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Comment by mullingitover | Hacker News Reader

I'm just as annoyed with the hurdles to buying real pseudoephedrine as anyone else, but let's not make the production of bathtub meth any easier. It is not worth it.

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Given the prevalence of P2P meth and apparent inability of governments to do anything about it, this does not seem like a rational position to me. If there was any reason to believe that large scale production will ever be substantially curbed, there might be a case for it.

Yes, P2p meth is rampant and cheap. However I look at it like this: Meth addicts will absolutely decide to become chefs if the ingredients are readily available, even if there's a McDonalds down the street. You're approaching this rationally, which is not what meth addicts are going to do.

If it is readily available down the street, it looks to me that people cooking their own is a superior outcome for society in every single way than they buying it down-street.

Even more if the professional labs close down due to lack of customers.

A buddy of mine worked his way through college cleaning out meth labs in homes and motels after they had (typically) blown themselves up. They are toxic nightmares. He was especially shaken when he'd find the family photos indicating that the labs were operating while children were in the home.

The professional labs would absolutely not close down due to lack of customers, there would just be even more meth available, more contaminated, with the bonus of hazmat sites peppering communities.

Why? Do you believe it made any dent in meth manufacturing what so ever? It's just drug war theatre.

It seemed to decrease the number of exploding meth labs in the country: https://www.statista.com/statistics/942043/laboratory-incide...

That seems to track pretty well with the rise of P2P meth. It's unlikely many people would return to setting up small labs using pseudoephedrine because large scale operations using P2P have driven the price down to the point that it wouldn't be profitable.

There might be an increase in people making tiny batches for personal use if pseudoephedrine became easier to get, but nothing on the scale of 20 years ago.

What is P2P meth? I always think peer to peer.

P2P is phenyl-2-propanone, an ingredient in some methods of synthesizing methamphetamine. In supply chain terms, it is much harder to restrict than the previously-popular ephedrine and pseudoephedrine because it can be synthesized from many common chemicals.

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