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pantone159
National Hazard
Posts: 590
Registered: 27-6-2006
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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Mood: desperate for shade
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| Quote: | Originally posted by BethanyHalford
I've been making a lot of calls to federal, state, and local authorities, and I have to say that in the few cases where there are laws (usually on a
local level), they're pretty vague. |
The Texas law is a case of being both specific and vague at the same time. Chapter 481 of the Health & Safety Code
http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/statutes/hs.toc.htm
has an itemized listing of apparatus for which a permit is needed, it has such well defined terms such as:
(53)(K) a transformer;
(53)(N) an adaptor tube.
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watson.fawkes
International Hazard
Posts: 2793
Registered: 16-8-2008
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Mood: No Mood
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| Quote: | Originally posted by BethanyHalford
I've been making a lot of calls to federal, state, and local authorities, and I have to say that in the few cases where there are laws (usually on a
local level), they're pretty vague. |
Vagueness frequently means "unconstitutional". This was the case with
the first California "assault weapons" ban, which was overturned just on these grounds.
| Quote: | Originally posted by pantone159
The Texas law is a case of being both specific and vague at the same time. Chapter 481 of the Health & Safety Code
http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/statutes/hs.toc.htm
has an itemized listing of apparatus for which a permit is needed, it has such well defined terms such as:
(53)(K) a transformer;
(53)(N) an adaptor tube. |
Thanks for that reference. I went and read up the relevant sections relating to
"chemical laboratory apparatus". The vagueness starts right in the definition:
| Quote: | from CHAPTER 481. TEXAS CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES ACT
(53) "Chemical laboratory apparatus" means any item of equipment designed, made, or adapted to manufacture a controlled substance or a controlled
substance analogue, including: |
So the definition of "what's controlled" contains within it a concept of
<b>purpose</b>. The definition of apparatus includes only items <b>for</b> manufacturing controlled substances. This would
encompass, clearly, the work of a cook who did his own glassblowing. It would also include the glassware that a cook bought and then set up for a
synthesis of a controlled substance. But the definition itself doesn't include, not within the text itself, glassware bought for other purposes. This
is a definition similar that for other context-dependent items, such as lockpicks and drug paraphernalia. But the regulation that follows that
definition has no sensitivity to context. There's merely a presumption that all such items have that purpose and thus need control.
From a justice standpoint, this is intolerable. It's impossible to have justice under a law that asserts a potentially illicit purpose by mere
possession of an item with multiple uses. This is worse than thoughtcrime. It's the assertion that you have already committed thoughtcrime simply by
possessing something, whether or not you had thoughts even related to prohibited actions.
This vagueness is the center of a potential legal challenge. If the ACS had the political courage to defend the entire praxis pipeline of both its
current members and its future members, it would sue to overturn this law. Getting standing is easy. Have a Texas resident pay for a flask from out of
state. Find a seller who will hold the item in question until the case is resolved. Sue the state of Texas for declaratory relief, asking the court to
throw out the apparatus provisions because of the vagueness of the definition.
But I have no expectation that the requisite political courage is present.
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Jdurg
Hazard to Others
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Location: Connecticut, USA
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I don't think a lot of people here have contacted their local or state authorities about the laws regarding chemistry labs due to the publicity it
would bring to them. Home chemists have become an underground group of people in fear that the hobby they love so much will be ripped right out of
their hands.
These analogies may be somewhat harsh, but I think they are true. A home chemist calling his/her local and/or state authorities about the legality of
a chemistry lab is akin to:
A runaway slave asking a local white-man where the nearest underground railroad gathering is.
A Jewish individual in WWII Germany calling up the Nazi's and asking if it's illegal to hide in his attic.
The level of severity may not be the same, but the atrocity behind it is.
\"A real fart is beefy, has a density greater than or equal to the air surrounding it, consists of the unmistakable scent of broccoli, and usually
requires wiping afterwards.\"
http://maddox.xmission.com. |
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chloric1
International Hazard
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Location: GroupVII of the periodic table
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Yes well, that being said, the vaugueness to me implies that I do not need to concern myself with said laws since I have no intentions in illegal
activities. Of coarse that arguement will never hold in court. It might keep me out of jail but I doubt I will get my confiscated goods or
reparations for damages.
So, I have come up with some ground rules to keep encounters with law enforcement unlikely.
1. Always keep chemicals and glassware out of plain site and preferrable in a locked cabinet, shed, or closet.
2. Reactions involving large amounts of chemicals, filtering, should be done indoors in privacy or outdoors at odd hours if noxious vapors are an
issue.
3. Be very cautious about who you discuss you activites with ,and if you do divulge in discussion, make sure its someone that does not know your exact
address.
4. This relates to rule 1 but if you are expecting a meter reader, a UPS delivery, or other visitors be sure to not leave out suspicous reagents or
apparatus.
Fellow molecular manipulator
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Magpie
lab constructor
Posts: 5939
Registered: 1-11-2003
Location: USA
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Mood: Chemistry: the subtle science.
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Although a given home lab may be perfectly legal according to the letter of the law, I don't think that contacting the authorities with questions
about it is adviseable.
The public, the media, and the police are highly prejudiced concerning personal chemistry and home labs. This, as we all know, is the result of
terrorism and illegal drug making on a worldwide scale over the past few decades. This allows and even encourages the police to act like bullies
when it comes to home labs. It doesn't matter that they are likely breaking the law and trampling on the lab owner's rights. They have public
opinion on their side.
Unfortunately the home chemist of today can very much identify with a negro living in the South in the 60's or a jew living in Nazi Germany.
[Edited on 6-11-2008 by Magpie]
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BromicAcid
International Hazard
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Location: Wisconsin
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Did anyone else here give Bethany Halford a call?
For those interested, the deadline for the article has passed and the article has been submitted for publication, she will be posting here again with
the hyperlink once the article has been published.
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
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Mood: Waiting for spring
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I talked to her. It should be out on the 10th, she said.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
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The_Davster
A pnictogen
Posts: 2861
Registered: 18-11-2003
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Mood: .
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I have access to print copies of C&EN news, I will be watching for the article.
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BethanyHalford
Harmless
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Registered: 10-10-2008
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Thanks to everyone who offered guidance for my article. You can read it online here (it's available to the public, not just ACS members).
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Rosco Bodine
Banned
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Registered: 29-9-2004
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Mood: analytical
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Dr. Beth,
Visit any time this collection of old druid alchemists and young apprentices, we will keep the drawbridge down for you. The missing component for
the new health and energy plans is powdered extract of gryphon claw, so
we shall all have job security for at least the next four years to be engaged in its cooperative pursuit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkYB9rOiinc
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Magpie
lab constructor
Posts: 5939
Registered: 1-11-2003
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Chemistry: the subtle science.
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Ms Halford,
Thank you for that excellent article on the dilemma of the home chemist. C&EN's popularity among chemists and chemical engineers will assure that
it receives a wide reading, at least among professionals. Please report back to the forum occaisionally when you have some feedback from your
readers.
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woelen
Super Administrator
Posts: 8012
Registered: 20-8-2005
Location: Netherlands
Member Is Offline
Mood: interested
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I also was pleased very much to read this article. Another Dutch member already has posted a link to this article on a Dutch chemistry forum (not a
forum like sciencemadness, but aimed at people who work in chemistry, e.g. in corporate research labs or at universities), so the audience again is
extended a little.
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undead_alchemist
Hazard to Others
Posts: 189
Registered: 12-1-2007
Location: Vancouver, Canada
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Mood: Tired, Cleaning up corporate messes at work!
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A link to the story has now made it to Slashdot.org
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pantone159
National Hazard
Posts: 590
Registered: 27-6-2006
Location: Austin, TX, USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: desperate for shade
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| Quote: | Originally posted by undead_alchemist
A link to the story has now made it to Slashdot.org |
Which means that a link to SM is indirectly on Slashdot. Countdown to the SM server being swamped... 10.. 9.. 8..
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sparkgap
International Hazard
Posts: 1234
Registered: 16-1-2005
Location: not where you think
Member Is Offline
Mood: chaotropic
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| Quote: | Originally posted by undead_alchemist
A link to the story has now made it to Slashdot.org |
I did that.  Good thing Slashdot picked that up. Hope our cause becomes more
popular.
sparky (~_~)
"What's UTFSE? I keep hearing about it, but I can't be arsed to search for the answer..."
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IrC
International Hazard
Posts: 2710
Registered: 7-3-2005
Location: Eureka
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Her article was very good and as far as I can tell the first one with mainstream credentials which seemed sympathetic at least to our hobby. Too
little to late I fear. We have no organized lobby with enough cash to represent us and defend our rights. I would bet good money that right now each
and every one of us would end up a tier 3 hazmat story in at least local news if they knew about less than one percent of the things we all need to do
our experiments with.
I believe this is already true even though virtually all household chemicals are more of a chemical hazard than nearly all of our lab gear and stock.
It is a hyper-hysterical mindset the governments and peoples of every country today possess and I see no hope of this doing anything but getting worse
with time. In short the war is over and we lost, best we can do is what we all already do and this is keep our heads down and our mouths shut.
I exclude Thailand from this after reading a previous post. Who knew the last bastion of freedom would show up in the Asian world. Sure would be nice
if our governments were as science friendly as Thailand. I buy many items from there and often (in fact one less than a week ago) I get packages
sealed in green homeland security tape. I would love to get my hands on their mail and riffle through it just to let them know how irritating it is to
have my privacy violated every other time an order from Futurelec (and several ebay sellers) arrives.
Sadly it means we all need to stockpile the hell out of everything we can while (if) we still can. Much more sadly is the fact that this agenda on the
part of our so called "free" countries forces us to have more on hand of various items which beforehand we would have deemed unsafe to keep in large
amounts! Meaning the main thing they have done with their knee-jerk hysteria is to make us all much less safe than we were, when we were allowed to
police ourselves using common sense and safety concerns as we have all done since the late 1800's when home science really kicked into gear.
I started around age 5 in science and that was 50 years ago. In all these years I remember only two stories which stand out of a home scientist
causing harm or concern to the public. One was the infamous home built reactor story which likely represented a tenth of the threat we were told it
was by the government and the media. The other was a NY trash collection person being killed by fumes from a broken bottle of HF in the 70 percent
range. For 50 years of home science these two cannot possibly be enough incidents to justify the hysterical crucify chemists mindset we see every day
from the government and the media.
I know some of the things in my lab would cause problems since combined they represent some kind of evil in the minds of LEO. Yet these are offset by
a hundred other things in my lab. When they decide NaOH and some kind of transformer or glassware proves their case my question would be "yeah then
what drug relation does my Uranium and heavy water have?". No doubt in court they would convince everyone I am making some kind of designer glow in
the dark drug, which they would then twist into some kind of "he is also a terrorist making dirty bombs in between drug batches" bull story.
Leaving open the question in my mind as to why they do not add delimiters in their draconian laws such as $50 worth of list inorganics combined with
20 thousand worth of non drug related chemicals indicates a non drug lab. Of course this brings us back to the tier 3 scenario if we have rubber
samples or other benign items as the man in her article did. I imagine the only way to win is to not play the game meaning secrecy is our only defense
and this is not ever going to change.
[Edited on 11-12-2008 by IrC]
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Rosco Bodine
Banned
Posts: 6370
Registered: 29-9-2004
Member Is Offline
Mood: analytical
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hmmmm, hmmmm, hmmmm, hmmmmm, hmmmm 
It's all such a tired cliche you know, an angry mob of villagers with torches coming up the road to Frankenstein's castle and all 
I have simply got to get me a Jacob's ladder ...it will
go nicely with my plasma globe 
Am I the only one who likes to flare an LP jetted meker burner just for the kick of it, to set the mood for an experiment. Mantles are nice, but some
of the old burners are really a much more serious heat source for those high thermal demand reactions
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kclo4
National Hazard
Posts: 916
Registered: 11-12-2004
Location:
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Mood: No Mood
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Noticed while I was on this http://www.jimmyr.com/ site looking at science articles, it has made it on the front page of Reddits science - Which automatically means it is on
the front page of a lot of sites such as Jimmyr.com
Be Interesting to see the statistics on how many people were viewing SMDB and how many people are now because of the link in the page.
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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I have not noticed any traffic spikes, though log analysis is running a couple of days behind. Fortunately for SM's web server, if not for its
attractiveness to new members, most slashdot/reddit readers appear to skim articles or just read the first paragraph rather than reading them all the
way through.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
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MagicJigPipe
International Hazard
Posts: 1554
Registered: 19-9-2007
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Suspicious
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| Quote: |
No, I mean that people soring gallons of fuel should have a fine as well, and then I'm really talking about 10+ gallons. I think no normal person
needs that much, and no home experimenter uses that much solvent. |
!!?
Do you have a car? I think my car has more than 10 gallons of fuel in it right now. Is that somehow different? Or is it just because cars are
socially acceptable?
I also know for a fact that at least a few people here have more than 10 gallons of solvents. Shit, people with hobbies other than chemistry
occasionally have over 10 gallons of flammable solvents. I know my parents have about that much just from unused/partially used cans of bullshit in
their garage.
What about people with propane tanks? And are you saying that people with RVs, boats, ATVs etc... shouldn't be allowed to store more than 10 gallons
of fuel? This is absolutely ridiculous. My father is a firefighter and even he wouldn't agree to that draconian fine/regulation that you are
advocating.
10 gallons? I am absolutely appalled at your statement. One day you may need to stock 10 gallons of something just to ensure that you can continue
your hobby for a few more years. Would you limit yourself?
I might actually agree to require some sort of anti-fire measure for people who have more than say, 30 gallons of flammable liquids but I would never
agree with your statement.
Unbelievable.
"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any
question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think,
free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
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Bikemaster
Hazard to Others
Posts: 120
Registered: 8-10-2008
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sorry to make reborn an old thread
but why does the gouvernement don't give us rules?
it is not a big problem to follow some rules like for safety or for environement protection. we only want to follow our passion and we don't want to
make any trouble.
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hissingnoise
International Hazard
Posts: 3940
Registered: 26-12-2002
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Mood: Pulverulescent!
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They have given us rules---those rules are No Explosives and No Drugs. . .
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Globey
Hazard to Others
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Bethany,
Aside from regulations (safety issues), the problem is that the agency who have taken it upon themselves to enforce, does so largely through a very
interpretive and somewhat arbitrary arm of the law, known as administrative law. "This should be this, therefore we'll write up a plan of action."
"We don't agree to be sued, so we'll just not agree to being sued" (circular logic). "We f**ked up, so we'll just write a corrective action." They
write the law as they go on, and it's it's own culture and almost personality cult.
**edited to correct couple type'o's, & to add; one of the only effective legal challenges to this admin. law involves questions of federal
constitutionality (which are comparatively rare). Even when people in states say it is legal, the admin. fed law likes to trump the statue.
Administration of federal law here certainly is not in the spirit of what it was intended to be.
[Edited on 9-4-2009 by Globey]
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Bikemaster
Hazard to Others
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Registered: 8-10-2008
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... i know that explosive and drug are illegal but if you have a home lab (don't care about the reason) they will arrest you... i don't want to make
meth and big bacth of acetone peroxide, i just want to do my hobby...
poeple don't like us because they just don't know wath is really chemistry...in their head pyrothecnie=terroriste and chemistry=drug...
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Jacked_is_out
Harmless
Posts: 5
Registered: 30-5-2009
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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I remember a few years back, a legal company, operated out of a home, distilling essential oils, was raided and destroyed by the feds. They (the
owners) were not prosecuted but did have to retain counsel and wound up suing the government for the loss of the equipment.. They lost that to..
Bottom line, The feds do what the want. It would be advantageous to set up a lab in an area zoned commercial and legitimize yourself….
You could test swimming pool water or drinking water. Something simple, under the radar.
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