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What Illegal Substance Do You Crave?
The Federal Government has, for quite a long time, banned the sale or importation of a very wide range of products. Having never had access to those products, most Americans don’t know what they are missing. But they are a loss nevertheless.
I wrote this post to find out what I am missing. But I can start by sharing an example or two of what Americans lack, courtesy of a stupid federal bureaucracy:
Toothpaste. Yes, I wrote about this before. I now smuggle Sensodyne with Novamin into the US from the UK. My dentist “cleanings” are now perfunctory and painless; no plaque or tartar buildup or cavities since I started using this toothpaste with a good electric toothbrush. I am not alone. But, thanks to the FDA’s decision to treat toothpaste as a drug, innovation has been stifled. You cannot buy Sensodyne with Novamin in the United States. Thanks, Uncle Sam.
Indian/Pakistani Mangoes. These are a taste explosion. You can smell them from across the room… sweet, fragrant, complex.. just an amazing fruit. Sliced thin on salmon, or included with whipped cream in crepes, these mangoes are the most decadent fruits I have ever tasted. They are not, however, legal for import into the United States. The block is, I think, a legacy of the early 1930s-era regulations intended to protect American crops from foreign pests. It is the same reason why there are thousands of potato varieties for sale in Peru, but only a handful in the United States.
Mangoes, of course, seem unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But I think that toothpaste and mangoes are good examples of how Americans are denied, by virtue of silly and overbearing federal government – and not even as a result of the Obama years. Blackcurrants, for example, were banned and exterminated in the US in the early 20th century, and are only now starting to make a comeback.
Is there some foreign treat that I really should try next time I am overseas? Much more importantly: I am sure there must be some drugs available overseas that would be lifesavers to Americans… does anyone know about them?
Published in General
I’d rather have clean lakes than for you to have clean clothes and dishes.
This restriction I can accept at the local level in cities with millions of people. An immense, concentrated population presents inherent challenges that do not derive from over-regulation, though over-regulation probably does stifle innovations to improve conditions.
I’ve read conflicting reports about the feasibility of desalination plants. Even if they are indeed cost-efficient and scale well to major cities, I don’t know if that solves all related challenges.
Food prepared by unlicensed cooks in unlicensed kitchens, assisted by unlicensed lemonade stands.
It’s been a few years, but I got a container of Marmite from a Brit specialty shop up in Lake County for an English friend who was jonesing for it. She gave me a taste. It tasted like heavily salted pine tar.
Vegemite is that only more so? Amy’s right; you’re all nuts.
Same here – both the incandescent bulbs and the modest stockpiling of same.
I was in New Zealand in 1995. A friend invited us to his “bach” (rhymes with “catch”) or beach house for a weekend. He found some Vegemite in a cupboard and made us each a sandwich. After eating it, and commenting that it was strange but not too bad, he noticed that the jar’s expiration date was 4 years earlier. He just shrugged and made himself a second sandwich.
Around here, gas stations owned by Native American tribes sell ethanol-free gasoline.
The link you provided states that Vegemite is not banned.
Peruvian produce. I don’t know whether it’s banned or just doesn’t have a market, here. Sure, you can get Peruvian okra, cucumbers, and asparagus in the US, but:
-Purple-skinned potatoes with green insides; green-skinned potatoes with purple insides
-Corn with kernels bigger’n your thumb; also comes in purple
-Avocados that are about the size of Volkswagens
It does. Israel has proven it. Water for a few pennies a gallon. And that is with paying above-average energy prices.
Gibraltar and Singapore get most or all of their water from desal as well.
So, you need a mule for Kinder Eier? Let me know.
Same thing for incandescent light bulbs here in “green” Germany. They’re everywhere. We’ve got packs of 15, 40 and 75 Watt Gluhbirnen stacked up in the closet.
Illegal product that I crave? When my knees are really bothering me, morphine. But other than that….
How!
The website pure-gas.org lists c. 11,000 gas stations in the US and Canada that sell 100% gasoline (ethanol-free).
You can only search by state or province, so there’s a massive list to look through, but it’s worth it. My car is much happier these days.
I miss Syndol. Great drug. Anti-migraine over the counter. The US has a pain problem and banning medications that provide relief is not helping.
@iwe, I may be missing something here, but it appears that you can get this toothpaste on Amazon, Sensodyne with Novamin.
And thus our problem. One man’s freedom is another authoritarians desire……
Indeed! The seller is clearly importing, and skirting/flaunting the FDA. As the top comment reads:
The price, by the way, is off the charts! In the UK, a tube of the toothpaste costs the equivalent of $3. Though Amazon.ca also seems to price it VERY high. I expect that the walk-in pharmacy price is much, much lower, and the online prices I see are a way of extracting maximum value from American consumers who order by mail and cannot buy them in the local store.
In other words, the market now reflects the demand Americans have for a superior product that the FDA has not approved.
You mean, you have to cooperate over shared resources? How terrible! How tyrannical!
Yes!
I did wonder about that.
Tums discontinued Sugar-Free Tums, Orange Cream flavor. Amazon sellers are offering the normally $4.99 size for $31+.
Just checked. The online price for a UK resident is about $4/tube. The US Amazon price? $14. So the “grey” market allows us to buy it, at a premium.
Will kinder eggs follow?
I am fortunate enough to live just a couple of blocks away from a station that sells ethanol free gas. Wish I didn’t have to pay subsidies for the stuff I never use though. Ethanol belongs in whiskey, beer, wine, and me. Not my car.
Thanks for the link, Anna. Awesome.
BTW that was a Native American joke if we are allowed to tell them here. If not, sorry .
They are available, guys. A couple of years ago I replaced both my supposed low-water-use toilets that required multiple flushes with American Standard Champions and they work every time with one flush using between 1.28 and 1.6 gallons. I’m pretty sure there are other good brands out there, too. Capitalism, ya know.
I, too, have installed low flush toilets that really, really work. Much better than the old ones.
Once people started engineering for it seriously, good solutions were developed. I’d rather have the option of different flows, but there is no denying that my newer low-flush toilet works much better than any of my much older ones.
That is great for individuals. My mother has some very expensive (Toto, I believe) toilets that she had installed. But for various reasons, I live in an apartment complex. I have been here 22 years. They have been going low-flow. They changed out the shower heads, but not the whole plumbing system. What is the result? Someone flushes a toilet in another apartment in the building and the temperature changes. Someone turns on their hot water, and the temperature changes.
Now, as to the toilets. The bottom part of my toilet has been there since before we rented the apartment. The original tank held the very old standard (was it 4 gallons?) But they decided that it was easier to install a new tank than to replace some hardware that was corroded and causing a leak. The new tank is adjustable for either 3.1 gallons or 1.6. Nice, except that 3.1 gallons does not do the job that the four gallons used to do. So, I have a 3.1 gallon tank and a four-gallon bowl. Is that the fault of the changed standards? No. Would it have happened without the standards? No.
This is a recipe for failure. The really good ones are systems – the bowl has to be designed with the tank, or it won’t work well at all.
Why are Kinder Eggs so popular in the States , and why on earth are they banned? Is it because the little prize contained within contains tiny, “choking hazard” parts? I know kids here who eat them for breakfast.
Exactly! It is a recipe for failure, and this morning was a good day, only three flushes and it worked without other measures. So, 9.3 gallons instead of 4.0. What a country!