jdgabbard,
The chemicals I use to recover and refine with are legal for me to purchase, and use in a proper manner, this is a free country, (last time I heard): lol:
I heard it was illegal for the normal guy to buy lab glass in Texas (what the HILL happened to Texas?), so check on your local laws.
a simple thing of buying glass beakers could put you in the spotlight.
Now it is not the chemicals, or glass I have, but what I use them for, similar to me owning a gun, I can buy a gun legally, and carry and use it legally, but if I used the gun in an illegal manor then I lose my rights to the freedom I have.
This is not to say that buying these chemicals would not raise eyebrows, from those who I bought them from or from the officials, take something like iodine, I bought gallons of this for years, to treat thrush on horse's hooves, now when I go to the feed store to buy a gallon, I have to show drivers license, vehicle registration and social security number, they put this information on a list for the officials to reveiw, that I had bought this product, the same product as kids we would have put on our skinned knees, the druggies have made this a watched item, so yes authorities may come to find out what I am doing with iodine, so here I would have the burden to prove I had it for legal use (horses or gold recovery), even buying common fertilizer you can raise eyebrows, so keeping your ducks in a row is important, many of the chemicals you may buy for refining and recovery could be used for illegitimate reasons so you never know when you may have to explain your use of them.
Also say someone sees all of my jars of colored liquids and fuming pots, 5 gallon buckets, me outside in freezing weather late at night in the woods on my property cooking something with a flashlight in my mouth, they may think one thing that my lab is of illegal use (when in reality it is legal) so they may call the sheriff and report seeing a drug lab in action, well I could get a visit,
Say your in town and dissolving silver in your back yard and the old lady neighbor sees you making a red cloud of smoke coming from something your mixing with lab glass and she smells this awful smell (you could expect to have to talk to somebody).
Keep your ducks in a row and you should have no trouble, learn about the chemicals you use, how to use them safely and do use them safe, keep MSDS, store properly and so on.
Wastes from these can also be a big issue, study dealing with them, and treat them properly, here again these can put you under the microscope, and when DEQ, EPA, and others come to see what your up to, have your ducks in a row and your cards face up on the table.
For your safety and for others safety.
Also study the chemistry of refining and recovery many things can make dangerous poisonous gases, or you have dangers of making something (you may be unaware of that could blow up in your face), or poison your water supply or put your neighbor in the hospitals or worse.
I do not mean to scare you, but feel you should see the reality and responsibility we have with what we do.
Ugly truth chemistry today is looked on as something done for illegal purposes unless you’re some big drug chemical company,
Chemistry I feel is really not taught in our schools as it was before,(sad we are loosing our knowledge in this country, forgetting the old ways and what made this country what it once was).
I would bet kids really get very little actual experience with chemicals or the reactions, in school chemistry, and then some of the more smart kids try to learn on their own from the web, and boys being boys want to play with the dangerous stuff (I see this as very dangerous and sad).
like kids who are taught to fear guns not being raised around them (I see this as being very dangerous, the kid has no respect for them and can get hurt if he finds one, Kids who are raised with and learn to resect what the gun will do and know how to use it is much safer with them).
I have asked questions about chemistry or chemicals to people who have worked in hospital labs for 30 years, they would tell me they learned that in high school or college, but do not remember much about it, they just run large machines that do the lab work and run the tests, they do not even mix reagents like they did years ago (just load the machine with these chemicals, there job has become looking for numbers on the computer print out and record results, or looking at the reactions the machine produces and record results, they do very little actual chemistry compared to what they did years ago, today computers and machines do it,
To me this is sad result of our modern technology; we are loosing our knowledge of how to do many things,
Just like many people do not know meat they eat comes from an animal that must die to feed them, and some say it is bad to eat an animal (but they fail to see the tomatoes has to die to feed them), I say poor tomatoes, silly person would not live long if they did not eat anything with life in it.
Many people do not have an understanding of the chemicals they use every day like the wife cleaning the window she thinks she needs some fancy chemical sold by a company for a high price, and it has to be blue, so she pays good money for plain ammonia with coloring and scented, she could buy for pennies.
Oops seems like I got on a soap box.
