Growing diabetic population fuels a black market Test strips, sold over the counter, are resold for quick profit By PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer Updated 08:21 a.m., Monday, January 30, 2012
COLONIE — He said his name was Brian when I called. I found him in the classifieds. He advertised that he wanted to buy diabetic test strips. I was posing as a seller with five boxes of One Touch Ultra Blues.
He didn't ask a lot of questions. "I can be there in 20 minutes," he said.
"How about an hour?"
"OK," he said. "$150 cash. Is that cool?"
"Cool."
The "deal" went down in the parking lot of the Colonie town library on Wednesday, midafternoon. He drove a silver Honda Fit. It was messy inside. He squeezed himself out of the little car, a heavy-set guy in his 20s. His dark eyes darted around the lot.
He groaned when I told him I was with the Times Union and that our photographer had just taken his picture with a telephoto lens. We might as well talk now, I shrugged.
"Am I in trouble?" he asked. "I'm a reasonable guy. I think I provide a service to the community. I don't believe I'm doing anything illegal."
His name is Brian "Jake" Tucker, 27, of Rotterdam. He has a state job working an overnight shift caring for developmentally disabled adults in a group home. He blamed his moonlighting in test strips on the reality TV show "Storage Wars." He loved the show, ended up going to a local auction and bought a repossessed storage unit a year ago for $5. It was filled mostly with junk, but in the back he found several boxes of diabetic test strips. He sold them on eBay and scored a quick profit. He was hooked......................>>>>..................>>>>...................Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/A-test-market-of-a-costly-kind-2794207.php#ixzz1l26TDd45
diabetes is insidious.....in alot of cases folks can control it if they make the effort, and it takes alot of effort, with minimal amount of strips.....
diet exercise lifestyle
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
These are the same low-lifes who buy baby formula with food stamps, sell it to some chump in a parking lot, get their drug money and leave their babies hungry. Same people using taxpayer money to fund their addictions.
these test strips cost these diabetics a fortune every month. Sure they get the 'reading machine' for nothing.....but it's the strips that are killing them.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
I've seen ads on craigslist etc looking to buy test strips and always wondered why, now I know.
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It's a risky business. Tucker drives to violence-prone neighborhoods when he gets a call that someone has test strips to sell. More than once he arrived, carrying hundreds in cash, but drove off quickly before the deal went down because his gut told him he might be robbed.
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(medicaid)
