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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.'"
Solution: give controlled access to chemicals to irresponsible people in a way that ensures no other people are harmed. No more irresponsible people => problem solved.
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
Most recently, a man fooling around with a home chemistry set discovered that gold flakes of a certain size heat up in the presence of low energy microwaves. Yes all metals do this, but the gold particles heated up at such a low energy that you could swallow the gold and get your body exposed to microwaves that do no significant damage except to the parts of your body that are touching the gold. As it was already known that tumors tend to accumulate heavy metals, it created a cancer treatment.
The original discovery was done within the last 10 years, no 20, and was done at someone's home, not in a lab.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Nonsense. The problem is that drug laws and enforcement (particulary in the US) are insanely draconian. Prohibition doesn't work; I think we have enough empirical evidence of that now. Legalise currently illegal drugs and we can actually start tackling problem drug use in a sensible way.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
I managed a Radio Shack store, 01-896*, in Florida.
Radio Shack stopped carrying most things due to liability. They even got sued for a kid coming in, getting a reed switch, and using it to kill his parents (true story).
From that point on, we where TOLD not to answer any questions, since answering a question can lead to legal actions against both you and the store (it's that entire helping the bad guy thing).
There are still some good kits available on the internet. Check out Google, it's your friend.
--Toll_Free
When I was in High School, I set up a full lab, with the full array of chemicals like Sulfuric Acid, Hydrazine, Ethyl Acetoacetate etc etc. I learned a tremendous amount and made some interesting chemicals, but in hindsight I have serious reservations:
1) Most people will have a very hard time coping with hazardous waste in a proper fashion, and the temptation to cut corners will be irresistible.
2) If you look at the current state of chemical research, you'll see that the home hobbyist *HAS NO CHANCE* of keeping pace with a modern research lab. Palladium catalysts? Glove Boxes? Preparative Chromatography? NMR? Organometallic chemistry? Suzuki couplings? If you want to advance the state of the art and make meaningful contributions you need heavy tools nowadays. Yes, you might find something interesting, but most all of the easy chemicals have been made.
3) The risk of fire, explosion and toxic contamination is very real. Someone trying to distill a liter of THF in their garage is asking for trouble, and if my neighbor was doing this I would be very concerned.
If someone wants to spend $600,000 and lease space in an industrial park, more power to 'em, but it doesn't sound like a hobby at that point.
I eventually packed everything up and took it to a 'hazardous material collection day' run by the local fire department. They were quite surprised, and it all went off to a HazMat landfill.
"Radio Shack stopped carrying most things due to liability. They even got sued for a kid coming in, getting a reed switch, and using it to kill his parents (true story)."
A) [citation needed]
B) Radio Shack carries reed switches. I bought one last week.
They don't carry the variety of basic components they used to, because consumer gadgets are more profitable; but they carry some. So I think your liability story is BS.
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 get the same reaction -- I homebrew my own beer and mead. It's fun, and much cheaper to make yourself if you like specialty or hoppy beers. (If you like Bud Miller Coors, don't bother, you can't compete on those economics).
I've been asked, if everyone brewed their own beer, "wouldn't that hurt American jobs"?
I'm convinced that 90% of America is incapable of critical thinking, and if you could get them to watch movies like Brazil or Dr. Strangelove or The Mist.. they would NOT get the irony. Another 5% would get it but pretend otherwise, knowing it would be dangerous to irritate a mob. I'm also convinced this explains the popularity of Fox News: catering to the lowest denominator... at least until the economic shit hit the fan.