- Jan 12, 2012
- 27,286
- 113
Wow, I never thought this day would come but I have to disagree with IndyDave.
Alcohol is legal and yet we still have a thriving home brew community. Legalization isn't going to eliminate home meth labs either unless you want to have legislation that prevents people from making their own meth.
I can hear people like rambone and his cadre of legalizers howling about that too. "You can't tell people what they can make in their own homes! Meth is legal! Why would you want to keep people from making a legal substance in their own homes!" "Who cares if it's extremely dangerous!" "You can buy extremely dangerous chemicals right now at Walmart!"
Just another consequence of "freedom" at any cost, or as I've said 1000 times now, freedom without responsibility - the libertarian motto.
You will likely always have a small group of people who for whatever reason want to do their own thing. My point with alcohol as an example is that those who still make their own are a very small percentage and do it as a hobby, either for the satisfaction of it or else making their just right product to their own satisfaction. The overwhelming majority will happily go to the liquor store, especially if the goal is inebriation for the sake of being inebriated.
Likewise, if drugs were legal, I would not be at all surprised to find a limited number of people gardening, using fertilizers tailored to the purpose, and pampering their plants in the belief that their personal weed is better than what you get at the store. I would expect the same to happen here, and would expect that the overwhelming majority of synthetic drugs would be manufactured under controlled conditions with there being far less incentive to 'homebrew' them. If nothing else, the number would be significantly reduced and we would have a golden opportunity for some constitutional pushback with one of the favorite bogeymen removed from the scene.