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Obviously retail pseudoephedrine was never a substantial contributor to methamphetamine production (tell me again why that’s illegal?). Which raises the questi

Obviously retail pseudoephedrine was never a substantial contributor to methamphetamine production (tell me again why that’s illegal?). Which raises the question, what what the real goal in preventing people from buying functional medicines? Frankly I think the specific intent was exactly this. The main effect was to cause human suffering and Occams razor tells me the main effect was probably the intended effect.

qeternity 3y ago
> Occams razor I think Hanlon's razor is more appropriate. Somewhere there was a team of people in the government who worked untold hours studying this, proposing solutions and ultimately having change enacted. This would have been good for career progression for all involved, not because it was actually good, but simply because they did something. And therein lies government.
- paulmd 3y ago
  Hanlon’s razor is a thought-terminating cliche in most circumstances. Malice exists very frequently, as does profit-seeking or other motives that are indistinguishable from malice, and it's not at all the same thing as occam's "don't say god did it when there's a perfectly good mortal explanation" razor. It's essentially "memetic mimicry", where a second meme rides on the coattails of the first one, simply by obeying the overall form of the first meme so that its credibility "transfers over" to the second one. Like a common snake imitating a dangerous venomous one. In the DEAs case it was literally confirmed to be operating on malice since at least the Nixon and Reagan years, when it was overtly and publicly wielded as a weapon to disrupt hippies and black communities, specifically. There is absolutely no reason to assume good-faith when law enforcement is involved, and it is in fact a waste of the openness of your mind to do so. Go be open-minded about something else, literally anyone deserves that more than actual literal drug cops. > “You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich...
flashback2199 3y ago
> methamphetamine production (tell me again why that’s illegal? Because it ruins people's lives, that's why.
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  And the vast majority of people who make it don't have proper chemistry training, lab equipment, PPE, or pure chemicals to make pharmaceutical grade methamphetamine with no impurities or unreacted reagents. I'm all for medicine that helps people and amphetamines absolutely can, but methamphetamine doesn't help people. It enslaves them.
  - mikrotikker 3y ago
    Get the govt to make it properly, give it out for free in treatment centres where they have to consume it, giving an interface to the addicts for mental health and drug rehab staff (or have a trapdoor that sends the addicts to a gator pond when they walk in the door)
    - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
      Shall the addicts stay in the treatment center while they are high? Or will the treatment center release them after checking vitals to allow them to go do what they want to when high (which for many addicts is "have as much sex as time will allow")
      - mikrotikker 3y ago
        Maybe they go into the gator pond _after_ getting high and the staff can take bets on it
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  Over-criminalization of society, and the fall out from the "war on drugs" has ruined far far far far far more lives then illegal drug abuse ever could or would That is with out getting into the debate on if it is even ethical for a government to regulation what a person consumes, even if you believe it is the current method of criminalization and prohibition is not effective in the stated goal of reducing drug use/abuse, a lesson we should have learned as a society with the passage of the 18th amendment and its repeal the 21st amendment Of course that is not the real goal but .....
malaya_zemlya 3y ago
>Obviously retail pseudoephedrine was never a substantial contributor to methamphetamine production I don't know how it compares to organzied production, but people certainly do cook meth from retail pseudoephedrine. In my neck of woods, it's a fairly popular pasttime, since all ingredients can be purchased in a single trip to a shopping mall.

qeternity 3y ago

> Occams razor I think Hanlon's razor is more appropriate. Somewhere there was a team of people in the government who worked untold hours studying this, proposing solutions and ultimately having change enacted. This would have been good for career progression for all involved, not because it was actually good, but simply because they did something. And therein lies government.

paulmd 3y ago
Hanlon’s razor is a thought-terminating cliche in most circumstances. Malice exists very frequently, as does profit-seeking or other motives that are indistinguishable from malice, and it's not at all the same thing as occam's "don't say god did it when there's a perfectly good mortal explanation" razor. It's essentially "memetic mimicry", where a second meme rides on the coattails of the first one, simply by obeying the overall form of the first meme so that its credibility "transfers over" to the second one. Like a common snake imitating a dangerous venomous one. In the DEAs case it was literally confirmed to be operating on malice since at least the Nixon and Reagan years, when it was overtly and publicly wielded as a weapon to disrupt hippies and black communities, specifically. There is absolutely no reason to assume good-faith when law enforcement is involved, and it is in fact a waste of the openness of your mind to do so. Go be open-minded about something else, literally anyone deserves that more than actual literal drug cops. > “You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich...

flashback2199 3y ago

> methamphetamine production (tell me again why that’s illegal? Because it ruins people's lives, that's why.

I_Am_Nous 3y ago
And the vast majority of people who make it don't have proper chemistry training, lab equipment, PPE, or pure chemicals to make pharmaceutical grade methamphetamine with no impurities or unreacted reagents. I'm all for medicine that helps people and amphetamines absolutely can, but methamphetamine doesn't help people. It enslaves them.
- mikrotikker 3y ago
  Get the govt to make it properly, give it out for free in treatment centres where they have to consume it, giving an interface to the addicts for mental health and drug rehab staff (or have a trapdoor that sends the addicts to a gator pond when they walk in the door)
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    Shall the addicts stay in the treatment center while they are high? Or will the treatment center release them after checking vitals to allow them to go do what they want to when high (which for many addicts is "have as much sex as time will allow")
    - mikrotikker 3y ago
      Maybe they go into the gator pond _after_ getting high and the staff can take bets on it
phpisthebest 3y ago
Over-criminalization of society, and the fall out from the "war on drugs" has ruined far far far far far more lives then illegal drug abuse ever could or would That is with out getting into the debate on if it is even ethical for a government to regulation what a person consumes, even if you believe it is the current method of criminalization and prohibition is not effective in the stated goal of reducing drug use/abuse, a lesson we should have learned as a society with the passage of the 18th amendment and its repeal the 21st amendment Of course that is not the real goal but .....

malaya_zemlya 3y ago

>Obviously retail pseudoephedrine was never a substantial contributor to methamphetamine production I don't know how it compares to organzied production, but people certainly do cook meth from retail pseudoephedrine. In my neck of woods, it's a fairly popular pasttime, since all ingredients can be purchased in a single trip to a shopping mall.