straight dope on sensitive topics and the SDMB?

[Abe]

I am following this discussion with interest:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=64898

and noted that Manhattan got upset at what I presume were instructions on how to fashion an item called a “gravity bong”. The instructions and one or two other posts were deleted on the grounds that they were offensive, since they contained “instructions and whatnot”.

I would like to know about the fine line around here between legal matters and self-censorship. Drug paraphernalia is not illegal in the US, that I am aware (as Jeremy’s Evil Twin pointed out). I may be wrong.

Assuming that drug paraphernalia is not illegal, why then are instructions on how to create such paraphernalia illegal? Is this similar to the “Meet the Parents” situation of casually saying “bomb” in an airplane? :eek:

[Protesilaus]

Chronos has answered this question here.

Our guidlines for that one are simple, Svinlesha: Don’t post instructions on how to do anything illegal. As of right now, it is illegal in the United States to take marijuana, so we don’t let people say how to take marijuana. If the relevant laws were to change, so would our policies. There’s some gray areas, of course, where posession of the information wouldn’t actually make it any easier to commit the act, which is why we allow things like atomic bomb threads. Of course, I imagine that a gravity bong is much easier to make than an A-bomb.