Food for thought Party People!!!

[SweetAss]

Article from todays paper!!

Yes, addicts need help. But all you casual cocaine users want locking up | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/29/drugs-cocaine-environment-fair-trade)

[GiantMidget]

These things make me laugh. Ok so i do a bit of yayo and i'm single-handedly responsible for the ills in Colombia. These people need to wake up and smell the bullshit, Legalise it then there won't be a problem, Bah.

[p0ly]

the government said 'telling people about the dangers of cocaine are not working at all, infact more people are using' so their new plan is the whole 'EVERY GRAM YOU BUY = THIS AMOUNT OF AREA IN COLUMBIA DESTROYED!' that'll stop people from doing it.

i wonder what there next plan will be when the usage keeps rising?

[GiantMidget]

the government said 'telling people about the dangers of cocaine are not working at all, infact more people are using' so their new plan is the whole 'EVERY GRAM YOU BUY = THIS AMOUNT OF AREA IN COLUMBIA DESTROYED!' that'll stop people from doing it.

i wonder what there next plan will be when the usage keeps rising?

I'm not being a prick but if someone said that to me next time i bought a g, i'd tell them to go and suck on some monkey nuts.

[p0ly]

people are NEVER gonna stop doing coke, the only way to save columbia is legalising it

[General Lighting]

although I occasionally agree with some things monbiot says I think he is just a middle class muppet Establishment tolerated "activist" - whose mum and dad are bigwigs in the Conservative party - ever noticed how

he also constantly whinges and never suggests a positive solution - and if you can have "fair trade" tea and coffee, why not drugs? centuries ago do-gooders said "if everyone drinks tea and coffee in England then all these poor people in other nations will die of starvation as their lands won't be used for growing food" - which clearly didn't happen...

I don't think much of his argument that legalisation "may cause problems in poorer countries" either as there are fuckloads of drugs in those countries anyway

plus I reckon if people were allowed more drugs in the middle east it would dull a lot of the "angry young man" factor that has led to Islam (a relatively peaceful religion in its moderate tolerant form) becoming more extremists...

[GiantMidget]

plus I reckon if people were allowed more drugs in the middle east it would dull a lot of the "angry young man" factor that has led to Islam (a relatively peaceful religion in its moderate tolerant form) becoming more extremists...

That's a good point actually mate. :wink:

[p0ly]

yeah decent point mate

[marcusblanc]

i think the most interesting bit of this slightly odd (in that monbiot seems to rather change tone, after the first few 'casual coke user' baitng pargraphs... is that a chemically induced contrariness, perhaps? :wink:) article is the reference to the most excellent Ben Goldacre's Bad Science article, which i read in the Grauniad a few weeks ago.

It starts...

Cocaine study that got up the nose of the US
In areas of moral and political conflict people will always behave badly with evidence, so the war on drugs (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/drugs) is a consistent source of entertainment. We have already seen how cannabis being "25 times stronger" was a fantasy, how drugs-­related deaths were quietly dropped from the measures for drugs policy (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/drugspolicy), and how a trivial pile of poppies was presented by the government as a serious dent in the Taliban's heroin revenue.



Here is the link...

Bad science: cocaine study that got up the nose of the US | Ben Goldacre | Comment is free | The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/13/bad-science-cocaine-study)

How great is that? :love: I recommend Bad Science wholeheartedly, he always seems to want to cut thru the BS, and live in an evidence based universe...

Bad science | Science | guardian.co.uk (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/series/badscience)


And havin reread all (!) of the monbiot article again, i think there are loads of perfectly good points in it. the only really dubious one is the headline point, about about the fair trade thing, cos we cant buy proppa fair trade coke... hell, most of the time, we cant buy proppa coke! :wink: as the man says...

To be clear, i think that apart from mistakenly attributing the suffering around the coke trade to the end users, rather than the governments that criminalize it, he is making the argument for legalisation, alongside more research, in this article.

but then i have always had a soft spot for Monbiot, ever since he took David Bellamy to the cleaners on channel 4 news, over Bellamys fictitous numbers on the worldwide glacial retreat. :love:

so i am biased... raaa

[marcusblanc]

That's a good point actually mate. :wink:

yup, defo agree with that...

[process]

but then i have always had a soft spot for Monbiot, ever since he took David Bellamy to the cleaners on channel 4 news, over Bellamys fictitous numbers on the worldwide glacial retreat. :love:

so i am biased... raaa

i saw that, fucking well funny! :laugh_at: did feel a bit bad for bellamy tho, must be getting senile in his old age... :hopeless:

[process]

i got this far in this article before i couldnt read anymore.

"You'd cause less human suffering if instead of discreetly retiring to the toilet at a media drinks party, you went into the street and mugged someone."

didnt think there was any real point in reading the rest of the article as the guy is quite clearly a cunt. :rant:

[SweetAss]

I do think that this is overblown & it is from the comment & debate section of the paper so it's deliberately written to get people going...
I actually quite like Monbiot and over the years he has written quite a few things I agree with...
It did make me think though although this is written in the extreme he raises a few good points. Don't know if anyone saw Panorama with Alex James from Blur a while ago...he was making very similar points about the problems that the current drugs legislation causes in the countries that produce it....??
I also find it quite interesting the point he raises about how legalisation over here & in developed countries would lead to third world countries would be flooded with cheap drugs..
Tricky one eh!!!

[process]

third world countries are already flooded with cheap drugs tho. a lot of coke works its way through africa. im Sure its dirt cheap there. Also if people think that suddenly cause coke is legal all these starving people with no money in these harsh environments are suddenly gonna spend what little money they do have on getting off thier face on chang then they are clearly not living in the real world! :you_crazy:

i saw that alex james thing and he is a right twat as well. :(

if it was legal it would get rid of a lot of problems. obviously there may be a rise in use initially, but then coke being illegal is hardly stopping people doing it at the moment anyway.

[BitsNpeazes]

plus I reckon if people were allowed more drugs in the middle east it would dull a lot of the "angry young man" factor that has led to Islam (a relatively peaceful religion in its moderate tolerant form) becoming more extremists...

im sure i read somewhere that the taliban are regular pot smokers, wouldnt suprise me considering alot of the cannabis comes from that part of the world. i think the reason they are so bitter and angry with us is because britain and the usa are greedy. but this is another story.

[SweetAss]

im sure i read somewhere that the taliban are regular pot smokers, wouldnt suprise me considering alot of the cannabis comes from that part of the world. i think the reason they are so bitter and angry with us is because britain and the usa are greedy. but this is another story.

Not just the taliban mate, watched this documentry a while ago following this guy in the british army "Jack-A Soldiers Story" It was mad at ine point there all holed up in this building havind a full in gun battle, air strikes comming in etc...The Afgans that were following the Grenadier Guards round , being trained to be soldiers to police the country when we pull out sat down mid battle made a massive spliff!!!
One of them stood up after this only for his gun to be shot from his hands by taliban members that they could not see.......crazy shite!!

[General Lighting]

im sure i read somewhere that the taliban are regular pot smokers, wouldnt suprise me considering alot of the cannabis comes from that part of the world. i think the reason they are so bitter and angry with us is because britain and the usa are greedy. but this is another story.

Afghans as a whole have always tolerated hashish smoking, and in ancient times the Assassins were rewarded with hashish (hence the similar sounding name) after carrying out their attacks and to dull any emotional qualms they may have about their activities.

Incidentally a lot more decent hash has come into the UK since Britain's troops were deployed there :wink:

Many communities are both pro and anti drugs and make use of prohibition to fight their corner... They are anti-drugs for their own people unless they are good soldiers/workers etc, and pro-drugs if the sale of the substances can be used to "corrupt" youths in other countries and make them more sympathetic.

I discussed the phenomenon of ketamine being £3.60-£4 a gram in Malaysia with my mum, and being mostly trafficked by Indians, apparently this has been done as a reprisal against the predominantly Muslim Malay population for tightening up immigration laws against Indians - so the traffickers have flooded the country with drugs instead of people!

This upsurge in drugs use have even forced Malaysia to abandon its mandatory death penalty for posession as well as dealing (its now only used for major organised dealing rings) as otherwise they would be hanging half of every high school class, and no nation prospers by executing its future generations...

[DaftFader]

Not just the taliban mate, watched this documentry a while ago following this guy in the british army "Jack-A Soldiers Story" It was mad at ine point there all holed up in this building havind a full in gun battle, air strikes comming in etc...The Afgans that were following the Grenadier Guards round , being trained to be soldiers to police the country when we pull out sat down mid battle made a massive spliff!!!
One of them stood up after this only for his gun to be shot from his hands by taliban members that they could not see.......crazy shite!!
i saw this same thing ... it was that white building with the white whaist high wall around it with a field and a tree line down the side ... the Grenadier Guards i thought were sitting about smoking opium not spliff tho.

[SweetAss]

i saw this same thing ... it was that white building with the white whaist high wall around it with a field and a tree line down the side ... the Grenadier Guards i thought were sitting about smoking opium not spliff tho.

You may be right, there was a lot off opium about...most of the battles throughout Helmand Province are in and around opium fields...Pretty sure that Jack geezer said it was weed at that point though & mentioned how he used to be partial to a smoke & didn't understand how they could do it under heavy fire!!:love:

[joshd96320]

i saw it aswell :)

is it the one where he goes into the police station voluntarily coz he got in a fight when he got back or something?

[SweetAss]

i saw it aswell :)

is it the one where he goes into the police station voluntarily coz he got in a fight when he got back or something?

Yes mate...

BBC - BBC Three Programmes - Jack: A Soldier's Story (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dyhs1)

one of the best docs i've seen in a while........:wink:

[joshd96320]

ye ye ye it was well good

[damo666]

yea i see some of that documentary was a good watch.