I can’t find out if this bill passed or has even been voted on by the U.S. Senate. The bill is called the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act S.1428. It was introduced in August, but all the info I can find on it is from August. Nothing about a vote on it or anything.
The gist of the bill really doesn’t have much to do with meth. (that’s just what they call it to avoid public scrutiny)
What this bill does is make it illegal to DISSEMINATE ANY INFORAMTION on illegal drugs on the internet!! You could get TEN YEARS in the federal pen for operating a drug-related web site, and 3 years just for linking to one!!
Does anybody know anything about this bill? I’m assuming it didn’t pass or I would have heard about it. Then again when it was introduced, I had to look hard to find info on it since it wasn’t covered by any newspaper, so you never know.
Anyone have any info on this First Amendment quashing bill? (heck, even the Scientologists are against it!)
It’s a pretty safe bet that a bill that’s languished in committee for half a year is indeed dead – or at least terminally unhealthy.
What strikes me as odd, though, is that Hatch’s bill died in his very own committee. If he can’t even get it out of his stamping grounds, it wouldn’t stand much of a chance in the full Senate, anyway.
~ Complacency is far more dangerous than outrage ~
Evidently, radical bills are presented all the time. Supposedly, more than one ultra-liberal in recent years has tried to make it a crime to criticize Clinton or spread demeaning rumors about him. Most of these far-out bills are pigeon-holed, which is Congress-speak for the “We’ll throw it in a filing cabinet and forget about it.”
“I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms.” -The Secret of Monkey Island
It amazes me how the labels “liberal” and “conservative” have changed meanings. These days, anything pro-Clinton is automatically labeled liberal, but if you think about what the bill Diceman mentions is about, it’s extremely conservative.
Lest anyone take that seriously and eat a bunch of pesticide-coated Hawaiin Baby Woodrose Seeds, it should be pointed out that the seeds acutally contain Lysergic Acid Amines, a precusor to LSD, about 20 times weaker than LSD, and certain to induce nausea.
To get from LSA to LSD, you’ll need
a shitload of lab equipment (something like $5,000 worth), a few years of organic chem under your belt, and some other tightly controlled precursors. Also HBWR is rather inefficient as a source of LSA. You’d be better off using the ergot fungus, which grows on wheat.
Ergot-contaminated wheat was known to drive entire villages temporarily insane in the middle ages, producing a syndrome called St Anthony’s Fire, with effects similar to LSD, except they were quite often fatal.
The fact that they would even think up such a blatant violation of the First Amendment makes me wonder about the kind of people we have in the Senate. Either they forgot the First Amendment existed, or they don’t realize the importantce of free speech.
Ivick, you are correct. Erogt grows on rye. My mistake.
Also, it’s not pesticides the seeds are coated with. It’s a (non-fatal, of course) poison designed to prevent recreational ingestion. It produces awful nausea, the runs, and other undesirable effects. None of them are serious, though. Even the untreated seeds will produce nausea.
LSA can also be found in the seeds of the Morning Glory flower.
FYI, it was an online news article. It was part of a larger article on one the Clinton scandles (who can keep track of them all?). What made this factoid so memorable was that one of the names attached to this bill was a Congressman from my state! I won’t bother going into his record (since it won’t mean anything to anyone here, and he’s not from my district anyways) but suffice to say he’s known as one of the Democrats’ pet attack dogs. BTW, this was during the height of the Clinton Body Count List’s popularity, so any even slighly cynical person would be quite willing to believe that that Bill & friends might have been looking for a way to kebosh the rumor mill.
Anyways, my point was that far-out and blatantly unconstutional bills are not uncommon, and they almost always get axed in a committee.
“I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms.” -The Secret of Monkey Island
Okay, I’m stretching back into my memory, which is a bit hazy on this issue, and I am far too lazy to actually look it up.
About two years ago Congress passed significant “anti-Meth” legislation, which as I remember just related to sales of ephedrine and other chemcials. Subsequent proposed legislation has, pretty much as you state, gone beyond that original legislation.
I’m too lazy to look it up, but I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that saying “makes dissemination of information relating to meth” (or however you put it) would not in and of itself be outlawed by the legislation. What this type of legislation usually prohibits (key word: usually) is the KNOWING dissemination of information to aid in a criminal activity.
So if you email me saying, “Hey Raven, I got an RV parked down by the wharf and I was planning on cooking up some speed. Can you send me that recipe again?” and I respond, I can be busted. However, if I had a webpage, say, describing the chemistry of meth-cooking, and someone saw it and happened to think it was a good get-rich quick scheme, I would be in the clear. Of course, there are a lot of grey areas.
Also, checking the status of a bill does not give you an accurate update on the issue. More often than not bills such as this are added to other bills as amendments, and the legislative status of the bill is unaffected.
Isn’t it also suspected of causing one of the of the ten plagues of Egypt: the death of the firstborn? The theory I heard is that because the firstborn child was entitled to a larger portion of food than his siblings, he was exposed to more of the fungus, and kicked off because of it.
You’d think so, but it’s not the case in this bill. Read the articles I linked to. If the bill passed, you couldn’t operate ANY drug-related site, or link to one.
IIRC, it’s already illegal to provide drug “recipes” (i.e. synthesises) on the web. I haven’t heard of anyone being prosecuted for it, though. Still, it’s a scary thought. So much for that good 'ol first amendment.
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“A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither”
–Thomas Jefferson
I actually took an minute and looked at it, and I stand by my earlier statement.
If you note Section 9 of the bill, the part which amends 18 USC Chp 22 Sec 421, it says, “It shall be unlawful for any person to teach or demonstrate the manufacture of a controlled substance [snip] WITH THE INTENT that the teaching, demonstration, or information be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime.” (my big letters)
Like I said, if you are providing information which you do not realize would be used in the commission of a crime, you are safe. If you realize that you are spreading meth recipes for nefarious purposes, well, my heart bleeds for you.
