Comment Re:Probably an overreaction, but... (Score 2) 431
In Canada, a teen couldn't just go into a store and buy it, and even getting hold of large quantities of potassium nitrate was challenging.
Don't know how old you are, but when I was a kid in Toronto in the mid-1960s we could (and did) go down to the local drug store and buy potassium nitrate in 1-pound containers. Ditto sulphur, so long as you weren't stupid enough to try to buy both at the same time. (At least we never tried that, we just assumed that the cashier would be at least as knowledgeable as us and figure it out. Maybe not.)
Our sixth grade teacher did admonish us (not directly, but the class as a whole) about the dangers of such homebrew, with a few anecdotes of kids who had lost various body parts through doing stupid things like using metal implements to mix the stuff (sparks!), or treating it a bit too cavalierly.