Is this question off-topic?

Question

As we start to figure out the scope of the site, I wonder if we can use the following question as a case study. The question is: How to get illegal substances for independent open study? My view is that this is not about open science per se but rather about the legal issue of acquiring a particular material for research and thus off-topic for this site (i.e., it is either just about science and not open science specifically, or it is about laws related to research by individuals unaffiliated with a research institution). What does the community think?

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Comments

I could imagine - far into the future - that approval for using illegal substances could actually go preferentially to open science projects, but there are no indications right now as to when and where that may actually happen, so I agree that the question is off-topic for now.

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Answer 1

I believe it could be on-topic as it match the criteria/principles described in:

• What criteria does a research project need to match to be called open science?

where scientific project aims to be open (data, code, pubs, etc.).

If I'm missing anything, we should better define our 'open science' for this purpose.

This post has been migrated from the Open Science private beta at StackExchange (A51.SE)