What We Need Now: A Baking Soda Registry

[Posted by reader_iam]

What was I just saying?

A Missouri lawmaker wants to regulate and monitor baking-soda purchases.

First, the state said you must make a special trip to the pharmacy counter to buy certain cold medicines. That was to curb production of methamphetamine.

Now, a St. Louis legislator wants you to do the same thing to buy an even more common household item — baking soda — because it's used to make crack cocaine.

Sales of cold medications containing pseudoephedrine, such as Sudafed, are strictly regulated in Missouri. Customers must show a photo ID when they buy the medicine. Pharmacists must log the names and addresses of buyers, including how much they buy. People under 18 may not buy the medicines.

The sponsor of the baking soda bill, Rep. Talibdin El-Amin, D-St. Louis, said the same approach was needed for baking soda because crack cocaine is often produced by dissolving powdered cocaine in a mixture of water and baking soda.

Think this is going solve the problem? Want to have to go up to a counter with a photo ID and provide your name, address and whatever else in order to buy one of the most common household products? Need yet one more reason to stand in line?

You'd think this wouldn't have a shot of passing, on the grounds of impracticality and unenforceablity alone. But who knows? I suppose if you required some sort of special strip on the boxes, and had cameras installed at every outlet that might potentially sell baking soda, and could staff up enough to review the videos, you might be able to make sure that no one sells the stuff illegally. (Although it's not my point, I am idly wondering how much that would jack up the price of Arm & Hammer.)

Where does it stop?

Hat tip.

Update, 4/8: Thanks to Dr. Sanity for including this post in this week's Carnival of the Insanities.

Let's ALL Talk About The War On Drugs

[Posted by reader_iam]

I agree, for the most part, with what Arianna Huffington writes in this post about our War on Drugs, in which she is specifically challenging Democratic presidential candidates on their failure to talk about it.

But--given my officially registered status of "No Party" voter--I want all presidential candidates to address this issue, and the myriad others emanating from it. (For that matter, I want anyone who will be running for Congress, incumbents and challengers, to speak up, too.)

We are overdue for having a serious national debate on what it is we think we're doing, and the many negative consequences of what we've done. Yes, I know: We have so many national debates going on at present that adding another is a daunting--not to mention deafening--prospect. But the War on Drugs--more specifically, its consequences--touches upon almost every other major (primarily, but emphatically not confined to,) domestic issue.

Public health. The health care system. Public safety. Increased crime. Stress on the criminal justice system. Overloaded court dockets. Exploding prison populations. Overcrowded prisons. Prisons that create violent criminals out of nonviolent ones. Education. Breakdown of the family. The welfare of children. Destruction of neighborhoods and other public spaces. Race relations. Class relations. Civil liberties violations. Expanded incidences of takings and other abuses of government power. The expenditure of vast sums of public monies that could be used in so many better ways.

Need I go on? Because I could, you know.

This ought to be an issue that cuts across party lines and on which there ought to be a basis to cooperate, because in fact there have been a number of conservative voices who have spoken out against the War on Drugs as well, in some instances long ago. (The obvious example of the latter.) There are excellent philosophical and practical cases to be made from left, right, and center that we are (and have been) flat-out wrong, and destructive, to continue pursuing the course set decades ago. Instead, the politics of it trumps all.

Funny, how "bipartisan" cynicism and a lack of courage can be.

Update: Meanwhile, a Missouri lawmaker appears to want to establish a baking soda registry. One guess why.