It used to be that a budding chemist could buy all sorts of chemicals, make explosions, bad smells, and so on without much of a fuss. However that has changed and the Gestapo will be at the door should anything remotely interesting be purchased (watch lists, "voluntary" reporting, etc). The paranoia is so bad that if your neighbor sees you mix more than flour and water together he'll be on the phone with the cops describing a drug lab. Many common products that could easily be used for reagents have been deliberately poisoned or diluted, requiring workarounds to actually use them. Schools don't show anything more than litmus tests and the material is presented in a boring manner with no practical applications outside of industry. YouTube censors purely educational chemistry content. Of course this doesn't stop genuine illicit activity, and lawmakers and enforcers know this. This does stop innovation and dramatically reduces the number of people that take up an interest in the subject. China isn't restricted in the same ways, you can buy almost any chemical you want and do whatever you want in the countryside, but their schooling is all book learning and they wash any creativity they may have had out that way. Where are the next generation of chemists going to come from? Haitian mud cake bakers?