pharmacists solely being distributors of pre-ordained medication has no detrimental effects on humans. 🫠 the US is great to its people, and has very good healthcare practices!! (livestream is on the 27th and i am excite, but not involved at all)
https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2024/fahrplan/talk/ASBXWW/
stream link for those interested:
https://streaming.media.ccc.de/38c3
EDIT: my lack of capitalization and poor word choice has confused people. this event is about making legal, tested for efficacy medication only. pharmacists are good. doctors are good. the cost of medication and other hurdles that prevent people from having access to medication are not.
EDIT 2: i looked into the 4 Theives Vinegar Collective (breifly, just on wikipedia) and i did not realize that they made the EpiPencil, which is an open-source device that injects a mesured dose of epinephrine (a medication that can be bought from a trusted and legal distributor). that’s awesome stuff, but it’s less awesome that they now want to share chemistry knowlege that they don’t necissarily have a full understanding of, and push automated synthesis for people who also don’t have the foundational knowledge to ensure safety. not really great. i guess that’s what happens when healthcare is entirely for-profit, and inaccessable to so many people.
info hazards (like production methods for sarin) are definitely real, and not always directly chemistry related. i.e. instructions on how to make a thermonuclear weapons, or get away with human rights violations with the right paperwork.
the concept of hazardous information is somewhat new to me, and i genuinely lost some sleep when i learned “information wants to be free,” is always true, but not always great.
but yes, i agree that info on chemistry, the availabilty of equipment, and legality of practicing it should be something to protect. all three have been in decline (at least in the US) for a while.
the problem with the legality to practice complex things is that humans are horrible at estimating risk, and overestimating our ability… it’s really easy to fuck up synthesis of a lot of things, and can be pretty hard to detect - for example, when people try to distil alcohol and get methanol (10ml causes permanent blindness, 30ml is lethal[1])
when you’re talking about medications, these are compounds that are specifically designed to be absorbed by your body, and dose is incredibly important - slightly less or more of a reaction and the strength changes and it’s lethal
medicine is hard, and dangerous. holding it to a high standard isn’t a bad thing
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol
skydiving and motocross are very dangerous as well, and MMA/boxxing/other sports can result in severe injury or even death.
that said, syntheasis of any consumables lands in the “very dangerous” category somewhere, and the graphical-curve-related effect you described is very real in every field, and does often lead to harm.
legality of info that can (and is intended to) save/vastly improve lives, but also can destroy/end them if mishandled isn’t a right i would like to see disappear. the intent to help/harm difference is the key.
these guys seem to want to help, but also suggest some not-so-safe methods and applicationals. idk if lack of credibility is a part of their mission, but it almost feels like it’s intentional, which i am unsure how i feel about, as it muddies the waters on intent.
but really, them not mentioning waste management, or other key components of safety isn’t great, and might feed into over-confidence that can lead to people getting hurt. plus, the hot-takes on infection prevention almost verifies their lack of understanding of medicine/the human body.