@afewbugs I mean "DIY" in a very broad sense, in the sense of "existing outside of the existing for-profit pharmaceutical system" - obviously there's only so much that a single individual can do, purely by constraints of time and money. But what is possible collectively?

There is probably a limit to how safe it can be made, purely because having permanent controllable infrastructure makes you a legal target for patent enforcement, and informal things are easier to get away with legally but harder to make safe. But I also doubt that there's no room for improvement at all compared to what we have now, with some collective work.

So yes, the safe options *should* be made more accessible, but I don't think it's an either/or. Fixing those systemic issues is likely going to take a very long time, and in the meantime, ideally the DIY processes would be made as safe as they can be within the constraints. But that will require expert input and collaboration to achieve.

(An additional complicating factor is that you'll find many people who believe the nominally 'proper' way to be a dead end, and that is why they prefer to focus on improving DIY processes. This sort of thing is why diversity of tactics and mutual support is important.)