. But thats not the point, how can you arrest someone for looking suspicious? If you have 3 boxes in a car and you have 3 people in a car, thats one box to each person. That is not against the law, no matter what the police may think it looks like.
I know that our law enforcement believe that they are doing the right thing, trying to clean up a horrible drug problem, but how does that give them the right to profile people and arrest people who haven't gone over their limit???
The reason why I first became interested in the whole subject to begin with, started when I went to a local walmart to buy a box of Sudafed. I'm a very well dressed woman who has a decent job & do not use drugs. I was sick and I was also 2 months pregnant (and sudafed is the only cold med that is safe for pregnant women to take). I got to the pharmacy line, and waited my turn, just like everyone else was doing. When it became my turn at the counter, I told the woman what I wanted. She changed from her nice, cheerful attitude, to a sour old bitch. Then she rolled her eyes at me, grabbed a box from behind her, slid it down the counter to the other end and stated "you have to go in that line over there to buy those." When I looked over at the line she was talking about, I saw two men standing there. Both were buying 24 sudafed and both looked like they had been using meth for years. They were dirty and wearing torn clothing. I was made to go stand behind these men and thats when I noticed everyone else around, staring at me and suddenly acting as if I was such a horrible person. I was profiled simply because I was asking for one little box of pills to make me feel better.
What the stores and the law enforcement is doing, is wrong and it needs to be stopped. If I were ever in such a situation where I knew that I was not doing anything wrong but was arrested anyway, I'd fight it to the core! Which is what you shoulda done. When it comes down to it, the judge can not charge you when there is NO law against what you did.