Czuch: It's a crime here to be under the influence of any substance while driving. Drink/drugs.. anything that impairs your ability including prescription drugs and any illness that could cause an accident.

NO actual deaths from just smoking Marijuana have ever been recorded as far as I can tell.

As to growing.. as far as I can tell, the states that allow it do so that the grower is under license. Better that then imported via drug cartels. Personally I feel it rather wrong that a drug baron gets money from medical 'pot' in the same regards I do not agree with the massive trade in prescription drugs on the internet (eg Viagra) that has sprouted.

As such there is no excuse here to have smoked and then drive. The advertising about the dangers have been going on for years in the UK.

Czuch: "but I have read studies that show too much caution when driving impaired by pot, and that can, and has lead to other people being involved in an accident


That has been my major complaint regarding women drivers for years............less the pot part

Czuch:
"Also, just because one drug is "better" than some other legal one, is not a good argument for it to be legal as well, IMHO."

If a legal drug is "worse" than an illegal one, should it be illegal? Seems kind of logical to me. But of course I see the opposite as logical as well.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as marijuana is illegal, booze should be as well.

Let the drunks get prescriptions for booze I guess.

In actuality, I fully support legalization of marijuana. With the same restrictions as alcohol. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there isn't a test to tell if you are CURRENTLY under the influence of marijuana. I believe the only tests are if you have recently smoked it. (Which could be a week ago!)

(V): With regards to Marijuana.. as far as I am aware.. there has never been a fatality related directly to it's use.



Everyone has heard this one before..... but I have read studies that show too much caution when driving impaired by pot, and that can, and has lead to other people being involved in an accident.

Also, just because one drug is "better" than some other legal one, is not a good argument for it to be legal as well, IMHO.


What is the definition os a drug anyway??? You want to say caffeine too? Is caffeine a drug?? What substance is not a drug then???

I dont mind it as a prescribed drug, I am sure it much safer than many other prescribed drugs, and others that are legal too. but I dont want you and me growing it and selling legally to someone with a prescription either.

And as dandy pointed out, prescription drugs have a warnig that they are not to be used while driving etc..... same as legal drugs IE alcohol, no drugs should be used while doing anything that can harm someone else!

Übergeek 바둑이: I guess those stats back up my opinion.Moderation is of course the key.

Jim Dandy:

The following chart was published in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_assess_the_harm_of_drugs_(mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence).svg

Apparently it was published in The Lancet, a medical journal published in the UK. The article can be found here, if you have a subscription to the journal.

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0140-6736(07)60464-4

The actual abstract can be read here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17382831

It is very interesting. They used a "nine-category matrix of harm, with an expert delphic procedure, to assess the harms of a range of illicit drugs in an evidence-based fashion". They generated a chart to correlate dependence and physical harm. Two groups of experts independently assessed the data. (Read the abstract)

In that chart cannabis is causes less dependence and less harm than tobacco or alcohol. Tobacco causes almost as much dependence as cocaine, but it is less harmful than cocaine. The worst drug is heroin. I think that the medical profession is working towards a better understanding of what drugs effects are and how that can be applied in a regulatory system.

I just got an interesting spam in my e-mail. It was from Amazon. An ad for a book called "The Great War and Modern Memory". It is a book about WWI. There are other books in the spam too, about WWII and the American Civil War. It is interesting because I have never bought books from Amazon. Could it be that they caught my IP address when I was searching Yahoo, Google or Wikipedia for information on the posts I put here earlier? I am hoping it is just a coincidence!

Übergeek 바둑이: As long as a person smoking pot stays away from driving a vehicle or any other responsible activity,the worst thing that can happen to then is heartburn from too much pizza.Booze is much more dangerous,and produces much more aggressive and dangerous behavior

Czuch: With regards to Marijuana.. as far as I am aware.. there has never been a fatality related directly to it's use.

When compared to some drugs that are prescribed.. that makes it "soft". One prescribed drug is now part of a $500 million plus lawsuit over people getting diabetes from it. That same drug (and all in it's class) has side effects that can cause renal failure and as at this time.. there are no tests to see if you have that side effect or not... yet it is prescribed.

As for addiction, yes.. it can be, but then again that applies to many prescription drugs that are prescribed to which a procedure of coming off slowly has to used. Many of the side effects noted on Marijuana can be seen on prescription drugs or worse.

They did a study on harmfulness of various drugs in relation to health recently (the study included tobacco and drink) and on those grounds Marijuana is "soft". Drink and tobacco kill and yet are legal. The main concern was over the age of smoking pot. As with underage smoking and drinking it can cause problems in development of a person, yet because it is underground there is no control over underage use as there is with drink and tobacco.

Czuch:

> I dont personally believe that pot is a "soft" drug

I think by "soft" people would mean a drug that does not cause aggresive or euphoric behaviour, hallucinations or total sedation. Marihuana is a sedative and because of that people who smoke it "mellow out". It has side effects, like all drugs. Anybody who thinks it is healthy to smoke marihuana is stupid. There is nothing healthy about any drug.

I think the inhaler was developed to keep THC as a controlled substance. An inhaler would deliver 9-delta-tetrahydrocannabinol (9-d-THC) which is one of over 400 compounds found in marihuana. Pharmaceutical companies can make a lot of money out this.

As a chemist, I can say that I have mixed feelings about the current state of the law. On the one side, it breaks my heart to see people go to jail for drug offenses. On the other side I know how harmful these things are and whether strict control or deregulation is better depends on who is compiling statistics. Statistics on deregulation and crime incidence are not always reliable.

I do find interesting that the powerful tobacco and alcohol lobbies have kept tobacco and alcohol as legal drugs. The US had prohibition and it led to alcohol smuggling and organized crime in the 1920s. Canada tried to decrease tobacco consumption by steeply raising the "sin" tax on tobacco. It led to cigarrette smugling from the US and a rise in the tobacco black market in the 1990s. If tobacco and alcohol are a measure of what happens when drugs are legal, then high "sin" taxes and public education on drug consumption might seem the way to go with some of the less harmful drugs.

Some drugs are so mild that people don't even see them as drugs. For example, caffeine. It would be funny if Starbucks went out of business because caffeine suddenly became illegal!

I saw today that Bam will not allow the federal government to enforce its laws against the use of pot in states where it is legal

Übergeek 바둑이: Well, I dont personally believe that pot is a "soft" drug. It is addictive and does cause problems for those who use it for recreational purposes.

It does have benefits that outweigh its downside for some sick people.... but letting people grow their own or for people to be able to sell it to people with a prescription doesnt really make sense to me either?

I have read that there are some benefits to smoking it that you cannot get from taking a pill... I had not heard about the inhaler yet, maybe that gives the same benefits as smoking it does? I am not against whatever is good for medicinal purposes.... but pot is not some drug without a harmful side effect.

Czuch:

> Yes, so why here, like California, do we let private people grow the stuff and sell it for prescription???

Several pharmaceutical manufacturers are working on tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) inhalers similar to the inhalers used to treat asthma. There are already THC tablets on the market. I think the unwillingness to decriminalize marihuana comes from its potential economic benefit to pharmaceutical companies. You can make a lot more money selling inhalers and tablets than you can make letting people grow a plant in their garden.

GTCharlie:

> Stalin was also an evil man

Of course. The reason why the Allies were reluctant to let the USSR become an ally is because Stalin was a cruel dictator. Unfortunately Stalin had risen to power in the aftermath of Lenin's death. The all-out war declared by the Whites radicalized the communist party and gave Stalin the opening he needed to enforce his dictatorial brand of communism and the command economy system. If Lenin had not died things would have been different because Lenin had a more balanced view. Western Europe was not ready to make any openings to communists. It took the Great Depression, WW II and the Cold War for both communists and capitalist to abandon some of their more radical policies towards one another.

We also have to remember that prior to WW II values were different. Welfare Capitalism did not exist. The idea that western culture was meant to uphold freedom and democracy as its main tenets was born out of the WW II and the Cold War. Prior to WW II western culture lived for imperialism. Pursuing great empires was the main driving force behind western economies. Imperialism as evil is a concept that was born out of WW II and the great destruction caused by the empires trying to gain power over each other.

Today we see imperialism as bad and democracy as good, but it is hard to believe that only 70 years ago western culture would rather send millions to their deaths than uphold those values.

Czuch: ... why import it, if it is to be used for medical purposes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis#Partial_list_of_clinical_applications

<bMost man made drugs of a heavy duty nature have serious side effects, some can even kill ya in order to try and improve your health. So many different people with different illnesses find medical marijuana 'clean' compared to man made drugs, and also helps combat side effects of man made drug



Yes, so why here, like California, do we let private people grow the stuff and sell it for prescription???

Czuch: Today's cannabis far stronger than in '70s, DEA says

Related
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XNew York Times
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Drug Trafficking By Henry Pierson Curtis

Sentinel Staff Writer

October 18, 2009
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Grow-house raids in residential neighborhoods — happening regularly these days in Florida — often yield an illegal crop worth millions.

Super Pot.

Once a mildly inebriating plant, cannabis's potency has increased steadily since first studied by the University of Mississippi Marijuana Project in the 1970s.

Back then, the average marijuana sample contained less than 1 percent THC. That jumped to 3.2percent in 1992 and then to 8.8 percent by 2006, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

But marijuana cultivated in Florida regularly tests twice as strong as the national average, the result of years of genetic tweaking by Miami-based Cuban drug rings.

Raised in grow houses as clean as high-school science labs, the pot seized so far this year has contained 20 percent THC on average, according to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in Miami.

"I don't know what they're teaching them in Cuba, but they know what they're doing," Polk County sheriff's Lt. Steven Ward said. "This is the best marijuana I've ever seen."

Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the chemical known as THC, is what gives marijuana its high. Plants seized elsewhere in the United States contain 10 percent on average, according to the DEA.


27% THC stuns MBI
When high-tech grow houses spread from Miami to Georgia from 2005 to 2007, drug agents say, marijuana samples began breaking old standards for potency.

"Twenty-seven percent!" said Agent Billy Powell of the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation in Orlando, who seized 366 pounds of that strength pot from a grower near Orlando International Airport in 2007. "That's the highest I've ever heard of."

Pedro Tomas, the Cuban-born defendant in that case, told officers he learned how to grow marijuana by reading magazines at a local 7-Eleven store. Saying he didn't think raising pot for personal use was illegal, Tomas claimed he intended to smoke all 366 pounds himself.

"He said that with kind of a smirk on his face," Powell said.

In September, Tomas, 37, was sentenced in Orange County Court to 28 months in state prison.

Mahmoud ElSohly, a pharmacist in charge of the Marijuana Project, told The New York Times last year that illegal-pot growers have been using the same techniques to grow stronger cannabis that agronomists deploy to produce better-quality fruits, vegetables and other plants.

The Marijuana Project, a University of Mississippi research facility, is the only federally approved cannabis plantation in the U.S. Its laboratory tracks pot's chemistry and grows plants for researchers.

"They have been doing genetic selection for years," ElSohly said in December. "You can see the potency keeps going up."


Strong pot riskier?
What that means is debated endlessly.

Law enforcement and drug-treatment experts say significantly stronger pot poses known as well as suspected health dangers.

"The first thing to keep focused on is that marijuana at any potency is not a benign drug," said David Rosenbloom, president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, who compared marijuana consumption to alcohol abuse. "I'm not talking about a kid who smoked one joint and went on with his life."

Marijuana's negative side effects include anxiety, hallucinations, panic reactions and physical impairment, such as with driving a car, which likely increases at higher THC levels, he said.

"I'm saying it's probable because of there hasn't been a lot of formal research," Rosenbloom said. "There's no reason to believe there will be any difference in outcome other than intensification."

Advocates for legalizing marijuana say stronger pot reflects market demand and simply means smokers can consume less to get its euphoric kick.

"The bottom line is there's more of a connoisseur market now than in the 1970s," said Keith Stroup, founder and legal counsel of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Henry Pierson Curtis can be reached at 407-420-5257 or hcurtis@orlandosentinel.com.
Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel

GTCharlie: Stalin was a very insecure man with tooo much power. Always a danger. He killed the USSR more efficiently then any internal or external enemy. If the Germans had left Stalin alone I recon he would have brought down the USSR quicker on his own.

As for Hitler going for the Russians.. A war on two fronts is never a good thing.

(V): No doubt, my point was that the strategy of hoping That Hitler would attack the USSR Everyone knew first is speculation,the Germans wanted to recoup land taken from them by France in the treaty of Versailles. But remember, Stalin was also an evil man

GTCharlie:

> It seems you have a different view of Western intentions

I do, because the west had shown its hatred of the Soviet Union from early on.

The "Whites", the counterrevolutionary movement that tried to restore the Russian monarchy, were made up not only of Russians but also of soldiers from Japan, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, United States, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Australia, Greece, Turkey, China, Romania, Rstonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Finland and Czechoslovakia. The Russian Civil War was fought from 1917 to 1923 and all those countries put aside their differences and sent troops to try to drive the communists out of Russia. There were 2,400,000 Russians, 155,000 Allies and hundreds of thousands from the Central Powers fighting on the side of the Whites. The war left about 15 million people dead, of those 13 million were civiliands. The desire to destroy communism was manifest from early on and the superpowers failed to destroy the Soviet Union because they compted among themselves for wealth and power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War

On Nov. 26, 1936 Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, a pact designed to destroy international communism and the USSR. Italy joined the pact 1 year later. The "Axis" (a name adopted in 1941) was born out of anticommunist hatred.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Comintern_Pact

On Sep. 30, 1938 Germany, the UK, France and Italy signed the Munich Agreement (notice that the US was no involved at this point). This agreement gave Germany control of the Sudentenland, an area in Czechoslovakia with a large proportion of Ethnic Germans. On Oct 10, 1938 Germany occupied the Sudetenland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement

At this point I will say that the Allies (UK and France) were hoping that Hitler would abandon his claims over Alsace-Lorraine in France and concentrate on moving east on a path towards the Soviet Union. This was the appeasement that pleased the allies. Since Hitler was a sworn enemy of communism, the logical thinking was that Hitler would much rather go to war with the USSR than with the Allies.

The Allies underestimated Hitler and Stalin, and the unthinkable occurred. Germany and the USSR signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on Aug. 24, 1939. In this pact Germany and the USSR aggreed to divide Eastern and Central Europe and to remain neutral in case of a third party decalring war on either country. In Sep. 1939 Germany and the USSR invaded Poland and divided the land between the two.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov-Ribbentrop_Pact

WW II started on Sep. 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland and the UK and France declared war against Germany. The hopes that Hitler and Stalin would declare war on each other were dashed. The Alies undestimated Hitler and overestimated his hatred of the USSR.

Why would Stalin and Hitler sign this treaty? Everyone knew that those two hated each other and Germany had openly signed the Anti-Commintern Pact. They needed to build up their armies and secure strategic territory before going to war. Hitler wanted Norway and its iron ore trade, and Romania and its oilfields. Stalin wanted Finland, Bessarabia and the Baltic States. They knew that war was unavoidable, but they played for time.

After Hitler defeated France and invaded Norway, he turned on the UK. Hitler was overconfident and thought that the Luftwaffe would effectively defeat the RAF, but the UK had a secret weapon called the RADAR. Radar made the Luftwaffe ineffective and Hitler decided to abandon the plan to invade the UK and decided to invade the USSR instead. It was then that Winston Churchill asked Stalin to become allies, and this did not happen until June of 1941. It took the defeat of France, Belgium and the Netherlands to make the Allies abandon its hatred of communism and decide to coordinate their efforts with the USSR.

After the war ended, the most of same powers that had once been members of the White Movement became NATO in 1949, with Germany joining in 1955. It took the defeat of Germany and the loss of Eastern and Central Europe to make former competing empires put aside their differences and work together in a unified anticommunist front. My view of western objectives during WWII might not be entirely correct, but at least it does explain why Hitler was appeased rather than crushed.

***I mean, I'm growing a 50/50 THC to CBD cloned plant. My standards are very high as I work for the government.***

This was a quote from a scientist who works for the government... not my words!!

Not my fault I watch DOCUMENTARIES!!!

GTCharlie: He defeated the French full stop. The Vichy regime was an allowed government by the Nazis in certain parts of France. The regime wilfully collaborated with the Nazis throughout their period of government.

As for appeasement... Our army had lost it's edge, the great depression took it's toll on military research. While the Germans during the 30's steamed ahead. They borrowed (via books and all) ideas that were developed by other nations who had used the books as 'door stops'.. and developed them. We'd seen the Spanish civil war and how well the Nazi war machine worked.. and our government sought time to catch up.

Chamberlain made a deal with Hitler, but set the invasion of Poland as a step to far (mutual defence policies, etc) .... The Maginot line was a throw back from WWI warfare.

Over here in the UK we get taught about the period between 1918 and 1939. That's wear the appeasement attempts took place.

Czuch: If you are trying to say "why not other prescription drugs".. Because they cannot make a drug like it. Most man made drugs of a heavy duty nature have serious side effects, some can even kill ya in order to try and improve your health. So many different people with different illnesses find medical marijuana 'clean' compared to man made drugs, and also helps combat side effects of man made drugs.

As one old lady over here pointed out.. when she was on man made drugs for her problems, she felt crap all the time through the side effects. A friend of hers suggested to try eating very small amounts of marijuana. She did and found it works better then expensive pharmaceutical stuff without the side effects. The amount she has to use in a making a dish is very small.

Many of our basic medicines are based on natures own brands... Aspirin for example.

Czuch: best wait for (V) as he seems to know all about drugs...

as he said way back in march***I mean, I'm growing a 50/50 THC to CBD cloned plant. My standards are very high as I work for the government.***

Ferris Bueller: Medical Marijuana in California is a joke...... its just an attempt to make it as legal as cigarettes, and INMHO if dying patients need it, then why not like other drugs, instead of local "dealers"??

GTCharlie:
.....I am thinking in particular to Europe,and look forward to hearing your views....Morse

Just maybe when Molotov signed that deal with Ribbentrop, that the Soviets were trying to appease Hitler in to attacking the west first,, which he did, that deal lasted almost 2years.Maybe Stalin was hoping to share even more spoils with Hitler,After all Stalin snapped up the Baltic countries. But also lets add this yet another Hitler/Stalin pact, signed  a few months AFTER the west declared war on Germany.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Commercial_Agreement_(1940)

Übergeek 바둑이: Hitler invaded Poland splitting it with the USSR,The Allies responded by declaring war on Germany. Then with little action by the Allies, Hitler then invaded France by going around the Maginot line and into the lowlands, defeating the French (except for Vichy) driving out the British . THEN came the battle of Britain with Hitler hoping to invade England. when he failed... THEN AFTER ALL THAT... he foolishly invaded the USSR. That sequence doesn't sound like appeasement to me.It seems you have a different view of Western intentions Oh I also forgot the invasion of Norway and Denmark which came before the invasion of France.. Hitler really conquered all of the west except for England before turning to the USSR.. So if they were hoping Hitler would go after the USSR first,,, it didn't work out too well. And don't forget the Soviets attempt to invade Finland before all that

Morse:

Earlier this month we discussed the subject of "appeasement".  You can do a search of the board using the small form above the messages.  In that topic we discussed why appeasement happened and the different interpretations of it.

I think that WW II was unavoidable both in Europe and in Asia.  WW I was a resolution of conflicts that had started going back to the 19th century (and perhaps earlier than that).  Germans wanted to have an empire of their own much like France and England had.  The problem was tht the world had already been "divided" among the superpowers.  For Germany this meant that the only part of the world that they could potentially conquer was Eastern Europe.

In WW I Germany fought against Russia and nearly defeated it until the Czar fell from power and the new Communist government (under Lenin) surrendered and declared peace with Germany.  At the time Germany took control of several areas under the Czar's control.  For example, the Ukraine, Finland, etc.  However, Germany was no able to effectively control those lands and eventually lost them as the German economy sank into a deep recession in the 1920s.

When Hitler came to power he was determined to destroy what he called the "jew bolsheviks".  Hitler went on to incite antisemitism, hatred of the Roma (what we call Gypsies) and hatred of Slavs.  At the same time Stalin despised Hitler's fascism and how Hitler moved in to use the state to solidify the power of German capilatist monopolies.  The conflict between Stalin and Hitler was unavoidable.  They both knew it and signed their non-aggression pact to buy time before going to war.

Western superpowers knew this, and they "appeased" Hitler and gave him control of Poland and Czechoslovakia.  Their hope being that Hitler would attack the Soviet Union and in that way find the "living space" that the Third Reich wanted.  They probably thought that if Hitler was busy destroying the Soviet Union, he would stay away from France and England.  The superpowers hated the Soviet Union too, so appeasement was favorable to them.  This gave Hitler the impetus he needed to attack the Soviet Union and at the same time build his army to attack France and England.

On the Eastern front Japan had invaded China, Korea, Vietnam and other parts of Asia.  The Communist parties in those countries were determined to drive out the Japanese and these communist parties had the support of the Soviet Union.  The Japanese also hated the Soviet Union and were determined to build their empire by invading the Soviet Union from the East.  They also saw the opening of the hostilities between Germany and the Soviet Union as an opportunity to "divide and conquer" the Soviet Union by attacking in two fronts.  The Communist parties in occupied Asian countries declared war on Japan too and that meant that the conflict spread itself over all of eastern Asia.

Western superpowers were willing to tolerate attacks on the Soviet Union because they hated communists.  However, they were not willing to tolerate attacks against themselves.  When Hitler decided to invade France and Japan bombed Pearl Harbour, the conflict became truly a world war, and it was unavoidable because both Germany and Japan were determined to build their empires.

Ferris Bueller: The tag is an ankle bracelet tied to a home base. If you leave your home.. it goes off to alert those who monitor your probation/house arrest conditions.

as such our homeless are not jailed unless they break the law. Some people just find the jail world easier to live in then the outside world... that is disturbing.

Morse: Depends on what theater.. Asian or European?2 separate conflicts although a lot of the same participants...

.....As i am new to this Fellowship i'm not ceratain if the above subject can be debated or on which board it should be posted.I am studying the above subject and would like to debate "Could WW2 have been avoided,and events that changed the course of the war,including mistakes made by polaticians before,during and after the war.Any guidlines you can give me would be appreciated..............................Morse

Ferris Bueller: The tag seems to be an effective system over here. Not perfect but it is better then locking someone up for non-violent crimes. I don't believe for major non-violent (such as a big fraud) that it should be applied but that's what minimals are for, and house arrest.. though not a luxury house.. that's insult to injury.

But at the same time.. some penance beyond locking up needs to be applied in such cases, community service tends to be very popular over here. plus an attempt to prevent by changing attitudes of small time crooks, though although not always successful.. I have seen positive results.

The alternative is that someone gets use to going to jail. It's not a prison.. just another home and 3 meals a day.

Anyway.. did you here about the court ruling over here regarding some guy who got tortured?? The Government is having to appeal against 7 paragraphs of info regarding said act being made public. The judge says it's not a security risk in that your country's intelligence service will stop working with ours.

The BNP. Who only allows indigenous caucasian people to join has to put this policy to a members vote or face prosecution under racial discrimination laws.

.... An the UN has backed a report condemning BOTH Israel and Hama's. Although we know the USA (seeing as a certain power advises the 'other' government) .. They may be held to account in the international war crimes court.
... perhaps in the long run if they both recognise as well as protecting their people they have been bad boys. there might get to be a level playing field from which this decades old mess can be sorted.

(V):  I used to work in group home for juvenile, non-violent offenders.  Often they did learn to be better criminals - "graduating" from the non-violent to the violent.  I think there needs to better options for the non-violent offender than prison time.  Probation, community service, counseling and/or house arrest come to mind.  It would not only save the money of prison time, but hinder the criminal "education" they get in our jails. 

Übergeek 바둑이: Many here want the lower risk to health illegal drugs virtually decriminalised. Drink and cigs cost far more in terms of health risk and drains on resources. Putting someone in prison for minor things not only is an immediate waste of money and resources, but serves no good.

The big dealers.. bang em up. That or as would be more sensible with the likes of Marijuana.. make it a registered tax payable business. The Gov here already has 'farms' for 'research', and as pointed out by the boffins there.. it has many possible uses. Pain via THC, sanity via CBD (excuse if I've got my initials wrong on the second) .. Properly regulated, strains could be grown like those sold legally in California for specific problems.

.... The only problem is the pill makers... I don't think they like the idea of natural drugs replacing their multi-billion pound gravy train.

And if it was more regulated (eg police are very afraid of the consequences of a rogue batch of heroin coming in that is far better then users are use to.. people die) and grown under licence.... it cuts drug running, cuts out (in the case of bad hashish) people smoking so much junk that the big boys have mixed in to make a profit...

...and the dear old chancellor gets a nice bit of money. Plus.. as such the police then can target their time on stopping the hoodies and others who ruin actual quality of life rather than a shareholders bank account.

.. another thing.. community service, why lock up someone for a non-violent crime when they can be working off their debt by helping the community. I heard the good thing about prisons was that they gave criminals a chance to learn how to be better criminals..

... ... .. Oh sorry.. I got that wrong. I thought it was a good thing as the prison service keep making that mistake. One European country has it that non-violent offenders work during the week, go home to their families, pay from their wages compensation and goto jail at the weekend... with the tag system.. why not!!

Übergeek 바둑이:   There are those of us who lobby for the legalization of such drugs in the US, but the "war on drugs" keeps it from happening despite the fact it is practical for many reasons to do so.  Medical marijuana is helpful to dying patients.  It is outrageous to put a dealer of such substances in jail for 10 years due to mandatory sentencing.  Marjuana general use could carry a huge "sin tax", like cigerettes, to pay health care which people are crying about being too expensive.  In other words, its stupid & inpractical not to legalize such dope; therefore, I agree with you strongly on this subject.

(V):
I remember some 12 years ago China was critized on human rights ground because they executed 67 drug dealers.  The attitude of the Chinese government was one of eradication through the highest applicable legal penalty.  It worked to some extent although China still has problems with drugs, like most other countries around the world.  Their tough approach would probably be acceptable to some people who see no other way out other than extermination.

In many countries drug-related offenses cause a huge drain in the economy.  In the US about 80% of the people in the corrections system were incarcerated due to drug-related offenses.  That means that about 4 million people are there due to drugs and the cost of incacerating them is huge.  It hasn't worked because drugs are still a big problem in the streets.  Here in Canada the situation is the same and drugs are everywhere.

The Netherlands legalized some of the "softer" drugs like marihuana and hashish.  It seems to have worked for them, but politically their approach would not be acceptable to other countries.

I think that it is a losing battle.  The only way it will end is when poverty is eliminated both at the source of the drugs where poor farmers plant drug crops to survive, and at the destination where demand is fuelled by poverty.  This has to be accompanied with legalization of some drugs, and stronger penalties for trafficking others.  Marihuana, hashish, and LSD are not as destructive as cocaine and the amphetamines.  I think that penalties for possession have to change depending on the drug.  We see some of this here in Canada where possession of small amounts of marihuana has become tolerated by the law.  It might not solve the marihuana problem, but it has certainly kept a lot of people out of jail and out of descending into a life of crime.

Übergeek 바둑이: Our serious crime squad have as such admitted they cannot eradicate drugs off the street. Their attitude now is that in some cases, if a 'drug dealer' is known by them and causing no other problems (depending on the drugs and level of course) not to bust them. If.. it is impacting on neighbours etc, through related crime.. then they take the attitude of either telling them to clean up their act and the impact of what they are doing or get busted.

It's a matter of resources. Spending 10's of thousands of pounds to bust a person who's a low level dealer... or get the serious nasty distributors and those who's abuse impacts others.

Because quite seriously, as much as it would be nice to have a magic wand and be able to end the problem... it ain't that easy. The resources needed to end abuse are as such to costly and would kill any medical system, and as such... (as Jeremy Kyle would say) they can't do anything until the person abusing themselves wants to stop and face what's in their mind causing the addiction.

The Jeremy Kyle show had one person who hadn't gotten to the point that they'd complete the rehab course they were on.. at £5k+ a time, that is a lot of cash and resources to end drug/alcohol abuse throughout the system.

As a matter of point.. I was cruising the news/docu channels last night and came had a look at fox.. O'Reilly was moaning at a woman for her views on Afghanistan and missed her point. Although as needed we are stopping terrorist camps and attacks/training in the area, Taliban control (even though rocky) ... one task.. women being treated as equals, it's not a thing that eradicating the Taliban will solve. The men (as documented on Panorama) are still very Victorian in their attitudes. Even the CEO does not express 'equal rights'. This attitude is not going to disappear over night, and may take a generation or two to sufficiently say "job done".

Men still treat women as an object pretty much and the justice level for women is practically non-existent.

You can't change a whole country over night.

(V):

The use of performance enhancing substances in the military goes back a long time through history.

The Greeks talked of theis soldiers and athletes using small amounts of strychnine mixed with egg whites as a way to increase their strength.  Strychnine acts as a stimulant and increases the strength of muscular contractions.  That practice continued until the early 20th century when amphetamines were discovered by German chemists.

During WW II all sides of the war used amphetamines.  Reputedly British troops consumed 72 millions tablets during the war.  Both the RAF and the US Air Force gave amphetamines to their pilots during long missions.  German troops used amphetamines and testosterone to increase strength and aggression.  Amphetamine use has been blamed for many "friendly fire incidents" into our modern era.

Cocaine abuse has been a terrible thing too.  Cocaines has been very common in Africa among those people using child soldiers.  Rebels in Sierra Leone and Angola would give cocaine to children, then make those children use axes to chop off people's arms and legs.  Cocaine abuse has also been broadly implicated in the wars in Congo and the genocide in Rwanda.

Today special forces around the world use amphetamines, cocaine, and other stimulants to increase strength and alertness.  They also use steroids, growth hormone and IGF-1 to increase strength, and EPO to increase endurance.  This has led to some horrific things happening.  There was a case of a Russian soldier who had his legs and genitals amputated during a hazing ritual and drug abuse among the soldiers was  major cause of the tragedy.

I am a chemist and I despise the drug abuse.  I think our governments turn a blind eye to many forms of drug abuse because it is politically convenient and because government officials themselves are making money out of drug trafficking.

Übergeek 바둑이: I doubt it, all it's done imho is made another chain in the process to obtain drugs. They buy whatever (on the card so the gov don't see anything) and then have to barter those goods for their addiction. If someone is that desperate they will find a way.. and if someone is that desperate.. then someone will take advantage of that!!

Then the related problems of shoplifting, theft.. Quite honestly I think it's just passing on the problem to the people and businesses just to say... "we are doing something"

gogul: Strange though that certain illegal substances are used to keep USA pilots awake and alert on missions.

Maybe less missions rather than pump the pilots up with amphetamines to keep them alert beyond endurance, less friendly fire problems to be certain.

gogul

>  To get people to work, to make them indeed "function", all the families comunities etc you need to bust the wall street
>  our standards of agriculture are getting better
>This industrialisation not only went a little too far, it's waaay out of hand.

You make very good points in your last two posts.  Poverty and drugs go together, and so do money and drugs.  In reality the drug business is being fuelled by several factors.

On one side we have big demand fro drugs from the wealthier industrialized nations.  This demands comes from all segments of society from the rich to the poor.  Drugs among the poor are the worst problem because drugs make poverty even worse.  Poor people use drugs to escape from a bad life, and that life gets worse as a result.  It is a problem that feeds on iself.

The other side of the problem is the supply side.  Most of the growing of plants for drugs is done by some of the poorest farmers and peasants in the world.  These people grow coca, poppies and other crops because drug crops make more money than food crops.  A farmer growing corn will starve to death, but a farmer growing coca can at least make just enough to feed his children.

What does all this have to do with Wall Street (or other financial centres in the world)?  Agricultural conglomerates (like Monsanto, DuPont, etc.) make billions of dollars by controlling the supply of seed, fertilizers and pesticides.  These companies make money by overpricing essential supplies that farmers need.  In wealthier industrialized nations farmers might be able to get by, but in developing nations farmers can barely break even between the cost of production and the income they get from cash crops.  At the same time big grain producers in the US, Canada and Europe dump massive amounts of grain at lower prices and that means that small farmers in developing nations can't compete.  So poor farmers get a double pronged attack on their livelihoods.  Expensive supplies and external competition means that their cash crops are worthless, so they turn to growing drug crops out of desperation.

The end result has been that at no time in history have there been so many human beings suffering from hunger.  In 2006 there were 850 million people who did not have enough food to eat.  With the massive rise in oil in 2007 and 2008 the cost of grain increased between 80% and 300% in developing nations.  As a result now nearly 2 billion human beings do not have enough to eat.  That is about 30% of the population of our planet.  Ironically, advances in agricultural technology also mean that never in history has humanity produced so much food.  We have enough food to feed everyone, but we insist in pursuing agriculture for profit and that is leaving 30% of our planet without enough to eat.

The same can be said for industrialization.  We live in the most productive time in history.  Never in history has humanity produced so many consumer goods, yet 1/3 of humanity lives in poverty and misery.  The reason is simple.  Poverty means cheap labour, and cheap labour means mass production at a low cost.  Who makes the profit?  Wall Street (and other) billionaires.

Bernice:

>  vouchers for FOOD

Here in Canada the government tried vouchers for food, but drug addicts desperate for cash were selling them cheaply.  The government has tried a system that seems to work better.  They use a pre-loaded debit card (similar to a credit card).  They can use to buy things, but they can never extract cash from it, and the card is non-transferable.  That has stopped some of the cheating and wasting of state funds.  It is not perfect, but it seems the best solution so far.

Bernice: Its the authorities responsability. Who pays decides.

Any opinions on drug consume at the wall street? I know the ways drugs take and what they do to humans.

Bernice: same should be for child support recipients.

Übergeek 바둑이: ****I think that drug testing should be mandatory in cases where a social worker suspects that somebody is using social assistance money to buy alcohol, cigarrettes or drugs***

One way around this is to implement vouchers for FOOD (with the stipulation not to include alcohol or smokes), Schoolbooks, etc...This would stop Mum and Dad sitting home all day watching tele, smoking, drinking etc while the kids are at school....Under NO circumstances give the dole bludgers money...vouchers only...perhaps this would also help in curbing drug abuse.

Übergeek 바둑이: Well look, there has never been more hungry people as these days. Politicians everywhere try them self in patchworking the systems and obviously fail. So, basicly, we'll have a majority of people without work, because our standards of agriculture are getting better, because machines make most of the stuff, and we profitate from migrants willing to work a lot of hours in jobs nobody wants to do. For two decades we were willing to hope that some sort of share holder value would fix all our problems, the very same value that killed all the jobs. Certain people are despered enough to want to push people into jobs which frankly do not exist. In order to create jobs you have to think small-scale, very small scale. This industrialisation not only went a little too far, it's waaay out of hand.