New meth formula avoids anti-drug laws

"You have to understand going in that drugs are an evolutionary process ... The day after we pass a law, they are going to look for ways to circumvent that."<p>The law of unintended consequences. I was recently reading about cocaine production in South America. The DEA pressured Bolivia into putting restricting the so-called "precursor chemicals" needed to convert cocaine paste into cocaine powder. As a result, Bolivia stopped manufacturing and exporting powder all by itself, and started exporting its paste to the many factories which sprung up in neighbouring Uruguay and Argentina. This turned out to be a much better arrangement - not only did these industrial countries have access to high grade chemicals and lab equipment, they also had far better shipping routes. As a "bonus", a thriving secondary market in the production residues (an impure but highly addictive form of crack, locally known as "Paco") sprang up around the labs, enslaving local populations as badly as any meth town. Creativity loves constraints.

This is probably the end of over-the-counter pseudoephedrine. Why let people have a safe and effective nasal decongestant when a few people <i>could make ILLEGAL drugs</i> with it!?<p>(Incidentally, you can't buy pipe anymore, since you could use it to make a pipe bomb. Oh wait, no. Doing that is still fine. Killing others is fine, but using drugs is just wrong!)<p>Also, does anyone have any data on how making pseudoephedrine a pain to buy has reduced meth usage? For some reason, I doubt it has.

Most of the article is about how dangerous the manufacture of the stuff is... who's fault is that, dumbass? There are plenty of things that are dangerous to manufacture that we manage to produce safely in massive quantities every day. Stop using force against people engaged in voluntary exchanges and the problem is solved. You don't hear about people's houses blowing up from bathtub gin operations anymore do you?

Fantastic. Now we can buy real cold medicine again, right? Presumably right after we're allowed to carry water onto airplanes.

I wonder what would happen if they added mentos to the mix...

This could be really bad: More people using them.<p>It could also be really good (well better in some ways anyway): No more external issues of money, and crime, that are associated with this.