Get Hopping Mad

By listening to Reason Senior Editor Jacob Sullum discuss the new ephedra ban on Wisconsin Public Radio today at 4PM ET.

Go to http://wpr.org/webcasting/ to catch the Webcast. (Click on "Listen live to the Ideas Network")

Comments

[s.m. koppelman]

If Mr. Sullum is so firm in his position against prohibitions on drugs and supplements, why does he expend so much energy arguing that everything from ephedra and hamburgers to cocaine and heroin is harmless? Why doesn't he just say he's against prohibition, the dangers of any substance be damned?

Given the exceptions made for pseudophedrine and raw maa huang sold by Chinese-medicine practicioners, I agree this particular ban is sort of silly, but why not leave it at that? Why bother cherry-picking "research" done on behalf of the ephedra industry to "prove" there's no causal link between ephedra and the deaths attributed to it? Why make the specious argument that since it's been used for thousands of years by the Chinese, it's obviously safe? The ancient Greeks drank urine. Westerners used leeches to "suck out" disease until not long ago. Kava kava was considered safe because Polynesians used it for centuries "safely". Once modern doctors got a good look at it when it becamne popular here a few years back, they discovered that the yellow color it gave its users' eyes and skin resembled the look of severe liver damage because -- whoops! -- it was causing severe liver damage.

But no matter. If you're arguing that there should be no regulation, period, then just stop there. Quoting press releases and bad science to make the case everything is harmless should be unnecessary.

[DFH]

No need; I was already hopping mad.

Can we please just roll back the laws to sometime in the late 1700's and start again from there?