They've already come up with better, cheaper, more efficient methods. They don't need Sudafed anymore, so removing the stupid restriction won't affect meth production at all.
Do you actually believe this? It seems completely ignorant of human behavior to me.
You see, it's not about dealing with large-scale operations. It's about keeping that one neighbor you have who always makes poor choices from grabbing 1000 boxes of Sudafed and blowing up their house. They don't care what the industrial process is, they care what they can get away with in their living room.
Throttle access to pseudoephedrine sufficiently and they will look elsewhere. Make it easy to get and they'll DIY. You know, I even admire the DIY spirit involved. I just don't admire the externalities.
The subtext of your argument is that you think you can legislate away human behavior.
There is a cheap process to make meth, and there’s another process that involves Sudafed. Banning Sudafed does not stop meth production. But here you are still supporting a ban on Sudafed - because of what some theoretical person might do with it ignoring that they’re doing it now without it.
I don’t believe this is a logical failure, I believe whatever culture you grew up in imparted this way of thinking.
The culture I grew up in is one where this happened about once a month. Well, before Sudafed became hard to get. Then the rate of it occuring dropped precipitously.
It's almost like people in fact do base their choices on what's easily available.
You see, it's not about dealing with large-scale operations. It's about keeping that one neighbor you have who always makes poor choices from grabbing 1000 boxes of Sudafed and blowing up their house. They don't care what the industrial process is, they care what they can get away with in their living room.
Throttle access to pseudoephedrine sufficiently and they will look elsewhere. Make it easy to get and they'll DIY. You know, I even admire the DIY spirit involved. I just don't admire the externalities.