Life funds a way to live off of any energy gradient

On occasion.

I barely see any conversation or posting. Maybe I got here too late.

You say that the Intium extractors need 1000x more pills than carnivores using them for their intended purpose. This means that the rationing doesn’t need to be severe enough to be a burden on genuine users. Simply make the rationed maximum amount 10x what a carnivore needs, and make it so anyone can still acquire the pills. Bad actors would need to coordinate 100 people to get the number of pills they need to make a paltry amount of money that isn’t worth the labor cost of organizing that many people.

The pills maybe don’t even need to be behind the counter. In our society, if I pick up a controlled/dangerous substance (e.g. flex seal or stump remover), I get my ID scanned at checkout. That’s the only additional burden, and it’s a minor one (assuming that identification documents are common-place). The product is still on the shelf where I can grab it and head to the checkout line. Perhaps an ID isn’t really necessary, as long as each individual purchase is below the cap. Who would want to go to 100 stores to get enough pills? That’s a lot of time and effort for what you claim is tens of dollars in Intium.

Can an herbivore pick up pills for a carnivore friend? Yes, as long as they aren’t doing it for more than 10 friends. Can a carnivore who loses their pills get replacements without worrying about it? Yes.

The extreme amount of pills required for illicit usage makes bad actors easy to detect with minimal impact on authentic use. Also, the limited value of the Intium able to be extracted by this method means that only a modest barrier is required to prevent illicit usage.

The situation you are describing is a best-case scenario for constructing a policy that is simple, effective, and a limited burden on aboveboard access.

rsync