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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.'"
Now all the tinkering is just done in labs that have access to "controlled" substances. It has the same effect. We have regulations to stop people who are a few neurons shy of a full brain (probably from playing with too many chemicals) harming themselves or others. There are many responsible people who can tinker with chemicals but there are many irresponsible ones who would end up seriously harming themselves or others, accidentally or on purpose.
I make soap, partially for fun and partially due to allergies. I had a neighbor say "You're allowed to do that?" with total disbelief. I also make bread (not on the same day), and had the same reaction.
I imagine that any kind of scientific exploration is viewed with distrust and quite a bit of fear. My son has recently discovered the world of electronics, and I feel bad for him since even radio shack doesn't carry what it used to.
I wonder if this shift is endemic in our country, from a nation of strivers to a nation purely of consumers.
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meh
have been done by hobbyists, i humbly submit this isn't possible anymore. all of the historical advances made by hobbyists were done decades ago, involving simple concepts. all advances today are not simple, but require the support of an advanced facility, simply because all of the fundamental, simple advances in chemistry have already been scoured
similar to hobbyist game makers of just 20, 30 years ago, and how there is no way they could compete on the same footing with modern mainline game studios and the high end graphical renderings they crank out
however, i also humbly submit that if you want to tinker in your shed, try genetics. genetics is still very much a frontier where the fundamentals are still being worked out, and although much equipment required for genetics research (centrifuges, gel electrophoresis, etc.) are still expensive, none of it is outside the realm of the committed hobbyist
i fully expect to see lone hackers working on the human genome in my lifetime. on the plus side, they break the monopoly of conglomerates who claim intellectual property over our genetic heritage. on the negative side, well, they are hacking the human genome. if the ethical considerations of that will give anyone pause
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Charles Goodyear figured out how to vulcanize rubber with the same stove that his wife used to bake the family's bread.
You should never use the same equipment for your chemistry as for your other household things. If you're going to do chemistry at home, do it safely. This means having a separate (well-ventilated) room for your work, and using separate ovens, microwave, glassware, and other equipment for your work. Chemical contamination is a real threat. You may look at a chemical reaction and deem all the reactants and products to be safe... but if you make a mistake you may contaminate a room/oven/glassware with a more dangerous side-product. And you do not want to be then ingesting these contaminants (worse, you do not want to expose your family and friends).
So, like I said, be safe and use dedicated equipment for your experiments. (And don't brush your teeth with the toothbrush you use to clean your test tubes.)
Don't let people experiment with stuff that they might be able to make a bomb out of, or a meth lab because we law enforcement agents can't tell the difference, and besides, only terrorists and criminals are interested in chemical reactions. right?
That says nothing about the fact that even if it is illegal, terrorists, criminals, and drug czar wannabes will still have their labs. This can only hurt the honest law abiding citizenry.
It's about time we had much less government interference, and more government support of engineering and entrepreneurship in these United States. Do you have any idea what it costs for a safe chem storage locker? If price is not enough, they put regulations out to make it near impossible to do simple things, never mind experiment with any chemicals.
Why would someone want to do that? Hmmm perhaps you might be looking for a heat transfer fluid for a closed system solar power electric generator. Perhaps you are experimenting to find the optimum chemical recipe for heat transfer fluid on a home/earth heating/cooling system for your area. Perhaps you are trying to create a cheap cleaning solution that is environmentally friendly. There are hundreds of reasons that someone might want to set up a chemistry lab at home for hobby use. I mean seriously, if you find a cheap clean easy method to convert old motor oil to some sort of valid fuel... go for it. Perhaps you find the exact chemical soup required for quickly biodegrading rubbish or plastics in a quick ecologically sound manner.
The roomba did not come from government research facilities or even Boeing or Lockheed-Martin. Why should we expect that all chemical discoveries would come from commercial enterprises? That's just fucking stupid.
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Today the terrorist CAN get hazardous chemicals.
Enough said.
America's culture of the 21st century is a culture of fear. People fear what they don't understand and because of the modern age of fear selling tactics. If people actually learned something in schools instead of public school being a social experiment, then the public might understand intelligent hobbyists such as this.
Instead, the media has labeled every science hobbyist as a mass murderer waiting fora chance to unleash their techno-death on the world!!! Mwuhahahah!!! Then it will be robot apocalypse!! Dogs and cats living together!! Mass hysteria!! YES!!!!
Without wishing to sound like a libertarian, this is true for a great many things that are regulated - from the outside those regulations either a) are totally uninteresting, or b) seem pretty reasonable. But when you're on the inside of whatever activity is being regulated it's often the case that you can see how stupid/harmful regulation is.
It's not unlike watching a news report on TV about something you're familiar with. You see how badly they butcher the subject, and then start wondering what they do to subjects you don't know about...
And chemical labs don't want people at home making any discoveries so the labs can make all of them and profit.
This is kind of like gun laws. All it really does is keep the stuff out of the hands of law abiding citizens. Most criminals aren't going to care if the substances they are using are illegal for them to have if they're going to use them to break the law anyway.
It's quite possible to make explosives and poisons using only household chemicals. *sighs* All it takes is a few weeks of study on the Internet, a decent library, and some systematic note-taking.
But you can't stop that sort of thing without prohibiting oft-used household chemicals. So it's not widely talked about.
The general public hasn't got a clue about what is or isn't dangerous, and neither do most of the Authorities. Starting with the police.
It's long since ceased to be about ensuring safety for neighbours and society at large, it's simply cover-your-backside regulation on part of otherwise clueless officials.
It's Ok that something's done to prevent people from building complete plastique factories and amphetamine laboratories in their basements, but with a little common sense and some understanding of chemicals it's s completely doable to safeguard the neighbourhood.
Register people with home laboratories if you must, but leave them alone. Like HAM radio amateurs.
Is this hypothetical idiot making nitroglycerin in a packed elevator? Do you have any real idea how much high explosive it takes to cause the kind of mayhem you're envisioning?
You want to see something that will really freak you out?
Go read up on Tannerite. This stuff is loads of fun, 50 state legal, and available over the internet. What you'll find even more amazing is that as far as I know, not a single person has died from it's use.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zubbles
After an unexplained breakthrough in his kitchen, he was able to produce blue bubbles.
Popular Science named them the "Innovation of the Year" for 2005, and Reader's Digest said they were one of the "Best Innovations" of the year in 2006.[1]
I suspect you are trolling, but the mods giving you +5 Interesting have apparently bought your post whole.
Yep, you can actually bake with a Dutch Oven. Crazy.
I must have been 7 or 8 when I got my first "ChemCraft" chemistry set for Christmas. By the time I was in Junior High, my best friend had a well-equipped chem lab in his basement, and I had one in an unused upstairs bedroom (my father even ran in gas for my bunsen burner). We used to make regular trips (driven by parents, of course) to a local science supply business to purchase glassware, chemicals, and such.
Now we have stupid paranoid lawmakers passing stupid paranoid laws, and even stupider fogbound bureaucratic government agencies enforcing the laws in a totally ham-handed manner.
Aaaarrrrgh!
Is there **ANY** way to get rid of all this idiotic nonsense?
(I could suggest that we elect Libertarians to **ALL** public and lawmaking posisitons, but I have a feeling that's not going to happen ... anyone have a better idea?)
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"give controlled access to chemicals to irresponsible people in a way that ensures no other people are harmed."
The irresponsible people are allowed to buy incredible amounts of extremely hazardous materials like fireworks, while many chemicals that require qualifications, to even know what to do with them, are heavily restricted.
But then, someone wishing to do harm to others, can cause a lot of damage with just some gasoline and a lighter. The chemical isn't the danger, its the actions and intentions of the people using it.
Therefore the solution isn't to be found in ever more extra controls and banning parts of chemistry, its to be found in psychology. (We have enough controls on chemistry to avoid accidents, but ever more controls can never stop some people causing intentional harm towards others).
The answer to this problem is actually easier, than the relentless government solution of continued prohibition, of anything else they detect that can be used to harm others. There will always be things that can be used to cause harm to others. There will also always be new things found that can cause harm to others. Prohibition will never work. Its always going to be less than required. Plus they cannot block everything. (Even a house brick can cause harm to others, so they cannot ban house bricks). The solution of prohibition of chemicals and even at times, knowledge itself cannot work.
Psychology shows why people cause harm to others, for their own gain. The harm is caused intentional, there is a reason why they choose to cause harm to others. Only when enough people learn how to recognize the psychology of the ones who cause harm towards others, can we finally move towards a world, without fear of people causing intentional harm to others.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
I grew up with a heroin lab on one side and a dog owner on the other. The dog owner was a constant irritation from day one, with the dog barking at all hours and crapping on the lawn. The heroin lab were decent neighbors who didn't really affect us until the night the cops came. Make all the meth/heroin/whatever you want, but keep your blasted dogs away, I say!
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
I don't care what "dangerous" chemicals terrorists or any other boogeyman can get their hands on in general. Thats because context matters: that's what compound(s), time, location, amount, etc. We can be reasonable about which chemicals are banned for the home hobbyist, which are restricted (by amount, or maybe a background check) without practically banning dihydrogen monoxide like we are now. Besides everyday household products can contain large amounts of dangerous chemicals anyway. If I want to make home-brew napalm without using any illegal chemicals, it'd be pretty easy to do (dangerous, but easy). Freedom is 100% dead long before you can get 100% security...which doesn't exist anyway.
Except it wasn't chemical labs passing these laws, most labs want to decrease the regulations so they don't have to waste their time following them when they don't make sense. Also as a general rule, most chemical companies have an interest in innovators at home. It seems to me that most research that goes on in those labs are things the average home chemist wouldn't be able to do in their garage. How many garages have NMR capabilities?
It seems to me then that competition from home labs is pretty limited. Anything you DID discover in your basement that would compete with a major chemical lab would probably be very interesting to that chemical lab, because they could replicate it themselves for cheaper.
Anyway, your conspiracy theory is a bit ridiculous.
It's one thing if a city or HOA wants to limit the kind of chemicals and experiments people can play with in their jurisdiction, but blanket federal laws about it are a different story because they affect the guy living 50 miles from a paved road just a much as someone living in a 200 foot^2 apartment in Manhattan.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
In defense of the gun people, anytime a really bad government comes along high up on their "todo" list is to take away arms. They realize that there is only so far you can push an armed populace. This makes gun rights a political barrier much more than home chemistry labs. Hats off to them.
I hate to tell you this, but killing 20 people is already illegal. I know it's a shocker, but it's true.
Now if that same idiot decided to get up to 60 in his car and swerve onto the sidewalk, he could also kill those 20 people. Or if he decided to grab *insert any tool here* and go on a rampage, well, it might not be 20, or it might be more.
In no instance will any new laws keep someone who wishes to cause harm from doing so. Perhaps it may impact the scale, but there is as great a chance that it would result in a creative burst (i.e. thinking out side the box) and result in more harm. With the car example, said idiot may in fact kill 30 by doing something different.
The long and the short of it is this: You can't regulate crazy.
Any attempt at balance is limiting those who never would cause harm in order to *possibly* halt the few who would. As I stated above, murder is already a crime, yet it is not onerous because it does not limit us, rather it punishes those who choose to break from societal bounds. Chemicals, alcohol, drugs, and firearms, while potentially dangerous, do not in and of them selves provide the impetus for causing harm. Any harm that comes from such items is the result of choice, and no law can make people make good decisions.
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In the U.S., consumer fireworks are regulated - and legal purchases in "incredible amounts" is difficult and expensive.
The Federal Hazardous Substances Act, prohibits the sale of the most dangerous types of fireworks to consumers. These banned fireworks include large reloadable mortar shells, cherry bombs, aerial bombs, M-80 salutes and larger firecrackers containing more than two grains of powder. Also banned are mail-order kits designed to build these fireworks.
In a regulation that went into effect December 6, 1976, the CPSC lowered the permissible charge in firecrackers to no more than 50 milligrams of powder. In addition, these amended regulations provide performance specifications for fireworks other than firecrackers intended for consumer use, including a requirement that fuses burn at least 3 seconds, but no longer than 9 seconds. All fireworks must carry a warning label describing necessary safety precautions and instructions for safe use.
The Commission has issued a performance requirement to reduce the risk of potentially dangerous tip-over of large multiple tube mine and shell devices. Tip-over of these devices has resulted in two fatalities. Consumer Product Safety Commission: Fireworks Fact Sheet
The fact sheet summarizes state regulations as of June 1, 2008.
If you want to do chemistry, why not do not do within the framework of a chemistry club - associated, perhaps, with a local high school or community college?
This is - after all - how many dangerous sports and recreational activities have been organized for a century and more.
You want to work with antique sporting arms?
Join a black powder gun club. You'll learn more and learn it more quickly - while still keeping your eyebrows intact and all ten fingers.
You're quite right. You're forgetting one thing, however. Governments excel at banning things. They tend to do poorly at critical thinking tasks, such as "evaluate where the real problem is".
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
This is what happens when society's understanding of responsibility becomes corrupted.
Communist 5th columnists have been working very hard to poison our society with the notion of "group responsibility." Instead of individuals being responsible for their actions alone, secondary and tertiary participants in that action are made to shoulder the blame as well, regardless of whether they were aware of their participation or not.
When Chernobyl blew up, everyone who worked at the plant was punished, even people who were not there at the time and had absolutely no responsibility for the disaster whatsoever. The concept of "group responsibility" was and is a central part of communist ideology. In the Soviet Union it kept everyone paranoid and distrustful, making the society as a whole easier for the thugs at the top to abuse and oppress.
The same insanity has been creeping into our society as well. Suing a store because it sold a perfectly legal device to someone who then used it to commit a crime is absurd and abusive. That case should have been dismissed with prejudice and the lawyer representing the plaintiff censured, if not disbarred.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Regulations are always supported by insiders as a way to protect themselves from outsiders.
Blanket statements are always wrong. ;-P Seriously, that is not the reasoning for these laws, and there aren't "outs" for big corporations. Home labs only get noticed when the fire department comes. Big labs have scheduled inspections.
There is a simple, logical reason why chemicals are so heavily regulated. It's because too many people have experimented in the past, and that cost often
Question: what does a person do with their failed (or even successful) projects? Well, there's going to be refuse - chemical byproducts - for nearly any reaction, and they're not mostly going to be harmless gases which will float away.
They are, more than likely, going to be water soluble or suspended in water, to one degree or another. Most reasonably advanced science projects will result in waste equivalent to pouring lead powder in someone's water softener.
For instance, let's say someone's experimenting with metals, like maybe stainless steel electrodes in their quest for world conquest or free power, or some such rot. Stainless steel used as electrodes for electrolysis will... get this, result in chromate byproducts. You know, those nasty things which are highly regulated by the EPA, have MSDS with big angry words on them, and generally anger a lot of people when poured down drains due to the impact on plant and animal life. Apparently it kills shit and prevents new shit from growing.
And that's just one idea off the top of my head while this kind of regulation is a "good" thing. There is no liberty for an individual in this; it's selfishness.
There comes a point of diminished return for the society to allow for people to tinker with things they don't quite understand, and to require a high threshold for entry. Encourage that entry, yes; but people are much more likely, at this point, to rediscover a hundred thousand mistakes, and maybe a couple dozen pre-existing discoveries, than to make a genuine discovery using commonly available chemicals. Just not going to happen.
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