Specialty Chemistry Forums > Citizen Chemist
The Decline of Home Chemistry
godneal:
i was long ago labled a wack job and by one neighbor even called a nutter. i have what the neighborhood has labled the shed of doom. and even had the exspress pleasure of being raided by the local drug enforcement team with the four hours of exsplaining my readon for having a very large variety of multiple chems and all of my glassware was swabed and tested on sight as well as scrapings taken from my walls snd tje ominus we will be back. this kind of thing is blown way out of proprtion. after i got raided the roumer mill started running and by the end of the week everyone was convinced i was building bombs and cooking meth. these sterio types of civ chemists is horrible. and the funny part is i talked to the lady that called the cops on me and showed her how many doff chems she had in her house that could be used as precursors or to make the precursors to both drugs and exsplosives. 9 chances out of 10 if you have a gallon of bleach you are already in possesion of high exsplosives. potassium chlorate was used as a filler exsplosiv in WW2. in the end it falls to if you havent broken the law with the chems you wont go to jail.
zsinger:
There is ABSOLUTELY more than one use for DEA (Diethylamine). That is simply wrong chemistry.
-Zack
Joeyups7:
In my opinion it's not hard to get chemicals. I found most from places online and people I know who have had them shipped. I prefer learning how to make them. But also in my opinion I think the main reason why people are staying away from home chemistry is because the active chemists drive them away. Most of what I see is experienced people continually bashing the inexperienced. If you can't write the equation why are you here? Or how much experience do you have? Go to google. It seems most chemists I meet are such sticklers and are a huge contributing factor. I don't have a huge backround in chemistry at all. But I love to learn and experiment. And through all this learning I still can't write all the equations and know all the technical terms. But I know the raw basics and that's not good enough for most. If people were a little more accepting of the new, young, beginner chemist maybe there would be an incline and maybe with that incline there would be enough people to try and get laws changed for the home chemist. Thanks
billnotgatez:
@Joeyups7
You have made several comments I would like to respond to
Acquiring Chemicals
Although, there are sources of chemicals on line, there are drawbacks you might not contemplate.
Some countries and states have strict laws that are arbitrarily enforced
a few examples
Too many pieces of glassware of a given type are illegal in some locations
Do you know when you will be put on a watch list
Although, there are
--- Quote ---active chemists
--- End quote ---
that have made it difficult for the chemistry hobbyist, for the most part the
--- Quote ---active chemists
--- End quote ---
are supportive. In fact many
--- Quote ---active chemists
--- End quote ---
started out as hobby chemists. You can not paint all
--- Quote ---active chemists
--- End quote ---
with the same brush.
Of course, there are may "want to be" hobby chemist who create a bad reputation for the rest of us. I keep seeing the posts that state things like this
I just put some chemicals together will it kill me, I just wanted to see what happens.
Well, it is nice to be inquisitive, but can't you do a little research first. The Internet is full of stuff to include GOOGLE and WIKI. I know I try to post links that help you learn.
Then we get the person who comes on and says
I want to do chemistry, teach me all.
That is a tall task to do in a few paragraphs on a forum.
Why can't they make some effort to learn themselves, there is oodles of information one can tap into. If you do a search here you will find all sorts of books etc. that are available. I can not see us posting them every time someone is too lazy to search.
Changing laws
I wish I had that power
I am an avid supporter of citizen science, but I want everyone to be safe who participates.
So @Joeyups7, keep doing science, but be careful
The community that is not chemistry hobbyists is not always friendly and the chemicals are not always forgiving.
Kemistry Kaiser:
--- Quote from: Joeyups7 on May 11, 2014, 06:45:20 PM ---I think the main reason why people are staying away from home chemistry is because the active chemists drive them away. Most of what I see is experienced people continually bashing the inexperienced. If you can't write the equation why are you here? Or how much experience do you have? Go to google. It seems most chemists I meet are such sticklers and are a huge contributing factor.
--- End quote ---
I'm glad I'm not the only one that has noticed this! I've been lucky that several of my high school chemistry teachers/professors have been very animated and go above and beyond to help with chemistry, but I know a couple practicing chemists who are downright nasty to people that want to learn. I couldn't imagine a greater honor than passing my knowledge of chemistry on to another. I don't understand what makes them that way. You're especially right with the bashing. If we, as a society, want to see the rebirth of home chemistry as a significant quality of our culture we have to lead by example by being inviting to those that want to learn. Yes, it takes a lot of knowledge and hard work to become a professional chemist, and yes they have to do most of the learning on their own, but at least lead them in the right direction and mention the most important concepts to them. My good friend is a computer science major but he likes science in general and I'm always eager to include him in my home experiments just as he is eager to learn about chemistry.
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