6 Things You Won't Believe Are More Legal Than Marijuana

Information Unlimited sells high-grade scientific lasers, but unfortunately they're only intended for laboratory use. Fortunately, however, you don't have to give a shit about "intent:" All you need is a credit card and a lust for the smell of burning human flesh.

Oh, and this isn't just some legitimate scientific tool we're making out to sound terrifying: The manufacturer advertises it as, a "prelude to a weapon of the future." This is an actual self-contained blaster rifle with a power cell good for between 120 and 150 shots on a full charge.

It can send out a 6000 watt pulse, which is enough to "blast small holes in the hardest of metals." There are videos on the site of other class IV lasers (the same grade as this one) cutting through blocks of wood like... well, like a hot laser through wood. Depending on the lens you're using, these lasers can cut through rocks and burn hot enough to make air explode at the focus point. That's right: They can kill the air itself.

But perhaps you long for a more elegant weapon, from a more civilized age. Sadly, most of us gave up our hopes of owning a real lightsaber years ago, when we realized the technology was prohibitively expensive, if not physically impossible. Some dreams must always and forever remain dreams...

Well, unless you have $300 bucks and a credit card.

OK, so the S3 Spyder Arctic isn't exactly the movie lightsaber: That can never exist because you can't have a laser beam "about yea long." But it's the next best thing: While it can't cut through a Hutt's sail barge, it could light your hair on fire or blind a man at a fair distance.

It so resembles a lightsaber, in fact, that it provoked a cease-and-desist letter from no less an asshole than George Lucas himself.

So why are either of these things legal? Well, aside from the fact that you can buy giant deadly regular rifles for less, laser weapons are still the future. We're willing to bet that, unless you're reading this in your casual cloak from the back of your robo-spider, you probably didn't know a weapon like this existed until now. It'll be at least another few days (orders are assembled within 24 hours) before the first major crime is committed with one of these babies. That's right, readers: With a little luck and good timing, you could be the first person in history to commit a violent crime with a laser weapon.

That's a Chieftain Battle Tank, and for under a grand you--yes, you personally--can use it to crush a car. There's a place in Sherman, Texas that offers this and many more tank-related adventures for a nominal fee. That's right: The next time you're rejected by a pretty girl at a crowded bar, you can just scream, "I once crushed a car with a fucking tank!" and storm out.

But while renting a tank is pretty badass, the high-rollers among us won't be satisfied with such a fleeting thrill. So for folks with the extra cash, there are a number of online tank depots for civilian collectors. Want a T-72, the main battle tank of the former Soviet Union? Less than $50,000 and this 45-ton monster can rest in your driveway.

If you want something a little more street-legal, this Fox Armored Car will set you back a paltry $17 grand. You can own an armored scout car and drive it on the highway for less than the cost of a new SUV. Your Escalade may look "gangster," but it takes an RPG round like a little bitch.

Civilian-legal military hardware doesn't stop at tanks, either. If you're willing to spend the time getting your pilot's license, you can also buy a working fighter jet. Everything from a 1956 "Venom" to a 2005 Northrop F-5 is available for anyone willing to pay. Prices start at around $4,500 and go up to $2 million for the nicer ones.

Sure, all of their weaponry is deactivated, but they're sunuvabitching tanks and jets. Tanks don't actually need those cannons to affect havoc: Just drive them through a grocery store, snap a quick picture with your cell phone and send it to the League of Evil. They're sure to approve your application now. As for jets, well, just tape swords to the wings or something. Shit, do we have to think of everything for you?

Our regular readers may point out that wild piranhas aren't nearly as dangerous as rumors make them out to be. While it's true that in their natural habitat they aren't a threat to anything larger than a guppy, when starved they are fully capable of skeletonizing a cow in an extremely short period of time. Teddy "Motherfucking" Roosevelt himself was a witness.

Hungry piranhas have been known to attack any person or animal, regardless of size, that stops long enough for them to get a bite in. And those aren't always little bites: "...most injuries resulting in bites to the heel, soles of the feet and toes. More serious deeper wounds were also inflicted to the legs, arms and body. Some bites were so severe that the fish completely removed the toes, including the phalange bone."

So yes, any mad scientist (or paranoid homeowner) worth his salt would have no trouble arranging the environment (keeping them hungry) for a school of murder-fish. And the best part? It won't cost anything more than walking-around money. You can buy 10 red-bellied piranha for a mere $80. Plus they're legal in 28 of 50 states, which means most of you have absolutely no excuse for not investing in a pond full of carnivorous water monsters right now. It's just good business.

Swarms of razor-sharp fish not enough for you? How about a goddamn bear? You can buy and legally own brown bears (as well as lions and tigers) in nine states. These (terrifying) people own two fully grown bears and have a whole website dedicated to helping you do the same.

Why trust in that rack of shotguns to scare off your daughter's potential suitors, when you could raise 1500 pounds of muscle and claws to do the talking FOR you?

(Disclaimer: Bears do not actually talk, although it would be pretty bitchin' if they did).

With enough money or the right license, you can buy just about any weapon you've ever seen. Want to own a grenade launcher? Sure thing! As long as you're willing to fill out a ton of papers there's nothing to stop you from buying enough military hardware to overthrow a banana republic.

You can grab your very own M203 grenade launcher for under $3,000, though you'll need to go through a background check, register it through the ATF, jump through a few other bureaucratic hoops, and the necessary tax stamp will set you back $200 bucks. Then, you'll need to pay another $200 if you want to register a deadly grenade like this 40mm buckshot round.

This monster holds the equivalent of 27 rounds of 00 buckshot, and its steel pinballs of death launch out at 882 feet-per-second, creating a hailstorm of hot lead 98-feet wide and 98-feet high.

So, for about the same price as a fully-loaded 1993 Ford Festiva, you could also wield the power to obliterate a small village in the blink of an eye.

Want to kick it old school? You can also legally own Vietnam-era M79 grenade launchers if you're willing to drop around eight grand. "Load your own ammo" kits are fairly cheap, although you'll need to register anything beyond a flare or flashbang round as a Destructive Device. If grenade launchers are too low-key for you, there's no reason you couldn't just go with a 60mm mortar instead.

As fun as high explosive weaponry is, it won't really do the trick if you need to, say, disable a heavily armored battle tank. And let's face it, you probably will (you aren't the only one reading this article, after all). It's only a matter of time before one of your dickhead neighbors gets a hold of his own personal tank, and now you've got a Soviet-made T72 blocking your goddamn driveway. Mortar rounds won't do much more than scratch the paint. But a 20mm anti-tank cannon?

You can legally own a Lahti L-39 for about the same price as a mid-sized sedan. Considering the fact that you can destroy 10 such cars with one magazine's worth of ammo, we're going to go ahead and declare the Lahti a bargain.

Any time a new high hits the market it's liable to be banned within a few years in the name of keeping the children safe. Like say, for example, kids getting fucked up on cough syrup. Though it sounds doofy as hell, multiple deaths and dozens of overdoses have been attributed to "robotripping."

No less than three rappers have died as a result of cough syrup-related shenanigans. But to get really high off of cough syrup, it needs to have either codeine or dextromethorphan inside it. Since the former is a schedule II controlled substance, DXM is the best bet for kids looking to get fucked up over-the-counter. In the wake of the "cough syrup scare" a bunch of states have started restricting the sales of DXM-containing cough syrups to anyone under 18. Some even put a limit on how many bottles you can buy, regardless of age.

Of course, none of these restrictions extend to the lawless cultural demilitarized zone we call the Internet. $18.30 will buy you 1200 milligrams of pure DXM in 10 milligram capsules from the underground black market site known as Amazon.com. Erowid says that's enough to give four people pretty mind-melting trips, or for one person to spend the next day fighting off invisible floating 5s and journeying through the Land of Fractals.

Now please, don't read the part where we said rappers do this stuff and fail to catch the part where we said they freaking died. Cough Syrup has other ingredients that are fatal in large doses, and side effects of DXM include sweating, nausea, stomach cramps and refusing to shut the hell up about the patterns in this gravel driveway, dude.

You could end up in the middle of a drug bust, shot during a drive-by or forced to sit through the entirety of Loose Change while you wait for a guy named Free to "feel" if the dime-bag is ready to "take home." But good news, everyone!

Ecstasy and all those other bizarre research chemicals can be made relatively cheaply and quickly in your own home (though notice we did not say "safely" or "wisely.") As it turns out, raves, sybaritic drug orgies and Burning Man all owe their psychedelic fuel to one man: Alexander Shulgin. He's the scientist credited with popularizing MDMA (ecstasy) and was also the inventor (and first user) of over 230 other psychoactive chemicals. Without a doubt, Dr. Shulgin has consumed a wider variety of psychedelic drugs than any other human being on planet earth.

Dr. Shulgin and his wife Ann authored two books, Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved and Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved, otherwise known as PiHKAL and TiHKAL. These tomes contain detailed step-by-step instructions for making all the crazy research chemicals Shulgin discovered across his long and storied career, and each entry even comes complete with trip reports--so you know which man-rabbit you can expect to fight in six hours, and why!

If you think this isn't serious stuff, listen to Richard Meyer, spokesman for the DEA in San Francisco, who had this to say about PiHKAL and TiHKAL:

"It is our opinion that those books are pretty much cookbooks on how to make illegal drugs. Agents tell me that in clandestine labs that they have raided, they have found copies of those books."

Shit, something like that must be locked down tighter than a nun's r- oh, nope, you can buy them for $16.66 from Amazon.com. You can also find the second half of TiHKAL for free on Erowid.

But who are we kidding? Attempting to mix your own drugs and largely untested research chemicals is reckless, irresponsible and downright dangerous. You're probably better off spending your money elsewhere, like, say, this extensive collection of guides to mixing your own explosives.

Robert Evans writes about fancy gadgets for I4U.com and discusses the ancient craft of dick-jokery on his occasionally-updated blog.

Don't forget to check out what else you can buy, in 7 Items You Won't Believe Are Actually Legal. Or learn about foods that can get you totally stoned, man, in 7 Common Foods That Can Actually Get You High.

And stop by Linkstorm to see your new tank in action.

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