evil_lurker
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Here we go again, TX man busted selling cyanide to FBI informant...
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/FedCrimes/story?id=4856904
So dude got this drum of briquettes and was going to trade it off for a pound of meth (which BTW the NaCN would make a LOT of meth).
Anyhoos, he ends up selling to an FBI undercover dude posing as some white supremacist or some other nonsense and manages to record himself talking
about how many people it can kill.
Wonder what sort of knee jerk reaction the gov't is going to propose in response to this?
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in
beer.
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MagicJigPipe
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Cyanides are already virtually impossible to obtain. There goes alkali cyanides, IMO.
"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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12AX7
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Good riddance to white trash.
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
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The weird thing (though this could easily just be bad reporting) is that the guy who tried to sell the material is being charged with possession with
intent to use a chemical weapon. Yet from the article it doesn't sound like the seller intended to use it for anything; he was talking up his product
to the people that he thought would use it for something nefarious. I don't know how conspiracy charges work though; maybe if you sell a killer a gun,
knowing what it's to be used for, you'll be charged same as the user. Is there a crime "possession of a chemical weapon" without intent to use, and if
so can you be charged with it simply for owning toxic lab chemicals (azides, cyanides, dimethyl sulfate, etc.)?
AFAIK there's no federal-level legislation that requires licensing for cyanide possession or sale. They seem to be relatively unregulated, though most
vendors self-police to a high degree so cyanides are pretty difficult for a hobbyist to buy. It's pretty frightening if prosecutors can call someone's
reagents "chemical weapons" and prosecute the owner for possession without showing intent to use as a weapon. I don't know if that's actually
something that could happen, though. The few people I've read of charged with crimes relating to cyanide possession seem to have actually had bad
intentions and weren't just victims of zealous prosecutors.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
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ShadowWarrior4444
Hazard to Others
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It seems that according to the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, possession of any substance that could be used as a chemical weapon, or in the
making of a chemical weapon is illegal unless one can prove a legitimate use for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Weapons_Convention
HCN is listed Schedule 3 under this convention, but not NaCN. It may still be affected as it is a salt of HCN. There is also the possibility that it
is the media itself, or a ploy for the media attention that it is being labeled as a "Chemical Weapon." Nothing quite helps to make a prosecutors
career like putting away the bad bad chemical-weapon-meth-head-terrorist.
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7he3ngineer
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It looks to me that this 'chemical weapons convention' has absolutely nothing to do with what individuals possess, but rather entire nation. The
article has a section titled "Known Stockpiles (of Chemical Weapons)" and lists US, Russia, India, Albania, Libya and South Korea. This is about
bringing down 'dangerous' counties, not individuals.
Josh
Engineers aren\'t boring people, we\'re just interested in boring things!
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evil_lurker
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Yes I agree, this guy deserves to be charged if indeed he was aware of the intentions of the supposed buyer.
And there are registration requirements in place if you have more than 10lbs of cyanides on site. The EPA, DHS, and other various "Letter People" all
have a hand in things as well.
Criminal? Honestly I don't know... the regulations are buried in a mountain of red tape.
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in
beer.
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MagicJigPipe
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I believe beyond a doubt that, in the right circumstances, a hobby chemist could be charged with possession of a "chemical weapon" or something
similar.
If we were completely safe we shouldn't have to limit the way we talk about what we do in public and to certain people. I know you guys think I'm
paranoid but I can provide proof that I was nearly charged with a crime simply for having some glassware and a couple of non-meth related chemicals.
Oh yeah, also they assumed I was making explosives because I had a thermostat (which happend to contain two mercury switches) in my electronics
toolbox.
You can never take too many precautions when it comes to avoiding LE whether or not you are doing anything wrong or actually breaking the law.
Who knows, maybe the fact that the guy was a "white supremecist" and a methhead were just added in for shock effect. It's not like it has never
happened before. I never completely believe things like this right off the bat (at least how the "criminal" is described).
EDIT
I wonder what they are going to do with the x cyanide? Probably destroy it. That sucks. They should just give it away to hobby chemists, ha!
[Edited on 5-15-2008 by MagicJigPipe]
"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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JohnWW
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There is a quite legitimate industrial use of NaCN or KCN in mineral processing, namely, treatment of crushed precious-metals ore to dissolve the Au
and Ag in it as soluble anionic cyano-complexes, which are also made for use in Au and Ag plating. In fact, it is used here in New Zealand, at
gold/silver mines near Thames and on the West Coast of the South Island.
There is also a legitimate use for the stuff in organic chemistry, namely, in SN2 substitution reactions with alkyl halides RX (most often obtained
from an alcohol ROH + HX) to add an extra C atom to the alkyl group as the nitrile, R-CN, which is usually then either hydrolysed with an aqeous acid
to a carboxylic acid R-COOH, or catalytically hydrogenated to an amine R-CH2-NH2, or after hydrolysis reacted with a Grignard reagent R'MgX in a polar
aprotic solvent to form a ketone R-(C=O)-R'.
Another industrial use of cyanide is in the manufacture of Prussian blue (or Turnbull's blue, or Berlin blue), ferric ferrocyanide, as a dyestuff,
paint and ink pigment, optical bleach, and biological/pathological stain, by reaction of a Fe(III) salt with K4[Fe(CN)6]. Besides in making the
precursor of this, KCN is also used in at least one colorimetric analytical procedure for dissolved metals in water, involving production of a similar
intense color. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_blue
But if all these excuses fail, you could claim that you simply want to use it to kill some rats or insect pests. For further info see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyklon_B (HCN)
[Edited on 17-5-08 by JohnWW]
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JohnWW
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| Quote: | Originally posted by MagicJigPipe
You can never take too many precautions when it comes to avoiding LE whether or not you are doing anything wrong or actually breaking the law.
Who knows, maybe the fact that the guy was a "white supremecist" and a methhead were just added in for shock effect. It's not like it has never
happened before. I never completely believe things like this right off the bat (at least how the "criminal" is described). |
The combination of the undercover FBI Pig's claims to be BOTH a "white supremacist" AND a "methhead" (presumably meaning a methamphetamine addict, not
a drinker of methylated spirits) should have instantly aroused the suspicions of the "dude" offering to sell the NaCN, sufficiently to call the deal
off. Although the Pigs are, indeed, mostly white supremacists (the memberships of the American Nazi Party and KKK include substantial numbers of
Pigs), the two are practically incompatible, due to Fa$cist white supremacists (who BTW include Bu$h & Cheney) almost always being also
paranoidally anti-drug. This is mainly because of the association, since the 1960s, of recreational drugs with peace, alternative lifestyle, and other
radical and left-wing movements, rather than because of any genuine harm from taking the drugs
Besides, by looking up the symptoms of methamphetamine addiction on Google and such sites as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine , it should have been obvious to the seller of the NaCN that the Pig definitely could not have been
an addict. Our local NZ Pigs (amongst whom a lot of corruption has been exposed in recent years) also have a lot about the stuff on their website,
e.g. http://www.police.govt.nz/safety/meth.html ; also http://www.nzdf.org.nz/methamphetamine .
It can be seen from such sites that methamphetamine addicts usually are psychotic, manic (often violently so), malnourished, dirty, and have badly
decayed teeth ("meth mouth"). In any case, they are quite incapable of holding down a Pig's job, and would prefer to keep their drugs rather than
exchange it for something like NaCN.
[Edited on 17-5-08 by JohnWW]
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12AX7
Post Harlot
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| Quote: | Originally posted by JohnWW
The combination of the undercover FBI Pig's claims to be BOTH a "white supremacist" AND a "methhead" (presumably meaning a methamphetamine addict, not
a drinker of methylated spirits) should have instantly aroused the suspicions of the "dude" offering to sell the NaCN, sufficiently to call the deal
off. Although the Pigs are, indeed, mostly white supremacists (the memberships of the American |
It was riiiiight.... here when I realized whose post I was reading.
Hey John, didn't everyone tell you to GFY and STFU? Your post would be that much more informative if you had stopped before the sentence I broke
above and skipped to the last paragraph. In fact I think I might just hit the Report button, that sounds like a valid "post whore" complaint.
Tim
[Edited on 5-16-2008 by 12AX7]
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MagicJigPipe
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No shit there are legitimate uses for cyanides. Who said otherwise? That has hardly mattered, however, when it comes to restricting chemicals to
individuals in the US and other similar countries.
"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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nodrog19
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Registered: 29-5-2008
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"There is also a legitimate use for the stuff in organic chemistry, namely, in SN2 substitution reactions with alkyl halides RX (most often obtained
from an alcohol ROH + HX) to add an extra C atom to the alkyl group as the nitrile, R-CN, which is usually then either hydrolysed with an aqeous acid
to a carboxylic acid R-COOH, or catalytically hydrogenated to an amine R-CH2-NH2, or after hydrolysis reacted with a Grignard reagent R'MgX in a polar
aprotic solvent to form a ketone R-(C=O)-R'."
Do you actually think the FBI is going to listento/understand that?
i dont understand amph chemistry, but I bet some of those reaction are needed to produce them.
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MagicJigPipe
International Hazard
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Location: USA
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Yes, sodium cyanide can be used to make phenylacetonitrile which can be used to synthesize amphetamine.
That sucks for NaCN because it is so damn useful.
"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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chloric1
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Its been proven several times in this forum that cyanides can indeed be synthesized with some ease. The problem is possession. And you don't want to
have jars of unlabled NaCN or KCN around either. Next best thing is to lable jars then stash them in an underground bunker.
Fellow molecular manipulator
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Sauron
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CWC is indeed a matter of monitoring national activity. Schedule 3 is specifically for chemicals with major industrial uses. HCN itself is a massively
important industrial chemical feedstock. Its salts are used ubiquitously in plating, metal polishing, and mining. HCN as a chemical weapon went out
with horse cavalry. The only real significance of cyanide salts remaining in connection with chemical weapons is the use of NaCN in production of GA
nerve agent. So if the guy had a drum of phosphorus oxychloride to go with his drum of NaCN then maybe the feds would have a case.
Sounds likie just a drug bust to me.
Incidentally NaCN used to be used in making PCP as well. In connection with meth one might use it to make his own BzCN in order to make that into PAA
to make into P2P but that is going the long way round.
Sic gorgeamus a los subjectatus nunc.
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