More on DEA and Iodine

More Feds destroying personal innovation because somebody might do something bad with it.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and state regulators say druggies can use the single ingredient in his “Polar Pure” water purifier — iodine — to make crystal meth.

Wallace says federal and state agents have effectively put him out of business, because authorities won’t clear the way for him to buy or sell the iodine he needs for his purification bottles. He has been rejected for a state permit by the Department of Justice and is scheduled to appeal his case before an administrative judge in Sacramento next month.

Meanwhile, the exasperated Stanford University-educated engineer and his 85-year-old girlfriend said the government — in its zeal to clamp down on meth labs — has instead stopped hikers, flood victims and others from protecting themselves against a bad case of the runs.

Of course we all know the big reason for this particular ban ban its its narrow scope. Nobody uses decongestants every day, nobody uses iodine for disinfection every day, and nobody is wanting to propagate meth labs.

This is the same idea behind the 1994 “Assault Weapon” ban. The various guns that met the stated criteria were a small niche market, so the ban only effected a small portion of gun owners, who themselves were a small part of the population at the time.

Of course we can’t extend this view for the sake of “public safety” because banning cars because of drunk drivers and road rage, or banning kitchen knives or baseball bats because of murders and assault, or banning woman’s stockings because of robberies, etc etc would actually cause people to wake the fuck up!

This won’t stop punks from cooking meth…but it did put this person out of business and has spared anybody who wanted to drink safe water in the field the convenience of his product.

Good for you, Feds, I’m glad my taxes pay for you!

h/t DanielS

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0 Responses to More on DEA and Iodine

  1. Bubblehead Les says:

    As long as these Federales remain in existence, they will keep trying to expand their Power base. Dept. of Ed. Swat Teams, USDA Swat Teams, Gun Walking, all this are just symptoms. If we pass a Law removing these wannabe FBI Agents, then they’ll just use those FBI Agents to enforce their regs. The Agencies must be abolished, and their employees sent into retirement or out on to the street with the rest of the Occupiers.

    But since THAT means the Congress can’t send kickbacks and payoffs to their cronies who get contracts supporting these agencies, I don’t expect much too change.

    Why, if this goes on, NOAA may be fining Fishermen their entire catch because they found a Tuna! Not that that would ever happen….

    • Weerd Beard says:

      Les I assume you NOAA statement about confiscating entire catches was in jest, but you might not be surprised that such things happen all the time. I remember being out on George’s bank with a Hurricane barreling down on us. We had a good trip, but the fish in the hold currently exceeded our per-day quota. We were fishing other species because we had 4 more days before we were square with the house.

      I could tell on the captain’s face as he read the weather he’d like to be heading for port with a good paycheck in the hold…but with the fish on board and our current sea days on the Federal GPS tracker, the feds would seize the whole catch and leave the men with the bill for the food, fuel, and ice we consumed during the trip. Thankfully the storm went south of us so we got the shit kicked out of us, but nothing life-threatening. It could have been MUCH worse.

      The Next year they changed the law that said we could tie up, but keep the fish on board and set off again in the event of weather, but there are lots of other violations that can be QUITE innocent that would leave the crew with a devastating bill rather than a healthy paycheck.

      Again, I’m glad I work for the private sector now. I went from working hard to put good people out of work, to working hard to help make life-saving medications. Is there any question on what the good work is?

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