EX-RETAILER ARGUES HIS AD WAS LEGAL

COLUMBIA - Attorneys for the former owner of a Richland County store
say it's not a crime to advertise a legal product even if customers
may want it to a beat drug test.

"Speech doesn't make the crime," attorney H. Louis Sirkin argued
before the S.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Edward Rothschild III has been fighting his 2000 conviction of
possessing a substance that can be used to defraud a drug or alcohol
test, saying the law violates his commercial speech rights.

Sirkin said his client had a First Amendment right to run an
advertisement in a local newspaper that read:

"Taking a drug test? Want to cleanse your system?"

In 1999, the State Law Enforcement Division responded to the ad for
Nicki's Novelty Store, where a clerk told an undercover agent a drink
called Zydot would hide the presence of marijuana in a drug test,
Sirkin said.

A Web site that sells Zydot says one hour after drinking it "your
urine may be pure for four hours."

Sirkin argued the product of Zydot is legal.

"It only becomes illegal when it is used in an illegal way," he
said.

"The person who uses the product with the purpose of defrauding a drug
test is the customer," Sirkin said.

But Assistant Attorney General Melody Brown said Rothschild ordered
Zydot to be sold to defraud drug tests, not to quench thirst.

Justice Costa Pleicones asked Brown for the proof. "Where do the
thought police stop?" he said.

Brown said Rothschild's advertisement shows his intent to sell the
products for the purpose of defrauding drug tests.

"Moreover, the presence of additional products, with the same
detoxifying purpose, indicates a lack of mistake or accident in the
assessment of the intent," court papers said.

The justices will issue a ruling on the case later.

Last year, the justices said the state could ban urine sales intended
to defraud drug tests.