I just read this on the Blogosphere
Scott Kerr
Who do you think is next?
Bryan Bishop
> http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/when_they_criminalize_chemistr.php
>
> Who do you think is next?
The article:
"""
Another casualty in the War on Drugs: an enthusiastic science student,
of the sort that would normally go on to be a scientist, is arrested
for having a chemistry lab.
A Canadian college student majoring in chemistry built himself a home
lab - and discovered that trying to do science in your own home
quickly leads to accusations of drug-making and terrorism.
Lewis Casey, an 18-year-old in Saskatchewan, had built a small
chemistry lab in his family's garage near the university where he
studies. Then two weeks ago, police arrived at his home with a search
warrant and based on a quick survey of his lab determined that it was
a meth lab. They pulled Casey out of the shower to interrogate him,
and then arrested him.
A few days later, police admitted that Casey's chemistry lab wasn't a
meth lab - but they kept him in jail, claiming that he had some of the
materials necessary to produce explosives. Friends and neighbors wrote
dozens of letters to the court, testifying that Casey was innocent and
merely a student who is really enthusiastic about chemistry.
Errm, having the "materials necessary to produce explosives" is an
awfully low bar to set. If we're going to go that route, let's round
up and arrest all the farmers — they've got fuel oil and fertilizer in
bulk, and are a far more serious danger.
"""
I just got done glancing at the link up on Slashdot today with an
RIAA-related case:
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/28/2215211
.. the arguments that were made are sad. "Does anybody here use file
sharing applications?" *no hands*. And yet nearly every one of them
said they use email, or a web browser. What utter failure of
understanding.
Aaron Hicks
Locally, they sell 50-pound sacks of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Provided one has the money, you could walk in and buy a pallet of the stuff- no questions asked (although you might get some odd looks from the staff- but ask them if you could pin a copy of you bogus "Lawn and Garden" business card on their "Services" board, and they wouldn't think twice).
But if you were to have half a pound of high purity, double-recrystallized ammonium nitrate from Fluka, it would probably be cause for a visit by a HAZ-MAT team, and maybe the BATF. Certainly the county bomb squad would come out.
Now- the AN prill is made in two fashions: one is smooth, like a ping-pong ball. This is for fertilizer use. The other sort is coarse and porous, which is for explosives use as it absorbs and retains fuel more readily. The manufacturer can label and sell the explosives-grade stuff as fertilizer if they run out of bags- but they can't label fertilizer stuff for explosives. So there's always a chance the stuff at Agway will be explosives-grade, packaged as fertilizer.
Yet somehow the crystalline form- arguably the worst for use as a detonable compound- would still be perceived as a grave risk, causing your neighbors homes to be evacuated. Substitute the "Fluka" label with "Fertilizer," and I doubt they'd do the same thing.
Someone remind me how that's a terrorist act, but crashing and burning the economy and getting paid $700 billion to do so isn't.
Rant off. Back to the lab.
-AJ
Daniel C.
> Locally, they sell 50-pound sacks of ammonium nitrate fertilizer.
Where is "locally"? I thought selling ammonium nitrate was illegal in
the US any more?
-DTC
Aaron Hicks
http://www.gsnmagazine.com/cms/features/news-analysis/1127.html
But I would think that the purveyors of instant cold-packs- which use the endotherm of water + ammonium nitrate to get very cold- would be disappointed if that were the case.
Note towards the bottom that the last date for comments to be accepted is December 29th.
-AJ