It never gets old does it? It seems like if you follow this sort of thing, it happens every other day. Every other day some chemistry student, some sixteen year old, even a professional chemist with decades of experience is arrested or raided because the police think they have a meth lab. Well, I submit for your disapproval: The exact same thing all over again.
I'm really at a loss for words here. How can you describe the level of vapidity and ignorance on the part of the police? This is an absolutely disgusting extension of the War on DrugsTM (or whatever version of it they happen to have up there in Canada. To be frank, even if I felt that the WoD was absolutely justfied- which I don't- I would never give police carte blanche to do anything whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned, authority figures shouldn't be able to scratch their asses without a warrant.
Someone needs to drill it into these idiots' heads: Science is a verb. You perform it. It's something that is taught as a practice, and frankly- in terms of getting certain substances or achieving certain effects, skilled chemists don't give a shit about your silly pointless restrictions on chemicals. We can work around them- it's what we do. Getting what we want from what we have available has been one of the main missions of chemistry ever since its practitioners were called alchemists.
If you're interested in helping the overall situation (since I can't find a defense fund for Lewis Casey) consider making a monetary donation here (I know I did, and I rarely ever do). This happened in Canada, so I can't exactly call a congressperson up in the US. However, I don't think scathing (yet polite) letters of rebuke to the Saskatoon Police Service are entirely unwarranted or uncalled for. It probably won't help, but you'll feel better.
Tip of the NI3 soaked cap to PZ Myers who summarizes my frustrations quite nicely.
This is a time when the leaders of Western nations are deploring the lack of science students in their countries and initiating programmes to draw more students into chemistry and the other sciences.
ReplyDeleteThe chemophobia that society has been building for the past couple of generations now is a direct foe of this drive. An ihnorant public thinks homemade explosives, nerve gases, or drugs when anyone does anything chemical, let alone the assumptions of cancer agents and poisons being released in their neighborhoods.
Setup a facebook group, lets see how far we can take this.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it interesting; they spend 4 billion dollars every year essentially to prevent mostly innocent, ordinary people to quietly use drugs in the privacy of their homes, when all this money can be used in better education and actually securing borders. The War on Drugs (TM) is as much of a definition of a fundamentally failed endeavor as anything else.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of doing things that used to be innocent at home.
ReplyDeleteI told my landlord that I wanted to use a patch of unused land in the backyard of the house I was renting for growing some vegetables. He looked me squarely in the eye and said very seriously: "Don't you dare grow pot! You hear me!".