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Comment by ck2 | Hacker News Reader

It occurs to me that someday next century we'll have "chemical" printers that can synthesize drugs on demand. Maybe the hospitals will get them first for cost and legal reasons but eventually just like 3d printers, there will be a hobbyist element.

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As long as you can synthesize illegal drugs, as long as you can synthesize patented drugs, there will be no open consumer market for chemical printers.

Um, you can copy things with 3D printers and even make weapons, they are still legal (so far).

Initially they might have chemical printers in hospital labs/pharmacies for emergency use.

http://www.wired.com/2012/05/3-d-printing-patent-law/

And if you think the pharmaceutical companies won't pursue legal action faster and with more power than a gaming company...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printed_firearms#Effect_on_...

It's illegal to make any firearm that is undetectable by a metal detector, and lawmakers are still working to make 3D printing weapons illegal.

Affordable 3D printers won't be good enough to copy most consumer goods for a while yet. And 3D printed weapons are shit--they're basically useless except for sticking it to the Man. That means that 3D printers have many more "legitimate" uses than illegal ones, so for the most part they are accepted, now; as they grow more capable, that foundation will see them grandfathered in, for the most part.

For a home chemical factory like you're discussing, synthesizing drugs illegally would be by far the most popular use case. I'm sure someone would think of something legit to do with it, but it would be an edge case. They would never be allowed to get a foothold, legally.

No we probably won't...drug synthesis requires large amounts of reagents. It wouldn't be practical to keep the variety of reagents around to synthesize any given drug.

"Hey want to come over to my house and print some LSD?"

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