h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In the current, July 2012, edition of National Geographic Magazine, I found a letter to the editors, highlighted in the opening of the section on responses to a past Nat. Geo. article on the the illicit rhino horn trade, "When is the world going to play hardball with the butchers involved in the rhino horn trade?".

Suggestions from the text of the letter that's abstracted from include,

"Put out a bulletin announcing that toxic rhino horns have been sold into the black market."

and,

"Develop a counterfeit rhino horn and saturate the market..."




On the latter suggestion, I suppose the counterfeit rhino horn wouldn't be any very great trick 'secret ingredients' like barber shop sweepings and beauty parlor and pet grooming parlor fingernail and toenail clippings, compressed into a suitable mold with live steam to create a compressed mass chemically, visually and texturally almost identical to actual rhino horn, flavor and odor very closely similar too.

The nail parings are important, especially if massively enameled, serving notice to the consumer that they've been had, though I expect the purveyors will go on selling the counterfeit rhino horn to their customers as a tonic anyway.