Slashdot Mirror
How Regulations Hamper Chemical Hobbyists
An anonymous reader writes "Chemical & Engineering News just ran this story that relates how government regulations create a terribly restrictive atmosphere for people who do chemistry as a hobby. (A related story was previously posted.)" The article gives some examples of why hamfisted regulations are harmful even to those who aren't doing the chemistry themselves: "Hobby chemists will tell you that home labs have been the source of some of chemistry's greatest contributions. Charles Goodyear figured out how to vulcanize rubber with the same stove that his wife used to bake the family's bread. Charles Martin Hall discovered the economical electrochemical process for refining aluminum from its ore in a woodshed laboratory near his family home. A plaque outside Sir William Henry Perkin's Cable Street residence in London notes that the chemist 'discovered the first aniline dyestuff, March 1856, while working in his home laboratory on this site and went on to found science-based industry.'"
There are very few such labs which allow "tinkering". Such labs tend to be run either by for-profit entities which expect you to do profitable work, or research insttitutions which expect you to do work which will get you grants.
In any case, the authorites come down even on non-controlled substances, as the article indicates. What chemists consider "dangerous" isn't the same as what the authorites do. From the article, one Nobel Prize winning chemist talking about his home lab: "I don't have anything that is dangerous in my lab. I have many chemicals in small amounts--salts and buffers" as well as some organic solvents, such as methanol, Shimomura says."
Methanol is both highly toxic and highly flammable. That's what the authorities would call "dangerous" if they raided his lab (though they wouldn't blink at gasoline). I'm guessing many of those salts are at least poisonous.
A trip to Home Depot can net some interesting stuff too. Sulfuric acid, Hydrochloric acid, and Potassium Hydroxide, all sold right next to each other in the plumbing aisle.
Get your PDF copy here while you still can of the number one classic kids chemical experiment book that's been banned from libraries for decades.
You can find methanol - and a bunch of other toxic, flammable solvents - at a good hardware or auto supply store. Most gas-line dryers are methanol. Just keep your methanol in a Heet bottle and you won't get a second look.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I'm not so sure that I agree with all statements, and the concept only truly works when everyone has the time and desire to become fully informed about each decision. Anything less than that and we just have a large group of people thinking that they are making a choice when they have only been presented with one option.
As for your definition of oppression, you have that completely backwards as the oppression is an action of one being on an another. One cannot oppress his or herself. Anarchy may LEAD to oppression when one person or group begins forcing another to do something against their will, but Anarchy in its purist form is the exact opposite of oppression. I think a more appropriate word for your definition would be detrimental or damaging. Law enforcement uses a monopoly of force to oppress certain targets, since Oppression is "using power to empower and/or privilege a group at the expense of disempowering, marginalizing, silencing, and subordinating another". Arresting someone is directly oppression. It may be helpful to society to do so, and anarchy would then be detrimental to society and humanity.
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
(HINT: Sulfuric Acid and Potassium Hydroxide neutralize each other and the resultant material is plain old H2O. Throw in some Hydrochloric acid and you have acidic water.)
Hint: when those two mix it produces a lot of heat so I would hope that the good people of Home Depot really don't store them next to each other.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
It's sad but true, the only one these laws really stop is experimenters. If I wanted to buy a three neck flask (not the most common lab equipment, but still used in a whole lot of syntheses) I can't legally in some states. Is outlawing a piece of glass going to stop drug makers from getting it?
The thing to remember about people making drugs, is that chemistry isn't a hobby for them. If they need something, and it'll cost them $50 extra so that they can smuggle it into their state, or set up a fake business to get something shipped to, that isn't a problem for them.
But for the hobbyist, unless they want to become a criminal to do their chemistry a little more safely, there's no way they're going to be able to get what they need.
In a lot of ways it's cyclical. Ban the tools people need to do chemistry safely, someone gets harmed doing chemistry because they can't get what they need, ban more chemistry equipment from hobbyists.