Liquid Tide is the new drug currency

[sureLoss]

http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/03...ide-theft-1-4/

Theft of Tide detergent has become so rampant that authorities from New York to Oregon are keeping tabs on the soap spree, and some cities are setting up special task forces to stop it. And retailers like CVS are taking special security precautions to lock down the liquid.

One Tide taker in West St. Paul, Minn., made off with $25,000 in the product over 15 months before he was busted last year.

“That was unique that he stole so much soap,” said West St. Paul Police Chief Bud Shaver. “The name brand is [all] Tide. Amazing, huh?”

Tide has become a form of currency on the streets. The retail price is steadily high — roughly $10 to $20 a bottle — and it’s a staple in households across socioeconomic classes.

Tide can go for $5 to $10 a bottle on the black market, authorities say. Enterprising laundry soap peddlers even resell bottles to stores.

“There’s no serial numbers and it’s impossible to track,” said Detective Larry Patterson of the Somerset, Ky., Police Department, where authorities have seen a huge spike in Tide theft. “It’s the item to steal.”

...

“We sent in an informant to buy drugs. The dealer said, ‘I don’t have drugs, but I could sell you 15 bottles of Tide,’ ” Sprague told The Daily. “Upstairs in the drug dealer’s bedroom was about 14 bottles of Tide laundry soap. We think [users] are trading it for drugs.”

Police in Gresham, Ore., said most Tide theft is perpetrated by “users feeding their habit.”

“They’ll do it right in front of a cop car — buying heroin or methamphetamine with Tide,” said Detective Rick Blake of the Gresham Police Department. “We would see people walking down the road with six, seven bottles of Tide. They were so blatant about it.”

[Josh]

Nice to see Oregon in the news, Gresham is a meth haven.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Tide?? That is just so........wow.

How does something like that start? Tide???

[saskflames69]

It does smell good, and I have always wanted to drink it, even though I'm afraid of what would happen next. Who knows? Maybe it gets you high.

[RogerWilco]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Tide?? That is just so........wow.

How does something like that start? Tide???

Well, it makes your clothes smell so... I don't know...clean. The stuff rocks!!!

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Tide?? That is just so........wow.

How does something like that start? Tide???

Is this an early April Fools' Day prank?

[Sr. Mints]

Tide should try and capitalize on this and include it some how in their marketing campaigns.

"When those stuck in the cracks of society want to smell fresh, they only use the best!"

[SebC]

Originally Posted by saskflames96

It does smell good, and I have always wanted to drink it, even though I'm afraid of what would happen next. Who knows? Maybe it gets you high.

Must be a Sask thing.

[Rathji]

I kept looking for an obvious indication that it was a joke, but could find none.

snopes seems to indicate that the original article might be a bit overblown, but not (entirely) factually inaccurate

[Hack&Lube]

What the hell? Tide is one of the most difficult things to shoplift.

Huge nuclear-neon orange jug the size of a watermelon and weighing like a bowling bowl? YEAH LET'S STEAL THAT!

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

What the hell? Tide is one of the most difficult things to shoplift.

Huge nuclear-neon orange jug the size of a watermelon and weighing like a bowling bowl? YEAH LET'S STEAL THAT!

It's precisely for that reason that it'd be easy to steal. It's so innocuous that nobody would pay any attention to it.

[Superflyer]

I could have sworn this was coming from the onion. Weird.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by saskflames96

It does smell good, and I have always wanted to drink it, even though I'm afraid of what would happen next. Who knows? Maybe it gets you high.

The news report is a bit confusing . . . . . it seems the bottom line is people are not drinking Tide to get high.

Drug Users are stealing Tide and using it as a medium of exchange to get drugs.

Drug Dealers are accepting Tide as currency in exchange for drugs because they have a means, apparently, of disposing of it for cash at a consistent and reliable level.

The beautiful barbarity and purity of a barter culture.

Cowperson

[VladtheImpaler]

No more crack whores? Now we have Tide whores.

[freedogger]

One more sign that the reserve status of the US dollar is waning.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

No more crack whores? Now we have Tide whores.

An altogether cleaner brand of whore.

Well, I guess I'll do it:

"This gives a whole new meaning to the term....(glasses) money laundering....."

YYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

[Regular_John]

Is this some kinda bizarre status symbol?

Like people see the tide in your home and it's like "damn, they've got Tide, they must be rolling in it!". Even by crack head/addict standards this is still pretty stupid.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by freedogger

One more sign that the reserve status of the US dollar is waning.

Commodities should be traded via jugs of Tide, 8 jugs for 1 barrel of sweet light crude.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

What the hell? Tide is one of the most difficult things to shoplift.

Huge nuclear-neon orange jug the size of a watermelon and weighing like a bowling bowl? YEAH LET'S STEAL THAT!

With all the Anti-shoplifting policies that are in place in retail organizations, you can't just punch a theif in the face anymore or take him down.

A lot of theives, and I mean a lot, load up carts with 200-300$ and simply walk out the store with little resistance.

People sell them on the cheap to those "independant" grocery stores for resale.

[Lobotroth]

They aren't clean but at least their clothes are.