Beakers and Tweakers

Wulf at AtlasBlogged discovers that the state of Texas requires you to get a permit before buying innocuous chemistry equipment like Erlenmeyer flasks, because said equipment could conceivably be used to make "the drugs."

Sure enough, the website of chemistry supplier CR-Scientific includes this passage:

We have recently become aware that Texas has some kind of "drug precursor" law or regulation which requires a permit to own boiling flasks, erlenmeyer flasks, distilling apparati, and the like. The permit is administered by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS).

While I personally believe this regulation is misguided at best, we cannot advise anyone to break the law. Texas residents, please contact your state representatives and tell them that the regulation is harmful to honest citizens and should be repealed. Please also contact members of the US Senate and House to prevent this kind of regulation from surfacing elsewhere. We don't normally get involved in political causes, but this one bears directly upon many of our customers who practice home schooling and amateur science. The glassware regulation is an example of well-meaning but misguided legislation that simply goes too far.

In jest, Wulf implores his readers to "contact Radley Balko!" should a SWAT team tear down his door for possession of improperly-permitted lab equipment.

The thing is—and you know what's coming here, don't you?—yes, that has actually happened.