>If someone finds a way to produce addictive drugs from yeast then a whole new ball park could be opened up in the war on drugs.
More like a whole new ballpark in the devastation of human rights. How exactly do you fight against this without a totalitarian police state? The gene labs could be anywhere in the world, bringing a new strain in would be as simple as tiny sealed pocket in just about anything you could imagine. Would the yeast itself be considered illegal? How much would be, a few micrograms?
And this is just the early days of gene manipulation. Way better and more potent combinations will be made at some point, because even though it may be 'somewhat' difficult, there is a lot of money to be made. Which turns back to the government now monitoring everybody that has knowledge and ability in the genetics world since they could be a drug manufacture.
The answer is of course repealing the war on drugs. Maybe legalization of cannabis paves the way to the realization that regulation, taxation and harm reduction are much better ways of combating not only the violence and corruption that stems from the black market but especially the health issues.
Oh I certainly agree with that, unfortunately a sizeable portion of the population doesn't. A significant lobby base in the U.S. fights actively against legalization and will throw tons of money at the current racket too.
> More like a whole new ballpark in the devastation of human rights.
Depends, if the technique is easy enough for individuals to accomplish, it becomes a health issue rather than a crime one, because nobody will need suppliers/dealers/smugglers.
The real problem is the middle-ground, where it's an easy production mechanism that criminal syndicates can control, but not so easy that individuals can do it without making payments. For example, perhaps the cultivation/extraction/concentration process is too difficult, or the strain is engineered to require a proprietary chemical to live--a reasonable safety precaution in any event--or the "root species" is kept secret while strains that self-destruct after a certain number of generations are used for production at scale or resale.
During the USA's prohibition of alcohol, condensed grape juice was sold in "bricks" which came with a warning to not to reconstitute with water then leave in the darkened cupboard for 20 days, lest it self-ferment into wine.
> Would the yeast itself be considered illegal? How much would be, a few micrograms?
According to the report on the radio I heard this morning, the yeast itself is considered a controlled substance and its distribution is restricted in the same way as the drugs themselves.
Realistically interdiction of yeasts producing controlled substances would be a losing game. People regularly smuggle much more obvious contraband whereas a decent amount of starter culture could be easily concealed in the average travelers personal effects and would not be detectable without dna testing that would take more than 24 hours to carry out.
If the DEA were concerned about it's ostensible mission this would be the point where they give up and start looking at Portuguese style decriminalization. As it is, expect them to start busting homebrewers and yoghurt makers and expanding their civil forfeiture efforts into creative new forms of thievery.
More like a whole new ballpark in the devastation of human rights. How exactly do you fight against this without a totalitarian police state? The gene labs could be anywhere in the world, bringing a new strain in would be as simple as tiny sealed pocket in just about anything you could imagine. Would the yeast itself be considered illegal? How much would be, a few micrograms?
And this is just the early days of gene manipulation. Way better and more potent combinations will be made at some point, because even though it may be 'somewhat' difficult, there is a lot of money to be made. Which turns back to the government now monitoring everybody that has knowledge and ability in the genetics world since they could be a drug manufacture.
Future will be an interesting place.