I did read the story. No I wouldn't give him a real bottle either...but I wonder...did they give him a glass of water on the desk as is customary at trials?

Anyway, casting a mold and pouring a sugar glass bottle of such a simple object is way easy and doesn't take very much time at all. And they would be perfectly safe to handle as they are used as movie props all the time. I speak from experience here. I have made molds and I have made glasses (not a beer bottle though) and I did it with my then 12 and 10yr (now 16 and 14) old granddaughters. We made two dozen glasses for one of their birthday parties in an afternoon at home.

The easy stuff cures in about 10 minutes and since this is a simple object you can use the kneedable non-liquid silicone mold compound. In less than a half hour you can produce a mold and then cast a sugar beer bottle. Most of that time spent boiling isomalt then waiting for it to cool in the mold. In 28 hours, you could have a complete brewery in sugar for heaven's sake. You can do it with supplies from an craft store and isomalt from a restaurant supply store. If I can do it in my common household kitchen with two pre-teen girls, they can do it in a police lab with educated technicians.

I think its neat that 3D printing got a positive spotlight here. But, I don't think its "lawless" as the article put it, and I don't think this was the best solution to the problem.