The specific issue with a drug like ketamine, unlike, say, ether, is that it is tasteless, colorless and odorless. If someone spikes your drink with ketamine, even if it isn't alcohol, you won't know. That is super dangerous. Much more so than plying someone with alcohol or using something like ether or chloroform that you can buy without a prescription.
I suppose you could legislate some sort of odor or taste or something to be added to ketamine, but I imagine it doesn't have them for a reason.
What would be the point of doing that, though? As soon as you mandate it for Ketamine, they'll just move to using something else (tbh theh probably won't be using it in the first place, ketamine really isn't a date rape drug). And then you're stuck constantly hunting down each new drug and mandating that one now be added to the list. You're constantly playing catchup, punishing the non-rapists and doing nothing to prevent the monsters from being monsters. And thats even aside from the DIY drug production or aforementioned 'big stick', which would still have no taste or odor (well, I suppose the stick might).
It's not a winning solution, its just the same cruel stalemate the US has been stuck in for the last sixty-plus years. We need a better system, desperately. Weed dispensaries have been shown to almost eliminate illicit weed production, even when they have higher prices. Implementation of a similar system for 'hard' drugs doesn't solve all the problems, but I'm not convinced there's a perfect solution at all. This is just one thing that might reduce the harm done, which is all we realistically can ever hope to achieve.
What odorless, colorless, tasteless general anesthetic would they move on to? Because I think it would be pretty easy to put all of those specific drugs behind a prescription wall.
Unfortunately for us all, you're very wrong. While all drugs are not truly tasteless, there's only a few that the taste can't be easily covered up by soda or similar. And the drugs that can be used as a date rape drug are so astoundingly numerous that nobody has a complete list. New recreational drugs are discovered all the time, too, and each one is potentially usable in that application. Strong psychedelics, which the most popular ones literally grow on trees, are effective. Certain popular children's toys, when consumed, metabolize into a GHB-related compound with similar effects (yes they know, no they don't care).
If this was possible, don't you think the most heavily policed country in the world would have even slightly been able to pull this off? When I say it's an impossible task, I'm not trying to be dramatic. It's simply too easy to get around any restrictions, and enforcement would require a truly omnipotent police force to be effective.
The specific issue with a drug like ketamine, unlike, say, ether, is that it is tasteless, colorless and odorless. If someone spikes your drink with ketamine, even if it isn't alcohol, you won't know. That is super dangerous. Much more so than plying someone with alcohol or using something like ether or chloroform that you can buy without a prescription.
I suppose you could legislate some sort of odor or taste or something to be added to ketamine, but I imagine it doesn't have them for a reason.
What would be the point of doing that, though? As soon as you mandate it for Ketamine, they'll just move to using something else (tbh theh probably won't be using it in the first place, ketamine really isn't a date rape drug). And then you're stuck constantly hunting down each new drug and mandating that one now be added to the list. You're constantly playing catchup, punishing the non-rapists and doing nothing to prevent the monsters from being monsters. And thats even aside from the DIY drug production or aforementioned 'big stick', which would still have no taste or odor (well, I suppose the stick might).
It's not a winning solution, its just the same cruel stalemate the US has been stuck in for the last sixty-plus years. We need a better system, desperately. Weed dispensaries have been shown to almost eliminate illicit weed production, even when they have higher prices. Implementation of a similar system for 'hard' drugs doesn't solve all the problems, but I'm not convinced there's a perfect solution at all. This is just one thing that might reduce the harm done, which is all we realistically can ever hope to achieve.
What odorless, colorless, tasteless general anesthetic would they move on to? Because I think it would be pretty easy to put all of those specific drugs behind a prescription wall.
Unfortunately for us all, you're very wrong. While all drugs are not truly tasteless, there's only a few that the taste can't be easily covered up by soda or similar. And the drugs that can be used as a date rape drug are so astoundingly numerous that nobody has a complete list. New recreational drugs are discovered all the time, too, and each one is potentially usable in that application. Strong psychedelics, which the most popular ones literally grow on trees, are effective. Certain popular children's toys, when consumed, metabolize into a GHB-related compound with similar effects (yes they know, no they don't care).
If this was possible, don't you think the most heavily policed country in the world would have even slightly been able to pull this off? When I say it's an impossible task, I'm not trying to be dramatic. It's simply too easy to get around any restrictions, and enforcement would require a truly omnipotent police force to be effective.