Originally posted by microcosmicus
Over and above whether one thinks amphetamines should be legal or
illegal, over and above considerations of what this is doing to home
chemistry, even to science in general, there is the troubling issue that
the this approach to enforcing the law via proscribing chemicals perverts
basic, well established legal principles. Namely, to prove a crime, especially
an attempted crime, one is expected to demonstrate means, motive and
opportunity. Here, however, means alone are being propounded as sufficient.
Therefore, It is one thing to say "Anyone caught cooking meth deserves
exactly what they get.." and quite another to say "Anyone caught buying a
list 1 chemical deserves exactly what they get.". To illustrate, suppose that
someone were in contact with known drug dealers, were actively swimming
around cook listservers looking for information, had only chemicals
and apparatus related to meth cookery in his lab, and got caught ordering
phosphorous. In that case, I think most of us would agree that this person
was trying to cook meth. However, if somebody else happened to order
phosphorous, but also had a varied supply of chemicals one would expect in
a chemical laboratory on theshelf and there was no evidence linking him to
drug dealers or cooks. I would have a lot of reasonable doubts that this person
was cooking drugs and think he should be acquitted. Ordinarily, conspiracy
cases are hard to prove but, in the zeal to enforce this law on drugs, the
safeguards have been set aside to make convicting easy. This is particularly the
case for Texas law.
To underscore how lopsided this is, let us apply the same standard to a
different situation, bike stealing. Suppose that someone happened to
spend a lot of time hanging around bike racks, was seen in a chop
shop, and got caught after picking up a bolt cutter from the hardware
store and heading towards a bike rack at a time when there were
few people around. Under those circumstances, a good case could
be made that that person intended to steal a bike and would have
carried through with his plan had he not been stopped. However,
it would be a quite a different matter if someone were accused
solely on the basis of owning a boltcutter and picks with no evidence
to indicate that that person was preparing to put them to use in theivery.
As for predictions, I think Cl2 is next. Maybe I'll say more about this later,
but the sense I get is that the focus of attention of the feds has shifted from
drug dealers to terrorists --- in particular, think of Operation Green
Cloud. As for iodine, I would not be surprised if, in a few years, once
the tightening on ephedrine runs the cooks out of business, lobbying
from horse breeders and the like will lead to the restrictions on I2 being
lifted to what they were a year ago. However, if things stay their
current course, this may be little cause for rejoicing as other things we
now take for granted could be banned --- maybe possession of a chlorate
cell will constitute proof that one is a terrorist improvising explosives,
for instance. Of course, P is equally well suited for incendiary devices,
so fat chance of seeing it legalized. As far as elements go, in the
thread on the DHS list, some people mentioned that Ge is
being watched. |
