Can an autism diagnosis help you in court?

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Perhaps if you were distraught because of autism and needed something to calm you down.

Doesn't sound like it tho, OP, otherwise you would have said that.

Not necessarily. I have a nephew who once had a lab in his basement where he was doing something he believed would be good for all ... but then a hotplate caught fire and gutted his home while he was away one evening.

I surely am missing some meaning in your post about the fire.

My nephew was not arrogantly using the "excuse" of "helping humanity" merely to justify his pursuit of his obsession. Rather, he honestly thought he was doing something good for everyone when his illegal laboratory set his place on fire.

Ok, to be fair, the world has to have laws about drug use.
Scientists do not create drugs and experiment on themselves, normally.
Most true drug addicts (from alcohol to heroin to prescription drugs illegally obtained) are self medicating because of some pain, problem, or disorder.
That does not make it ok to drive drunk, cook meth, rob senior citizens for their loratabs, or mug people for money to buy heroin. Lines have to be drawn. If it would be ok for the OP to have whatever he wants, create whatever he wants, use whatever he wants, then it should be just as ok for drunks to drive, people to cook meth with little children running around etc etc. It is about the fact that what we do has an effect on others. That is the point.

Ok, to be fair, the world has to have laws about drug use.
Scientists do not create drugs and experiment on themselves, normally.
Most true drug addicts (from alcohol to heroin to prescription drugs illegally obtained) are self medicating because of some pain, problem, or disorder.
That does not make it ok to drive drunk, cook meth, rob senior citizens for their loratabs, or mug people for money to buy heroin. Lines have to be drawn. If it would be ok for the OP to have whatever he wants, create whatever he wants, use whatever he wants, then it should be just as ok for drunks to drive, people to cook meth with little children running around etc etc. It is about the fact that what we do has an effect on others. That is the point.

Oh, and the illegal lab burning down a house is another argument against private home labs. Sure hope there weren't any firefighters injured, other's property destroyed, and wonder if there was the insurance, if the insurance company got wind of it, could void the policy.

Firstly I never put identifying information up on the internet unless its absolutely necessary such as when I'm ordering something over the internet. Its impossible for anyone to connect me to any posts I've made on this site, the best they can do is connect the posts to the IP used to post them. An IP can only be connected to the customer to which the ISP assigned it and even that cannot be done with certainty because a hacker may have been using the computer(s) to do his/her bidding. On top of that I could be going through a proxy or tor network which would make it even more difficult to connect the IP used to post a particular thread to the person that posted it. Combine all that with the fact that even if the prosecutor did, by some bizarre coincidence, stumble upon this thread and had some kind of psychic suspicion that it was the person they are trying to prosecute that posted it, he/she would have absolutely no evidence to suggest it was made by me. Secondly I understand possession of many psychoactives is illegal but I don't in any way believe its "wrong". I agree with you about not using aspergers as a way to justify an illegal act, I was just wondering if that would influence the judges/juries decision.


Hopefully these draconian laws will have changed by the time I get my degrees but if they haven't then doing research in an other country is probably the best option. What inspired me to make this thread was a documentary I was watching called "The Spirit Molecule". Its about the compound DMT and one of the scientists in it had to relocate to Mexico because he could no longer pursue his research in the US. I find it pretty insane that the government would interfere so greatly with research that yields such profound insight into the workings of the brain/mind but thats the way it is.


No what I meant was whether knowledge of my diagnosis would help convince them that I'm genuinely interested in the science behind psychoactives rather than just experimenting with them for recreational or other purposes. I hadn't researched the matter enough though, it appears that research scientists can still obtain a license to obtain psychoactive substances and use them for purely scientific research purposes, its just experimenting with the drugs psychotherapeutic properties that is restricted. The kind of research I'm interested in is purely scientific and not directly related to psychotherapy so I think I may be alright when the time comes. What really fascinates me is how psychoactives interact with the various neuroreceptors in the brain and the effects these interactions have on physiology as well as consciousness. We still know very little about psychopharmacology and god knows what new discoveries are right under our noses. I'll leave the establishing of the medical benefit of these discoveries to other scientists, I'll be content with developing purely scientific theories from the results obtained.


To each their own. If you don't want to use psychoactive substances as a tool to learn about the brain then thats you don't have to. Don't impose your decision on others though.


He left a hotplate on in his basement while he was away for the evening? The hotplate itself caught on fire? Care to elaborate a bit i.e. was he heating something with the hotplate, was this inside a fireproof fume hood? I don't know what moral you are trying to convey with that story but even someone that has never been in a chemistry lab should know better than to leave a heat source unattended like that.


Slightly flawed logic there don't you think? Driving drunk endangers the lives of others without their consent. Conducting pharmacological research does not endanger the lives of others without their consent. See the difference? Thats exactly my criteria for determining if something is wrong. If it affects others in a negative way then it is wrong. Otherwise there is nothing wrong with it. Things obviously aren't as black and white as this i.e. lets say some psychotic lunatic decides he wants to murder me and my whole family but my and my family would rather he didn't and decide not to let him do this. This will have a negative affect on this psychotic lunatic because he wants to murder us etc, so my criteria for determining right and wrong is a little more complex than that but thats the core of it.


What so industrial, commercial and research labs don't have the potential to harm people? Ever seen a fireworks factory explosion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifm9BKf5ZbE
need I provide more examples?