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Rick Steves' recent speech
We all, hopefully, gain insights and learn important lessons during our travels. Here Rick shares some of his philosophy of travel and I, for one, think he's spot-on.
http://www.counterpunch.org/gardner05072005.html |
I have never smoked pot, never want to smoke pot, and have no desire to hang out with others while they do it. But I think prosecuting pot smokers is a huge waste of my tax dollars. I'm all for legalization.
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The Canadian government is going for "decriminalization" - meaning that if one is "caught" with a small amount of pot, he/she will receive a ticket, sort of like a speeding ticket.
This is NOT the same as "legalization", but you can't imagine the amount of opposition from the Oppositiom party (The Conservatives), as well as politicians from the US, including the US ambassador to Canada. |
The Canadian legislation makes all the sense in the world to me. Our ambassador to Canada is a psycho. My apologies to our neighbors to the north. (Or actually to the south from us Michiganians.(
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I'd love a brownie.
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Considering that 10 states have already enacted laws allowing seriously ill patients to use medical marijuana with their doctor's recommendation; that during the November 2004 election, 17 of 20 marijuana initiatives won; that a Nevada state initiative will be voted on during the November 2006 elections that will remove all penalties for the use and possesion of up to one ounce of marijuana by adults age 21 and older, as well as create a system for the legal distribution and sale of marijuana to legal adults; that 72% of Americans over age 45 believe that adults should legally be allowed to use marijuana for medical purposes; etc, etc, etc.... More and more people are speaking out against our current flawed drug policy, and changes are being made. Now if only our federal government will allow states rights to rule, the way it should be. Peace.
Robyn :)>- |
Where I live (Canberra) the rules are about what the Canadian government has in mind; no cop in his right mind arrests anyone for smoking pot. Dealing in commercial quantities certainly carries penalties, up to and including jail in the more blatant cases, but in a town where smack deals are often observed by decent law-abiding Christians it's not a big issue.
Having attained virtual oldfart status, I'm touched by the fact that concerned and generous younger relatives still seek to indulge my nostalgia for the '70s (I shoud explain that the '60s didn't arrive in Australia until the '70s) with an occasional puff, although few understand the slurred injunction "Er, man, don't Bogart the J - OK?" |
>The bus stops and everybody stands around and watches a goat get slaughtered and passes around the bong.<
Hey, like, cool man.......... ((I)) |
Canadian government has also said 'no' to the smoking of tobacco in public places. My guess is that will apply to marijuana, no matter what other legal changes are made.
Ergo, what will be needed for users with medical reasons is a THC pill, otherwise the health argument is counterproductive. |
Hey Cigalechanta, I'm with you. Where's Alice B. Toklas when you need her?
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>..what will be needed for users with medical reasons is a THC pill,...<
They have had this for decades. Interestingly, most folks who need marijuana for medical reasons claim that they only get relief if they smoke it. ((I)) |
It's true cigarette smoking is banned in office buildings, restaurants, and bars in Canada. But people smoke cigarettes all the time in public places outside.
Similarly in Vancouver people smoke dope all over the place - in parks, on the street, in their homes (you can smell it while taking a walk outside). I would just as soon be able to go to the park with my dog and child and not trip across a group of teenage dope smokers, thanks very much. |
"Interestingly, most folks who need marijuana for medical reasons claim that they only get relief if they smoke it..."
Really, Ira..that's an interesting claim...would you care to provde some documented evidence of this? |
I found the speech interesting and the pot enforcement aspect to be just descriptive of the many wasteful expenditures of the government. It isn't going to get any better if the religious right continues to grow.
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Marinol, a synthetic form of THC, has been available for years. Unfortunately, it has been prescribed primarily to sufferers of chemotherapy and AIDS wasting syndrome, and they have a problem ingesting a pill and keeping it down long enough for it to be effective.
From an IOM (Institute of Medicine) report - <i>"It should be noted that the IOM also reviewed the medical efficacy of the legal synthetic THC drug Marinol, which it found to have "poor bioavailability," slow onset, and adverse effects such as "anxiety, depersonalization, dizziness, euphoria, dysphoria, [and] somnolence" in approximately one-third of patients who use it. As such, authors noted that many patients prefer whole smoked marijuana over this legal alternative."</i> Canada has recently approved the prescription painkiller Sativex, made from components derived from the cannabis plant, in the form of a liquid spray. It has been shown to ease the pain for those suffering with Multiple Sclerosis. Peace, Robyn :)>- |
Cool speech.
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Temporary Compassion
In 1975, Robert Randall, who suffered from glaucoma, was arrested for cultivating his own marijuana. He won his case by using the “medical necessity defense,” forcing the government to find a way to provide him with his medicine. As a result, the Investigational New Drug (IND) compassionate access program was established, <b>enabling some patients to receive marijuana from the government.</b> The program was grossly inadequate at helping the potentially millions of people who need medical marijuana. Many patients would never consider the idea that an illegal drug might be their best medicine, and most who were fortunate enough to discover marijuana’s medicinal value did not discover the IND program. Those who did often could not find doctors willing to take on the program’s arduous, bureaucratic requirements. In 1992, in response to a flood of new applications from AIDS patients, the George H.W. Bush administration closed the program to new applicants, and pleas to reopen it were ignored by subsequent administrations. <b>The IND program remains in operation only for the seven surviving, previously-approved patients.</b> |
<Canadian government has also said 'no' to the smoking of tobacco in public places.>
I believe that in some cities in the US, say San Francisco, smoking is also banned in public places too?? I am not wading into the "merits" of smoking pot, but for Neil_Oz: the pot you can get nowadays is VERY different from the pot you might have encountered some 10-20 years ago. The pot you get now is VERY potent. In fact I heard that the Canadian government, when they allowed pot smoking for medical reason, did try to have designated growers to grow pot for medicinal pot, but had to destroy a whole crop (which cost a lot of money), because the quality of these pots were not up to par with what you can get from some illegal growers!!! Opponents to Canada's decriminalization effort is still equating "decriminalization" to "legalization"!! |
The idea that pot is more potent now is apparently a popular misconception.
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<the idea that pot is more potent now is a public misconception>
No it is NOT. I have friends who have been smoking pot for 20 years and this come from their mouths. Our company also has Drug and Alcohol awareness sessions using a counseller who was a long time addict himself. He aid tessentially the same thing. This is not an issue for me. Personally I think that if you want to stuff yourself with whatever drugs and alcohol, just go right ahead. |
Average Pot Potency No Stronger, Study Says July 1, 2004 - Lisbon, Portugal Lisbon, Portugal: The overall strength of marijuana available in Europe has remained stable despite claims from US officials and others that it has increased significantly in recent years, according to a study released this week by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. The study, which analyzed the potency of marijuana seized by police between 1995 and 2002, is the first-ever European review of cannabis potency. "There is no evidence of a significant increase in potency," authors determined. "Today's report shows that effective potency of cannabis in nearly all EU countries has remained quite stable for many years, at around 6-8 percent THC." Average pot potency in the Netherlands was higher than the EU average, authors noted, because domestically-produced, indoor cannabis is more widely available there than in other European nations. Average potency of US pot is between 4 and 5 percent THC, according to federal statistics. In recent years, US Drug Czar John Walters and other anti-drug officials have alleged that today's marijuana is, on average, some "30 times" more potent than the pot available in the 1960s and 1970s. |
I can't tell what the policies on marijuana are in any of the three states I know best (Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio). I encounter marijuana smokers once or twice every week - - they are on the maternity units of hospitals having babies, and often times they have positive urine drug tests, recurrently over the course of their pregnancies. Women also deliver nicotine, alcohol and cocaine directly into the bloodstream of their unborn babies.
I wish it were not true, but I am almost never evangelical about what action ought to be taken. I can tell you that the representatives of local government who see these women and their families (i.e., family and child welfare agency staff people) will not go see a judge when mothers smoke marijuana, nor when they drink (way) too much beer. They (the case workers) are, after all, hired to be helpers, and they are not (directly) in the business of law enforcement. I'm not opposed to decriminalization of marijuana; it ought to be like a parking ticket, it seems to me. So should walking down the street drunk on malt liquor, after the bars close. Neither substance has any business in the direct bloodstream connection which binds an unborn baby to its mother (fathers are just as guilty, but the consequences are rather dissimilar). And I do not believe that decriminalization will do anything to reduce this problem. I didn't read the Rick Steves speech, cited above - - and essentially nothing that I have posted here has anything to do with my knowledge of Europe travel. Best wishes, Rex |
I'm w/Rex. I can't believe the Gov't doesn't legalize it & then, of course, tax it. Then the dope smokers are paying for it, rather than me paying for the police to try & stop it.
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"The news is not news. Reality tv is not reality. When you see steroids on TV, and Michael Jackson and Terry Schiavo and so on, nobody's talking about the big issues. I mean every day, if you care about people if you're into sanctity of life, every day three times as many people who died on 9/11 die in Africa. Every day because of AIDs. That's a real problem that can be dealt with. We hear about the tsunami, and then it's gone out of the news. And nobody tells us that every week there's a tsunami worth of innocent children that die of starvation on this planet. It's just structural poverty, and America is the flagbearer of this structural poverty around the planet. As good people we can encourage our neighbors and so on to become a little more progressive."
America is the "flagbearer" of "structural poverty?" "The news is not news?" I guess one result of Steves' pot-smoking is the utter incoherency evident in his speech. God help the AIDS movement if he decides to "help" them as a spokesperson. He's done nothing helpful with this nonsense to promote the (debatable) benefits of legalized drug use. |
Medical pot is legal here in Northern Nevada. I'm not sure if that was voted in state wide or not. My brother was a police office for almost 30 years and is EXTREMELY conservative, and has said that drugs should be legalized. I was kind of surprised, but his having to deal with it for so many years and seeing the "War on Drugs" as pretty much a failure, that was his opinion later on in his career. I tried pot in my wayward youth and it was disgusting..the smell and the taste!!! YUK!!!!
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OK, three points:
1. Rick Steves makes several good points in that speech. 2. WRT the pot potency issue, it is a well-established fact that the strength of the more-expensive stuff here in the states increased dramatically, but it wasn't "in recent years" that this happened. It was back in the 80s. 3. I never touch the stuff. Not anymore, anyway. Makes me paranoid. Anyway, this entire thread makes me want to dim the lights and put on a Yes album. |
If potency has increased due to hydroponic cultivation, etc., this is a direct outcome of the stuff being criminalised in the first place. Allow people to grow a few plants in their backyards and the current industry virtually disappears.
Of course pot used to excess can be harmful. So can half the items on sale in your local supermarket, not to mention fast food outlet. If my taxes are to be spent on a war against drugs, I'd prefer them to be directed at heroin, thanks. I'd prefer to deprive our police forces of the pretence that they're winning the drugs battle by posing against a backdrop of burning dope plantations on the nightly TV news while hundreds of kilos of smack slip into the country in uninspected cargo containers. |
It is always easier to "go by the book" than to really look at the issue objectively to see what make sense.
To me, some big corporations are just as bad pushing high fat diets, or smoking as being "cool". How many people die from heart diseases from high fat intake, or lung cancer, versus from drug use? I don't have the statistics but am interested in finding out. |
It's rather ironic, kswl, that the passage you quote and suggest is incoherent was the one I thought most thoughtful and cogent. I have long ranted to family and friends how Americans, in general, are left in the dark concerning news that relates an objective global view. [even subjective is OK if it exposes a topic] US news sources are <i>so</i> near-sighted that it shocks me, and to compound that - they count on us having the memory skills of a gnat.
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Well, Nimrod, if Americans are in the dark about global issues it is because they themselves have turned out the light. There has not been a television in our house for seven years, and I can't imagine anyone attempting to get much actual news or useful information from one. The New York Times does a pretty good job of covering international news. And information, including news, almost always makes more sense if you read it than watch it.
As to Rick Steves . . . "thoughtful" and "cogent?" Not by most standards, I don't think. |
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