nabraxas

the Youtube commenters really get this song.

Monday 15 October 2012 A six-year study of Britain's drug laws by leading scientists, police officers, academics and experts has concluded it is time to introduce decriminalisation. The report by the UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC), an independent advisory body, says possession of small amounts of controlled drugs should no longer be a criminal offence and concludes the move will not lead to a significant increase in use. The experts say the criminal sanctions imposed on the 42,000 people sentenced each year for possession of all drugs – and the 160,000 given cannabis warnings – should be replaced with simple civil penalties such as a fine, attendance at a drug awareness session or a referral to a drug treatment programme. They also say that imposing minimal or no sanctions on those growing cannabis for personal use could go some way to undermining the burgeoning illicit cannabis factories controlled by organised crime. But their report rejects any more radical move to legalisation, saying that allowing the legal sale of drugs such as heroin or cocaine could cause more damage than the existing drugs trade. The commission is chaired by Dame Ruth Runciman with a membership that includes the former head of the British Medical Research Council, Prof Colin Blakemore, and the former chief inspector of constabulary, David Blakey. The report says their analysis of the evidence shows that existing drugs policies struggle to make an impact and, in some cases, may make the problem worse. The work of the commission is the first major independent report on drugs policy since the influential Police Foundation report 12 years ago called for an end to the jailing of those possessing cannabis. The UKDPC's membership also includes Prof John Strang, head of the National Addictions Centre, Prof Alan Maynard, a specialist in health economics, and Lady Ilora Finlay, a past president of the Royal Society of Medicine. The report says that although levels of illicit drug use in Britain have declined in recent years, they are still much higher than in many other countries. The UK has 2,000 drug-related deaths each year and more than 380,000 problem drug users. The 173-page report concludes: "Taking drugs does not always cause problems, but this is rarely acknowledged by policymakers. In fact most users do not experience significant problems, and there is some evidence that drug use can have benefits in some circumstances." The commission's radical critique says the current UK approach is simplistic in seeing all drug use as problematic, fails to recognise that entrenched drug problems are linked to inequality and social exclusion, and that separating drugs from alcohol and tobacco use makes it more difficult to tackle the full range of an individual's substance use. It says the £3bn a year spent tackling illegal drugs is not based on any evidence of what works, with much of the money wasted on policies that are not cost-effective. It argues that even large-scale seizures by the police often have little or no sustained impact on the supply of drugs; that Just Say No campaigns in schools sometimes actually lead to more young people using drugs; and that pushing some users to become abstinent too quickly can lead to a greater chance of relapse or overdose and death. The commission argues a fresh approach based on the available evidence should be tested. Its main proposals include: • Changing drug laws so that possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use would be a civil rather than criminal offence. This would start with cannabis and, if an evaluation showed no substantial negative impacts, move on to other drugs. The experience of Portugal and the Czech Republic shows that drug use would not increase and resources can be directed to treating addiction and tackling organised crime. • Reviewing sentencing practice so that those caught growing below a specified low volume of cannabis plants faced no, or only minimal, sanctions. But the production and supply of most drugs should remain illegal. • Reviewing the level of penalties applied against those involved in production and supply, as there is little evidence to show that the clear upward drift in the length of prison sentences in recent years has proved a deterrent or had any long-term impact on drug supply in Britain. • Reviewing the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act so that technical decisions about the classification of individual drugs are no longer taken by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) or politicians but instead by an independent body with parliamentary oversight. • Setting up a cross-party forum including the three main political party leaders to forge the political consensus needed to push through such a radical change in approach. Blakemore said: "Medicine has moved past the age when we treated disease on the basis of hunches and received wisdom. The overwhelming consensus now is that it is unethical, inefficient and dangerous to use untested and unvalidated methods of treatment and prevention. It is time that policy on illicit drug use starts taking evidence seriously as well." Blakey, who is also a former president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said the current approach of police taking action against people using drugs was expensive and did not appear to bring much benefit. "When other countries have reduced sanctions for low-level drug users, they have found it possible to keep a lid on drug use while helping people with drug problems to get into treatment," the former chief constable said. "But at the same time, we need to continue to bear down on those producing and supplying illicit drugs. This is particularly important for those spreading misery in local communities." Runciman said government programmes had done much to reduce the damage caused by the drug problem over the past 30 years, with needle exchanges reducing HIV among injecting drug users and treatment programmes which had helped many to rebuild their lives. The commission's chair said: "Those programmes are supported by evidence, but much of the rest of drug policy does not have an adequate evidence base. We spend billions of pounds every year without being sure of what difference much of it makes." The home secretary, Theresa May, last month ruled out any moves towards decriminalisation, saying it would lead to further problems. She told MPs she considered cannabis a gateway drug: "People can die as a result of taking drugs, and significant mental health problems can arise as a result of taking drugs." http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/15/decriminalise-drug-use-say-experts

wrong spot.

just vape hash....apparently it works really well. & if you're ov a mind to, tobacco actually vapes pretty well also.

not old, but definitely not a sapling anymore thanks to NegativeDave for the metaphor.

The facebook post that started it: the response:

how old are you guys? from childhood to my late 20's i had no interest in wood at all. now if i see a beautiful piece ov wooden furniture, fixture or flooring i can really appreciate it. i've taken that as a sign i'm getting old.

saw this last night on TV. Be sure to watch to the end.

Cammile Pussy Pipe Grab this one here. Jen Pussy Pipe Get this one here. Susan Pussy Pipe Grab this one here. Kim Pussy Pipe Get this one here. Zara pussy pipe Grab this one here. Diane pussy pipe Get this one here. http://www.hailmaryj...om/pussy-pipes/

yeah, saw this story today & just thought: "Fuck, if pot were legal he'd still be alive" http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019430865_apwasnohomishjaildeath2ndldwritethru.html

Oct 12, 2012 The controversial war on drugs not only costs a lot, it has done almost nothing to curb the drug addiction rate since 1970, according to this stunning chart by documentary filmmaker Matt Groff comparing the cost of drug control to the drug addiction rate. Groff used the rate of addiction to illicit drugs from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, pairing it with federal drug control budget spending numbers from the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy. Groff, who made the chart for his new documentary on the drug war The 1315 Project, says that it shows the costly war on drugs simply isn't working. A note: The numbers on this chart alone don't add up to $1.5 trillion, which represents a more inclusive count of drug control spending, with prison costs and state level costs determined by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, but instead to $800 billion. Groff included that $1.5 trillion because the chart appears in the documentary as a source discusses that more complete amount. As you can see, while the blue illicit drug addiction rate line has remained relatively steady at about 1.3 percent, the green line for drug control spending has skyrocketed. The increased spending did not correlate to lower addiction rates. "Drug use and abuse exists on a spectrum and as a society we must accept that some portion of the population will be addicted to drugs even if we don’t like it," Groff says. Chart by Matt Groff h/t Reason http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/10/chart-says-war-drugs-isnt-working/57913/

Is it really worth it? You got the posts taken down. You really want to deal w/hiring lawyers, going to court, etc.? & then if you do get a decision in your favour, getting him to pay up might be another matter.

ever hear ov pipe cleaners? all the pipe would need is a good ramming w/a stiff one & it'd be virgin clean again.

i know this article is very similar to the one qualia just posted, but it does have a few different charts & points to make so i'll post it anyway. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/15/1014151/ten-charts-that-make-clear-the-planet-just-keeps-warming/?mobile=nc

Well thanks for that, but it's not my birthday. I was too lazy to put the article in quotes, fixed it now.

October 13, 2012 IN THE years he has been taking LSD, bathroom tiler Joely T has seen melting trees, friends morph into fantastic creatures and sound vibrations warp the sky. A recurring trip has him crawling inside his own brain and shifting about thoughts and feelings like paper in a filing cabinet. The 29-year-old tradesman from Blacktown, western Sydney, describes his ''journeys'' with the psychedelic drug as blissful, playful, almost healing, despite the health risks. ''Everything rational became irrational. It was very colourful, very bright. I started questioning a lot of things about myself and others,'' he says. Psychedelic drug-taker and bathroom tiler Joely T. Photo: Carlos Furtado Joely T has been dropping acid and other hallucinogenic drugs - such as ''magic mushrooms'', DMT and mescaline - about once a month over the past decade. ''I like the ability of having this tool of being able to go into places I would not normally go,'' he says. Such psychedelics are more commonly consigned to the free-wheeling 1960s, when they gained notoriety as part of the countercultural movement. But interest in LSD and other hallucinogenics has grown significantly in recent years, particularly among 20 to 29-year-olds. Many young users are keenly experimenting with a growing range of psychedelics, including new strains of synthetic drugs sold online. They have dubbed themselves the YOLO (''You Only Live Once'') generation: curious but careless or unconvinced about possible health risks. The violent death of Brazilian student Roberto Laudisio Curti, who was shot by police Tasers 14 times on Pitt Street in Sydney in March, may do little to dull such behaviour. An inquest into the 21-year-old's death heard this week he was in a highly agitated and paranoid state, believing people were trying to kill him, after consuming half a tab of LSD with friends. Despite this, drug educator Paul Dillon says secondary school students have recently started asking him about sucking on sugar cubes laced with LSD - something he had not heard of for many years. They also want to know how best to help someone suffering from a ''bad trip''. ''We're coming back into a hallucinogenic period,'' he says. Many young people have started using hallucinogens because they are becoming more accessible and are relatively cheap, with LSD costing about $20 a tab, says Dillon, director of Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia. ''Young people look for bang for their buck,'' he says. ''These are drugs where the quality is reasonably stable and the effect lasts for a long time, and the chances of them getting caught by sniffer dogs are much lower. ''When I am going into schools and seeing kids aged 14 and 15 messing around with magic mushrooms, the greatest concern is we are talking about a developing brain and these drugs mess around with your perception.'' The number of people saying they had recently used hallucinogens more than doubled between 2007 and 2010, to 1.4 per cent of the Australian population aged 14 and above, according to the latest National Drug Strategy Household Survey. While ecstasy use generally has declined in recent years, largely because of reduced availability and purity, almost one in 10 people now report having used hallucinogens in their lifetime. The adverse risks of such drug use include fear, anxiety, depression, flashbacks or prolonged psychosis. But many younger drug users believe hallucinogens - which have a relatively low risk of addiction or overdose compared with drugs such as methamphetamine - are harmless, Dillon says. ''One kid said to me about six months ago that 'We are the YOLO generation'. The whole notion behind it is 'Why worry about the harms, we only get one life so we might as well live it to the max'.'' This trend goes beyond psychedelic drugs. The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre this week warned that regular ecstasy users were increasingly taking capsules ''of unknown content'' - with 12 per cent of users saying they take drugs despite not knowing what is in them. The same study indicated LSD use among regular ecstasy takers had declined in the past year. Dillon says a tendency by health agencies and police to overstate the incidence of harm from illicit drug use had desensitised some young people. ''I have been giving drug prevention messages for well over 25 years and messages we could give to people about harms used to be a pretty effective barrier for some people. Now that doesn't even touch the sides,'' he says. ''We put out warnings so regularly about drugs having dangerous things in them and you can only cry wolf so many times … In this generation there is a percentage of them who believe it is worth the risk. They are media-savvy, they are the YOLO generation; we need to be really savvy about what information we give them.'' Joely T was 16 when he first took LSD with older friends. ''I was pretty young and naive but it seemed like something fun to do at the time, and indeed it was,'' he says. He believes there are no risks in the recreational use of hallucinogens. ''It's like anything: if you go to the gym every day and push yourself there are going to be side effects but if you are doing something recreationally and in a controlled environment I can't see any risks in the short or long term.'' University student Nick, 25, was 18 when he first dropped acid, on a beach at night with friends. ''I was initially scared but it was mostly curiosity,'' he says. ''We thought a little hole in the sand was the centre of the universe, we danced to the sound of waves under the stars and we saw a pile of sticks that we were convinced was a pterodactyl.'' He has since used LSD more than 30 times, mostly at home in Melbourne, he says. On occasions, taking hallucinogens has made him feel anxious and uncomfortable, particularly among crowds of people. ''Some people say it's associated with the '60s but there is a resurgence going on at the moment, mostly due to the rave scene.'' Nick, who did not want his surname published, says he tries to minimise possible health risks by buying illicit drugs from people he knows and researching possible side effects online. But he admits he can never be certain of what he is taking. ''It's hard with the black market to know exactly what the substance is. ''I've taken things before that I haven't quite known what they are but I can make a general assumption based on other people's experiences that it is not bad. There is a vast community of people that warn people if someone has made a bad batch.'' Professor Gordian Fulde, director of St Vincent's Hospital's emergency department, compares such behaviour to Russian roulette. ''It's very dangerous and stupid.'' St Vincent's has seen an increase in recent years of LSD users suffering agitation, anxiety and disorientation, he says. ''They don't know what they are doing. When you lose control of your brain anything can happen, you can walk in front of cars or off buildings,'' he says. ''LSD was basically dead as a doornail for a long time but in the past few years it has crept up again to a handful of cases coming to the emergency department each month.'' He attributes the growing popularity of hallucinogens to experimentation and fashion. ''It's why jeans go out of fashion, people want to do something different, something new … And everything old is new again.'' NSW police detections of hallucinogens increased from 95 in 2008 to 175 last year, from an admittedly low base (methamphetamine detections, by comparison, are almost 4000 so far this year). The drug squad's acting intelligence manager, Claire Rickards, says this rise may be due in part to improved police record-keeping. ''It is a very, very small problem in comparison to other drugs,'' she says. However, drug experts warn of the growing threat from new strains of psychedelic drugs entering the market through online overseas retailers. In March, a South Australian man died from injuries sustained by repeatedly running into trees and poles after taking a new derivative, available online, of the potent hallucinogen 2C-B. ''There is a generation now that is more comfortable with taking pills than ever before without knowing the content of those pills, and that's a concern,'' says Gino Vumbaca, executive director of the Australian National Council on Drugs, the government's principal advisory body. ''If it looks like pharmaceuticals, people believe pills are more likely to be produced in a sanitary location and under regulations, but even pharmaceuticals produced in that manner are produced for specific reasons or doses.'' Dr Lucy Burns, manager of drug trends at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, says the centre's surveys of 600 ecstasy users reveal they are taking a more diverse spread of emerging psychoactive substances. There is a growing illicit capsule market in Australia where users are not necessarily aware of what they are consuming, she says. ''What we're seeing is about 40 per cent of our sample would have used some of those substances in the past six months, and the list of substances being used is growing quite dramatically. ''There may be a more naive, younger cohort of people taking pills, or it may be there are a more diverse set of substances around than a few years ago … The concern is that the content of those substances is unknown.'' http://www.theage.com.au/national/taking-a-trip-down-memory-lane-20121012-27i8y.html#ixzz29Knrv4G0

^ & Portugal.

clever mother fucker, i wonder how many takes it took to get it right? If he was really smoking MJ it should have got harder each time.

10/12/2012 For a while there, it seemed as if the Dutch government was speeding to the total abolition of its permissive policies towards the buying, selling and smoking of marijuana in its infamous, 650+ coffeeshops. Example of a Dutch Weed pass facing extinction Despite considerable opposition, the central conservative government had managed to pass a law taking effect in January 2012 banning foreigners from transactions in the coffeeshops in the southern provinces of Zeeland, Brabant, and Limburg and intended to roll through the rest of the country by the start of 2013. Pot-buying locals were to apply for a special “weed pass” that would allow them to purchase and light up. Why mess with things as they were? To put an end to the country’s renowned “drug tourism” and its ugly side effects, particularly traffic congestion, noise and crime. Very nice, but it also would mean an end to more than €400 million in annual taxes paid by the coffeshops. So since the right-wing government collapsed and called early elections last month, what to do about the cannabis trade has become a political hot potato among the parties trying to form a coalition government. Two important figures in the Dutch political scene – mayors of the two biggest cities, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and both senior members of the Labour party currently in talks with the Liberals to form a new government – are vocal critics of the anti-weed measures. Warning that the weed-pass system risks undoing decades of investment and planning, they’re insisting on a total recall. Prime Minister Mark Rutte is also fielding pressure from inside his own party as politicians in the three weed-pass provinces complain that the ban has sent drug-dealing back to the streets, where it’s unregulated and overwhelming police who lack the resources to enforce the prohibition. An Amsterdam Coffeeshop True, the number of cannabis tourists to the country’s southern coffeeshops has declined. At the same time, though, as street dealers emerge, so have “cannabis cabs” and drug runners who do home deliveries. Several studies show that the previous distinction between the sale of cannabis and hard drugs is disappearing. So, too, the age limits that were strictly enforced in the coffeeshops on penalty of closure. For almost three decades, the Netherlands has been a global pioneer in cannabis policy reform, evolving from ‘zero tolerance’ to de facto legalization through the coffeeshop network. The system, however, suffers from serious holes. The “back door” problem is one such Catch-22. While coffeshops can sell minor amounts of marijuana legally, the law bars them from actually buying their supplies from providers. A coffeeshop owner described the situation to a local newspaper: “Every day, I’m obliged to commit crimes because I have to stock up illegally. But at the same time I pay taxes on the sales.” The left and centre-left parties favor new regulations of the supply of cannabis to the coffeeshops, arguing the resulting taxes would bring the treasury €500 million – €300 million in taxes and €200 million in savings to the police and criminal justice system. Polls indicate that the ‘cannabis pass’ has little support among the Dutch, with 60% favoring its abolition. Also, few are willing to apply for the pass for fear of ending up in the government’s files. The mayor of Maastricht, the capital of the southern region and one of the strongest advocates of the coffeeshop ban recently was forced to backpedal, announcing an end to the weed pass. So take heart, weed-loving tourists around the world. The Dutch government that was about to extinguish your flame may soon be ready to light it up again. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2012/10/12/weed-for-all-again-dutch-politicians-say-maybe/

Britain has a stockpile of aircraft, drones and weapons that could be used to fight aliens in the event of an invasion from space, according to the government's former UFO adviser. In an interview with MSN, Nick Pope, who worked for the Ministry of Defence for 21 years, said that while Britain doesn't have a war plan, it certainly had sophisticated enough weaponry to defend itself. Mr Pope, whose job it was to advise on the threat posed by other life forms, said that in the event of an attack he expected that we would "quickly adapt our plans for other more current war scenarios." At present, he said, there was no special organisation like Torchwood, the alien-hunting team from the BBC science fiction series of the same name, but he said he was sure that in the event of attack an operation could be set up quickly and efficiently. World nations would probably pool their technology together like in films such as Independence Day. Mr Pope said: "We do have several prototype aircraft and drones and other weapons you won't see on the news for another 10-15 years so if we did face a threat from the unknown then even if there is no Torchwood around now, there would be something like it by then and they certainly would have some great kit to help in the fight." He said: "Look at the Taranis, which is a prototype made by BAE Systems. It looks for all the world like a spaceship in the hanger." So are aliens a threat? The official government position is that UFOs offer "no significant defence threat". However, Mr Pope said what that really means is that "we don't know". "My colleagues and I said, whatever our official position - the one we gave to the public, media or parliament, - privately, where five per cent of UFO sightings remained unexplained, at the very least there has to be a potential threat." How would we fight? "One possibility would be trying to unite all the nations of the world. For those who think that far-fetched, Ronald Reagan once hinted at it in a speech to the UN. He said 'I occasionally think how quickly we would set aside our difference if we faced some alien threat from the other side.'" So why is the government looking at UFO sightings? "Between 1991 and 1994, my job at the MoD was to investigate the 200-300 reported sightings of UFOs in the UK each year to see if there was evidence of a potential threat or something of general defence interest. "One of the things that was interesting was that when people reported seeing UFOs these things were capable of extraordinary manoeuvres and speeds. They were much faster than our military jets so we wanted to find out about the technology and if we could find it useful. "Defence scientists were very interested in the fact they might have some kind of exotic propulsion system." So do aliens really exist? "I am absolutely convinced that elsewhere in the universe there must be other life and I am also convinced that some of that is going to be intelligent. I am open-minded about the possibility that some of that life is visiting us down here but just as our space programme is reaching out to find out what is out there, it seems other life forms could be motivated by the same thing." What do aliens look like? "They come in all shapes and sizes according to the people who have seen these things. There is a vast variety of life." PA "One of the things being discussed at the Royal Society is that we could be dealing with artificial life - a post-biological universe of cyborgs and robots. "I suspect there are thousands and millions of civilisations out there. "We all hope it's just going to be ET-style fluffy aliens as opposed to a terrifying alien invasion." What one event has convinced you of the existence of alien life? "It's a case in the UK at Rendlesham Forest, in 1980, in Suffolk between two military bases. It was not a sighting of a UFO in the sky but a UFO that actually landed. Some of the witnesses described a smallish craft. "It came on a second night and when military personnel examined the landing site they found indentations in the ground and defence intelligence staff assessed the radiation levels with a Geiger counter and found radiation levels at eight times normal. "We told parliament there was 'no defence significance' but did so with tongue firmly in cheek because you cannot have a UFO land between two defence bases without it being of enormous defence significance." What would you say to sceptics? "The believers only have to be right once." Mr Pope was involved in the British government's programme to declassify and release the MoD's UFO files to the National Archives. He left the MoD in 2006 and now lives in California. He lectures around the world and works with television and film companies to develop new ideas. He carried out the interview ahead of a live webTV show to discuss alien life forms as part of a promotion for the computer game XCOM: Enemy Unknown. For more information watch the webTV show with Nick Pope. http://news.uk.msn.com/exclusives/britain-has-alien-war-weapons-says-former-government-adviser

S.C.U.M. Manifesto (Society for Cutting Up Men) http://www.womynkind.org/scum.htm