Last year, history was made in two American states, Washington and Colorado: through the process of democracy and what is known as an "initiative", the personal use of marihuana was made legal. Legalisation was pursued and passed by the wishes of the citizens, rather than by politicians.
Now, eight former Drug Czars (chieves of the Drug Enforcement Agency), through an "advocacy" organisation named "Save Our Society from Drugs", are urging the President to crack down on this. For the love of God, Jesus, and all that's holy, why?! These idiots are criticising the Obama regime because it isn't fast-tracking a lawsuit to once again make marihuana illegal. The only right fucking thing that the current regime is doing, and these dumbfucks are pressuring Obama to reverse it? Fuckers.
One of these idiots, named Peter Bensinger, said that he was "afraid" that the D.O.J. will do nothing and say nothing, which will lead to marihuana being legal in these two states (maybe that's the point, you wanker!) and it could even lead to legalisation in other states too. Which would be a big deal why? Then he puts his foot in his mouth yet again, as he says that the Washington and Colorado lawmakers are committing a federal crime.
Bensinger was drug czar under Ford, Carter, and Reagan; the federal drug control law (the Controlled Substances Act) was his baby, as well as John Bartels, who preceded him under Nixon and who was initially responsible for the CSA's enforcement.
The reason they feel this way is understandable, but it doesn't make it right. As champions of this failed drug policy, they don't want to admit that it was costly and ineffective, and that they were wrong; unfortunately, affecting millions of people because you don't want to be wrong is not exactly fair.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Senate_Judiciary_letter-version-2.pdf
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Why I hate Israeli politics
The dirtiness of politics does not faze me; it never has, and it never will. The sheer number of backroom deals that take place in jurisdictions all over the world are simply the name of the game. Pure insanity, however, is quite surprising: on one hand, there are countries like Iran since the revolution, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Cuba... and then, there's Israel. It's not that Israel is a country lacking in democracy. It isn't. When you delve underneath the surface, though, you start to see that politics in Israel is so far gone from either the British model or the European model that it's almost
incomprehensible.
A lot of this stems from the way the sheeple... erm, people... of the great flock named the Holy Land elect the man that will lead them. In any country, this is called an electoral system. Great Britain, Canada, and the United States of America use a system called first-past-the-post. America holds presidential elections separate from parliamentary ones, and there is a system to figure out who will be the presidential candidate (this is called a primary election), but when it comes time to pick the Supreme Emperor of the Universe, this is still first-past-the-post. This system is simple. Really simple. It's so simple even a stoner could understand it, and this is why athletic races use this system too.
In first-past-the-post, the country is divided up into little chunks, and the candidate who gets the most votes in his little chunk wins. You can only vote for one person. It's the same system as the Olympics. A race is run for the 100-metre sprint, Usain Bolt gets the gold; another race is run for the quarter mile, Michael Johnson gets the gold; yet another race is run for shot put, Tomasz Majewski gets the gold, and so on. Whichever political party wins the most races gets to pick Prime Minister. Simple, eh?
Israeli elections don't work like that. They use a system called full proportional representation; they are in fact the /only/ jurisdiction in which this is the case. Whenever you watch vote results in a country other than Israel, you'll get something called the popular vote. The Israelis don't broadcast this (well, they do, but it's not called that); in Israel, the popular vote is called "who won". It's the most democratic system in the world. The way Israeli elections run is simple, too. Far simpler than European elections (some of which require the use of a computer to find the winner). Instead of cutting the country up into little chunks, everybody votes as one big chunk. If, say, 25 per cent. of people vote for Likud, 25 per cent. of seats in Parliament will go to Likud. This means that any party with at least /some/ support will get a seat.
Here's the kicker though. Israel is a country with more than its fair share of villages, and every last one of these villages has an idiot or two to go with it. When these village idiots go to cast their ballots, hilarity ensues. A village idiot won't vote for a party like the Republicans or the Democrats. I'm a Thatcherite Conservative, but I can understand why someone would vote Democrat; this is why we have opposition in Parliament. As I wrote earlier, any party with a couple people willing to listen will get into Parliament, so you can pretty much count on Israel's version of the Fascists getting in... and, to balance it out, some Communists too. These still aren't village idiot parties. The Fascists were right in a lot of ways; look at Germany under Hitler. Certainly, his foreign policy needed work, and his anti-Semitism and his brutal eugenics programmes (though eugenics, the art and science of improving the world through selective breeding, itself isn't a bad thing). The Commies had it right too.
But suppose you had a party headed by Rick Santorum, separate and distinct from the Republicans. Their agenda consists of fervently support of a bill against freedom of "choice" (abortion), and opposition to bills separating church and state, legalising the possession of marihuana, for medical reasons or otherwise, and permitting the marriage of two same-sex individuals; for all other issues, any member is free to vote according to their own, personal beliefs (no party line). Say you had a Ku Klux Klan party too: they'd have a big foreign agenda to police other countries, and they'd naturally support apartheid and oppose immigration; again, no party line otherwise. To top it all off, say there was a Legalise It party, with its sole party line being the legalisation of all recreational drugs, with absolutely no party line for any other issue. Of course, only the village idiot would vote for any of these parties. Now, Canada, the U. S. of A., and a lot of European countries have parties like these, but they don't stand a chance of getting into Parliament, so their influence is pretty fucking low. With Israel's fairly big number of village idiots and its crazy electoral regime, all of these are represented in Parliament. Now, you're getting /close/ to the political situation in Israel.
Of course with a country full of immigrants from all over the world, with radically different views on basically everything, and with voting preferences to match, there will be a million parties in Parliament after this goatfuck is all over and done with. So, the chance of a clear leader emerging is roughly equal to the chance of pigs flying... out of my anus. Backroom chat time! So, you end up with a couple of relatively big parties sitting at a table and trying to figure out exactly which of the village idiot parties, and here are the key words, do not contradict their major party lines. Fun, eh?
With politics being what they are, anywhere in the world, every party has to make concessions. For instance, to gain the support of socially conservative voters, Mitt Romney (whose convictions are on the pro-choice side) had to join the pro-life cause. Now you add the extra layer of insanity that occurs in the Holy Land. Say the "Santorumites" (Shas) want to table a bill that will introduce mandatory minimum sentencing for marihuana possession, and another one that will require all television and wireless stations to broadcast two hours a day of content made in Israel; the "Republicans" (Likud) will vote yes, but only if Shas votes yes to attack Palestine. This is why Israel's political system is such a quagmire, yet it stands as the most democratic system in the world.
Friday, November 23, 2012
The name of this blog
I always wanted to write about politics, although medicine and education are also topics I love. I named this blog after the title of a very obscure song by a band named Bourbon Princess, or rather, a woman named the Bourbon Princess: Monique Ortiz.
I love the band, Morphine. Their opiated lyrics, penned by the late, great, and aptly-named Mark Sandman, bring to mind an old-fashioned, dark and gritty pub, with sand on the floor, where rough men go to cheat on their wives. It sounds like so much Billy Burroughs (one of my favourite writers), and perhaps also Jack Kerouac. Still, it's music you could give your mother, and she wouldn't complain. Here's a couple extracts so you can see what I'm talking about:
(from Shame)
I felt bad, and there was nothing I could do about it
Nothing I could do to make it go away
I felt bad, and there was nothing I could do to change it
Nothing I could do to make things change.
I know you're mad at me,
I know you want to slit my throat,
I know you think I think it's all a joke,
But I don't; I don't.
(from You Speak My Language)
All around the world, everywhere I go,
No-one understands me.
No-one knows what I'm trying to say.
Even in my home-town,
My friends make me write it down,
They look at me as I talk to them,
And they shrug their shoulders.
They go "What's he talking about?"
But you—you speak my language!
(from I Had A Chance)
I had a chance and I let it go,
I had a chance and I let it go,
And if I ever have myself another chance like that,
I'll grab it and I won't look back.
Sometimes, I'm too careful,
I walk just like I'm carrying a hand-grenade.
It's going tick-tick-tick-tick-ticking in my hand.
The few Morphine songs that contain sexual overtones discuss the act in very general terms; there is only one time Mark Sandman uses a four-letter word, and it relates to personality, not sex (I'm really just a f--k-up, and such a waste). Those songs are Whisper (So whisper me your number, I'll call you up at home), Come Over (So come over, come over, come over, come over to-night!), and Thursday (extract follows):
One day, she says,
Come on up to my house.
She says her husband's out of town,
You know, he's gone 'till the end of the month.
Monique Ortiz is an entirely different animal, although her musical style is identical to Morphine's; Bourbon Princess, and a host of other bands, came into being after Mark Sandman's untimely death at the age of 46 in 1999. It is generally accepted that the great majority of Morphine's songs depict true stories (possibly even Mark's affair with a married woman at the Wagon Wheel, a real motel in Massachusetts); this is probably also true of Bourbon Princess. Monique sings from the point of view of a femme fatale and a heroin addict, and her lyrics are often laced with a staunchly feminist portrayal of sex, as well as plenty of references to the use and abuse of heroin. Consider this:
(from I'll Take A Cab)
I love the band, Morphine. Their opiated lyrics, penned by the late, great, and aptly-named Mark Sandman, bring to mind an old-fashioned, dark and gritty pub, with sand on the floor, where rough men go to cheat on their wives. It sounds like so much Billy Burroughs (one of my favourite writers), and perhaps also Jack Kerouac. Still, it's music you could give your mother, and she wouldn't complain. Here's a couple extracts so you can see what I'm talking about:
(from Shame)
I felt bad, and there was nothing I could do about it
Nothing I could do to make it go away
I felt bad, and there was nothing I could do to change it
Nothing I could do to make things change.
I know you're mad at me,
I know you want to slit my throat,
I know you think I think it's all a joke,
But I don't; I don't.
(from You Speak My Language)
All around the world, everywhere I go,
No-one understands me.
No-one knows what I'm trying to say.
Even in my home-town,
My friends make me write it down,
They look at me as I talk to them,
And they shrug their shoulders.
They go "What's he talking about?"
But you—you speak my language!
(from I Had A Chance)
I had a chance and I let it go,
I had a chance and I let it go,
And if I ever have myself another chance like that,
I'll grab it and I won't look back.
Sometimes, I'm too careful,
I walk just like I'm carrying a hand-grenade.
It's going tick-tick-tick-tick-ticking in my hand.
The few Morphine songs that contain sexual overtones discuss the act in very general terms; there is only one time Mark Sandman uses a four-letter word, and it relates to personality, not sex (I'm really just a f--k-up, and such a waste). Those songs are Whisper (So whisper me your number, I'll call you up at home), Come Over (So come over, come over, come over, come over to-night!), and Thursday (extract follows):
One day, she says,
Come on up to my house.
She says her husband's out of town,
You know, he's gone 'till the end of the month.
Monique Ortiz is an entirely different animal, although her musical style is identical to Morphine's; Bourbon Princess, and a host of other bands, came into being after Mark Sandman's untimely death at the age of 46 in 1999. It is generally accepted that the great majority of Morphine's songs depict true stories (possibly even Mark's affair with a married woman at the Wagon Wheel, a real motel in Massachusetts); this is probably also true of Bourbon Princess. Monique sings from the point of view of a femme fatale and a heroin addict, and her lyrics are often laced with a staunchly feminist portrayal of sex, as well as plenty of references to the use and abuse of heroin. Consider this:
(from I'll Take A Cab)
You seedy, tired piece of trash,
trying to get my sympathies.
Yeah, maybe if I feel bad enough
I'll drop down and give you some~.
Yeah, right, not now, not later, never,
ten years older and [unintelligible].
Soon the world is gonna blow,
so we better spend the night together~.
I'll take a cab, it'll get me there.
Avoiding you is worth the highest fare.
(from Spanish Fly)
Emptied out my mind
On some porno back in '89.
I wake to masturbate,
I hold my breath and hesitate.
Map the stars, count the sheep,
Anything so long as I might sleep.
So scratch my palm again,
Make me rich and be my friend.
I'm the Cuban at the door,
Called a Commie and a whore.
If he wasn't hit with anger,
I'm sure he would have given more.
(from Master Manipulator)
If it makes you feel better
To put the blame on me,
Go ahead, go ahead and do it.
You learned from the best,
The master manipulator.
You're smooth, but obvious,
I'll let you believe it,
But I won't fall for it.
(from Three Chairs)
Your apartment's a little bit cluttered,
But still the nicest place I've ever seen.
Your bedroom's so big and foreboding,
I can't imagine making love to anyone here,
To anyone here.
In the woods I tried to find you,
But you left no mark, no popcorn trail,
Just a door-handle and a blueprint,
Needles and a broken scale.
This junkie wrote some of the most powerful songs extant, and one of these songs is the name-sake of this blog. Dark of Days could apply equally to the Bilderberg Conference, the Trilateral, Freemasonry, the Skull and Bones, or even the basement of the American executive mansion, the White House—wherever powerful men meet and discuss the future of our world, who lives and who dies. Here is the complete text of the song:
Some kind of lagoon,
Where pharaohs and modern-day dictators meet in a room,
Discussing their final parts,
And all their future sins.
Let the new day begin, they say,
As they raise their glasses to the Dark of Days,
All their guns were stacked in a pile
By the coat-check,
The girl hasn't made enough tips yet.
She never seems to smile.
Their wives are all home,
Gossiping and chit-chatting on their telephones.
Painting up their toe-nails,
Though they can not show their feet.
You can kiss her,
But you better be discreet.
For all the alarms,
There sure is a great deal of calm.
Where'd everyone go,
In shelters and basements a hundred sixty feet below!
The wind took the sails,
Waltzing on the ocean,
The captain's on a bed of nails,
As all those evil thinkers and foul-mouthed drinkers
Made plans for us.
This doom is very scenic and bright,
For a moment I forgot that we were still in the night.
The moon had killed the stars,
We haven't travelled far,
We've miles and miles to go and it's beginning to snow!
So we wage wars,
Though neither side settles the score.
Calling around, blind on the ground,
Sniffing out the blood of those bitter hounds.
Taking borders, only to dissipate,
They don't deserve to settle here anyway.
Cry all you want, we were here first,
Get those filthy hands off of our holy turf!
Times don't change.
We ignore all the progress we've made.
No good-luck charms,
Just this grenade around my neck,
And a bloody spool of yarn.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Why I haven't written in a while
Recently I got interested in a fellow named L. Ron Hubbard. He was a sci-fi writer who had invented a method of psychotherapy and a lot of other things; later on, he bundled all these things up into a "religion" named Scientology. The funny thing is you don't really worship a God in Scientology; what you worship is up to you, as long as you throw in thousands of dollars to your neighbourhood Church of Scientology. Really, what they are is a self-help business; and this is where L. Ron Hubbard had a lot of his great ideas.
Hubbard wrote a bunch of research papers, in addition to his sci-fi novels; in these research papers, I found that he had written a perfectly workable method to improve anyone's study skills easily. It takes a little co-operation from teachers, but the majority of the "Student Hat Course", as Hubbard called it, is dependent upon nothing but the student. At first glance, I fell in love with the methods Hubbard employed and quickly applied them to my own study, which improved one hundred per cent. as a result. Oh, and by the way, I didn't spend a penny.
My infatuation with the subject put a bit of a worm into my head: what if I wrote a book on it? So I did. I wrote whenever I felt bored, which was essentially all the time, and I had the book done in about three months. There was already a set of books on the subject, but these were by the "Church" of Scientology and therefore subject to criticism; there were also two free, online treatments of the subject, which I took into account when I wrote the book.
So now I have a 120-page treatment of Hubbard's study papers—I plan to get it published. Don't know when, if, or how that will happen, but at least I can present you here and now with the basic ideas of this book.
The first thing the student has to have, Hubbard argues, is the willingness to know about something. If he is arrogant enough to think he has nothing to learn, his closed mind probably won't absorb anything. Even a willing student has problems studying, though, and these come from the three barriers to learning: a) an absence of whatever is being studied, or at least a model of it; b) the subject isn't being learned step-by-step; c) a poor vocabulary. Hubbard calls these problems a lack of mass, out-gradientness, and misunderstoods respectively.
Of course, there's more to it—critical thinking has to develop, because not everything you read is true. A student needs to learn to find gaping holes in a book if there are any, so there's a whole chapter devoted to that. There's a chapter devoted to the building blocks of understanding (affinity, shared belief/reality, and communication), and there's even a chapter on breaking through double-speak.
There are two big assumptions inherent in the traditional study system that Hubbard challenges. I take his side on this, because really it's true. First of all, fifty per cent. is not a passing grade. If your mechanic fixed your car only half the time, would you consider him acceptable? I sure wouldn't. The only passing grade is 100%, but you can only achieve this if you stop asking stupid questions. A physics student needs to know what Newton's Laws are. He does NOT need to know who Newton was, where he lived, or when he lived—so WHY is this on the quiz?! Second, students in a course study at VERY different speeds. Why does the teacher teach at the same speed for everyone? This approach doesn't work. So Hubbard introduced a checksheet system—you study certain pages of the materials and do the exercises in the order they appear on the checklist, and your study partner checks them off as you go along. Then your study partner studies, and you check him off.
Almost no classroom that I have ever been in would pass Hubbard's check. Hubbard emphasises the need for dictionaries; there have been some classes that don't even have a single one. He also emphasises the "clay table": a table a student can make a model of whatever he's studying in clay, and by studying this clay mock-up, understand the actual thing being taught.
The worst thing, though, in my opinion, is what Hubbard calls the glib student. I have often envied "glib" students because they always seemed to have higher marks than I did; now I see that I have no real reason to envy them. A glib student is one that has set up a tape recorder in his mind and is expert at only one thing: parroting back whatever the book or the teacher told him. Such students always seem to do well on exams—thus the source of my envy. However, a student like this never seems to properly apply what he studies, and this is the real goal of school, not some arbitrary construct for marks.
There's Hubbard in a nutshell, and this is why I haven't been writing too much otherwise lately.
Hubbard wrote a bunch of research papers, in addition to his sci-fi novels; in these research papers, I found that he had written a perfectly workable method to improve anyone's study skills easily. It takes a little co-operation from teachers, but the majority of the "Student Hat Course", as Hubbard called it, is dependent upon nothing but the student. At first glance, I fell in love with the methods Hubbard employed and quickly applied them to my own study, which improved one hundred per cent. as a result. Oh, and by the way, I didn't spend a penny.
My infatuation with the subject put a bit of a worm into my head: what if I wrote a book on it? So I did. I wrote whenever I felt bored, which was essentially all the time, and I had the book done in about three months. There was already a set of books on the subject, but these were by the "Church" of Scientology and therefore subject to criticism; there were also two free, online treatments of the subject, which I took into account when I wrote the book.
So now I have a 120-page treatment of Hubbard's study papers—I plan to get it published. Don't know when, if, or how that will happen, but at least I can present you here and now with the basic ideas of this book.
The first thing the student has to have, Hubbard argues, is the willingness to know about something. If he is arrogant enough to think he has nothing to learn, his closed mind probably won't absorb anything. Even a willing student has problems studying, though, and these come from the three barriers to learning: a) an absence of whatever is being studied, or at least a model of it; b) the subject isn't being learned step-by-step; c) a poor vocabulary. Hubbard calls these problems a lack of mass, out-gradientness, and misunderstoods respectively.
Of course, there's more to it—critical thinking has to develop, because not everything you read is true. A student needs to learn to find gaping holes in a book if there are any, so there's a whole chapter devoted to that. There's a chapter devoted to the building blocks of understanding (affinity, shared belief/reality, and communication), and there's even a chapter on breaking through double-speak.
There are two big assumptions inherent in the traditional study system that Hubbard challenges. I take his side on this, because really it's true. First of all, fifty per cent. is not a passing grade. If your mechanic fixed your car only half the time, would you consider him acceptable? I sure wouldn't. The only passing grade is 100%, but you can only achieve this if you stop asking stupid questions. A physics student needs to know what Newton's Laws are. He does NOT need to know who Newton was, where he lived, or when he lived—so WHY is this on the quiz?! Second, students in a course study at VERY different speeds. Why does the teacher teach at the same speed for everyone? This approach doesn't work. So Hubbard introduced a checksheet system—you study certain pages of the materials and do the exercises in the order they appear on the checklist, and your study partner checks them off as you go along. Then your study partner studies, and you check him off.
Almost no classroom that I have ever been in would pass Hubbard's check. Hubbard emphasises the need for dictionaries; there have been some classes that don't even have a single one. He also emphasises the "clay table": a table a student can make a model of whatever he's studying in clay, and by studying this clay mock-up, understand the actual thing being taught.
The worst thing, though, in my opinion, is what Hubbard calls the glib student. I have often envied "glib" students because they always seemed to have higher marks than I did; now I see that I have no real reason to envy them. A glib student is one that has set up a tape recorder in his mind and is expert at only one thing: parroting back whatever the book or the teacher told him. Such students always seem to do well on exams—thus the source of my envy. However, a student like this never seems to properly apply what he studies, and this is the real goal of school, not some arbitrary construct for marks.
There's Hubbard in a nutshell, and this is why I haven't been writing too much otherwise lately.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Republicrats and Demicans, it's all a one-party system...
I've read a few political posts on here again, and this put me back in my usual politics-minded zone. So, I'll try to explain what is wrong with America and why Obama is ruining the country even more; keep in mind, this is from the point of view of an outsider, and thus, in my non-humble opinion, a neutral observer.
The otherwise repulsive character, Dolores Umbridge, said a few lines in "Order of the Phoenix" that fit politics perfectly. "Without progress there will be stagnation and decay. Then again, progress for progress’s sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation, because some changes will be for the better, while others come, in the fullness of time, to be recognized as errors of judgment. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness, and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited."
Some of these practices that ought to be pruned are... well... the primary bones of contention between Democrats and Republicans, especially in the cultural/social arena. First off, gay marriage. I am against any and all discrimination. However, marriage is an ancient institution, and before this century, each marriage consisted of precisely one man and one or more women. I feel that the benefits available to married couples should also be available to homosexual couples. However, the means of bringing about such benefits in the context of a long-term committed relationship should be recognisably different for married and homosexual couples. The term "marriage" and the centuries-old traditions existing within this ceremony should not be used. How about the term "conjugal union", or something else? Just not the M-word. That's a special word, and a special ceremony. Let's keep it that way.
Contraception. How could this even be a bone of contention? Insurance plans should cover family planning (abortion is NOT family planning, it's Plan C). No exceptions—the Democrats have this one right. "Contraception is ... not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. [Sex] is supposed to be within marriage... for purposes that are ... procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen…This is special and it needs to be seen as special." So now Rick the Dick is telling Americans what they should THINK about sex... Wittle Wicky, do you bewieve that wife begins at ewection, too? Abortion. No electives. For situations likely to cause medical or psychiatric harm to mother, father, or child; also for conception arising as a result of sexual assault. Republicans have it right. Abstinence-only sex ed. How could this even be a problem? People have a right to know about their bodies. Comprehensive sexual education must be mandatory. Democrats get this one.
The worst problem Democrats have is this damn idea of handouts. Many wealthy people are wealthy because they have worked hard and attained success. If this motivator is removed by the Powers that Be in the form of taxes, this will mean that America will lose the one thing guaranteed to put smart, potentially successful people on the right track—money. Would be terrible to see modern-day Newtons and Hawkings and Torvalds and Murdochs wasting their life away in back alleys drinking wine coolers and smoking dagga. My biggest problem, aside from the individual mandate of Obamacare, which is a PENALTY and not a TAX, (nothing against Obamacare, just hate the Individual mandate) is unemployment insurance. Get this: a drug-dependent individual, unemployABLE, is paid insurance for the unemployED. Even worse: underage female of low income status and low education is impregnated, disowned, and ends up single, possibly also dependent on drugs, and living alone. Every additional rugape she brings into the world is worth money to her, so she ends up nothing but a brat-bearing machine, while the intelligent yuppie couple on the other side of town have one intelligent child. The one smart kid will bear another smart kid, while each of the stupid brats will hook up with an equally stupid partner and bear five or six stupid children. I mean, the basic concept of unemployment assistance is sound—but drug tests should be introduced and subsidies for children eliminated.
The otherwise repulsive character, Dolores Umbridge, said a few lines in "Order of the Phoenix" that fit politics perfectly. "Without progress there will be stagnation and decay. Then again, progress for progress’s sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation, because some changes will be for the better, while others come, in the fullness of time, to be recognized as errors of judgment. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness, and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited."
Some of these practices that ought to be pruned are... well... the primary bones of contention between Democrats and Republicans, especially in the cultural/social arena. First off, gay marriage. I am against any and all discrimination. However, marriage is an ancient institution, and before this century, each marriage consisted of precisely one man and one or more women. I feel that the benefits available to married couples should also be available to homosexual couples. However, the means of bringing about such benefits in the context of a long-term committed relationship should be recognisably different for married and homosexual couples. The term "marriage" and the centuries-old traditions existing within this ceremony should not be used. How about the term "conjugal union", or something else? Just not the M-word. That's a special word, and a special ceremony. Let's keep it that way.
Contraception. How could this even be a bone of contention? Insurance plans should cover family planning (abortion is NOT family planning, it's Plan C). No exceptions—the Democrats have this one right. "Contraception is ... not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. [Sex] is supposed to be within marriage... for purposes that are ... procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen…This is special and it needs to be seen as special." So now Rick the Dick is telling Americans what they should THINK about sex... Wittle Wicky, do you bewieve that wife begins at ewection, too? Abortion. No electives. For situations likely to cause medical or psychiatric harm to mother, father, or child; also for conception arising as a result of sexual assault. Republicans have it right. Abstinence-only sex ed. How could this even be a problem? People have a right to know about their bodies. Comprehensive sexual education must be mandatory. Democrats get this one.
The worst problem Democrats have is this damn idea of handouts. Many wealthy people are wealthy because they have worked hard and attained success. If this motivator is removed by the Powers that Be in the form of taxes, this will mean that America will lose the one thing guaranteed to put smart, potentially successful people on the right track—money. Would be terrible to see modern-day Newtons and Hawkings and Torvalds and Murdochs wasting their life away in back alleys drinking wine coolers and smoking dagga. My biggest problem, aside from the individual mandate of Obamacare, which is a PENALTY and not a TAX, (nothing against Obamacare, just hate the Individual mandate) is unemployment insurance. Get this: a drug-dependent individual, unemployABLE, is paid insurance for the unemployED. Even worse: underage female of low income status and low education is impregnated, disowned, and ends up single, possibly also dependent on drugs, and living alone. Every additional rugape she brings into the world is worth money to her, so she ends up nothing but a brat-bearing machine, while the intelligent yuppie couple on the other side of town have one intelligent child. The one smart kid will bear another smart kid, while each of the stupid brats will hook up with an equally stupid partner and bear five or six stupid children. I mean, the basic concept of unemployment assistance is sound—but drug tests should be introduced and subsidies for children eliminated.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Will Paul Ryan be able to beat Joe Biden in the presidential and vice-presidential debates?
The Associated Press newswire recently announced that Paul Ryan would be the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States of America. I followed the discussion on Google Plus, the usual online hang-out for the intelligentsia of the Internet. Tempers flared; although Republican voters kept their head on straight, there was no shortage of vulgar name-calling and disinformation on the Democrat side. The discussion was a bit convoluted, and sometimes answers came before the questions. Here is where I document the discussion; names are not included for privacy, and some of the worse spelling errors have been corrected by an impartial panel of proofreaders broken down by age and sex, i.e., yours truly, since there is nobody on God's green Earth that hasn't been more broken down by age and sex.
"Now I know Mitt can't win. Ryan is like a third rail." Do you mean Mr Ryan is absolutely essential, or that he can be dispensed with? If you mean the latter, I think you wanted to say "fifth wheel", as a car doesn't need a fifth wheel, but any train that isn't a steam engine needs a third rail, which supplies electromotive power to the engine. -- Ed.
"Here's a real dyed-in-the-wool brown shirt brown-noser! He can sniff up a storm, plays every opportunity to the extreme, stalls, withholds aid ... [from] people in need & will sacrifice his country to a cult member with big shoulders that gets its operatives from Salt Lake City & the
Mormon brotherhood—heaven isn't heaven in the Book of Mormon. Thank God for all those young Mormon girls to fill their harems...on earth, not in Paradise, American Taliban." "Actually, I was going to vote for Mitt because he has excellent Mormon values and can bring jobs to the masses in countries that obviously need the income. Some people will become so much richer than they already are when he takes office in 2013. Even if it were actually true that Obama had anything to do with the death of Osama bin Laden, he wasn't the one to actually PULL the trigger. Mitt would've done it, though. ... My vote: Romney!"
"Ahahahahahah. Congratulations on your reelection, Mr. Obama." "It's a risky move. It could reinvigorate Romney's campaign or have it fall flat on its face." "Paul Ryan is a far-right whackadoodle who will ruin the country." "This is a very good choice ... Paul Ryan is a very solid [candidate]. He is all business and this is just what this country needs. I am sure the Obama administration does not like this [...] I know for a fact Ryan is not liked very much in the White House." "Good choice. If he upsets the left this much, then he is the guy to go with."
"Awesome! Paul Ryan is a guy who actually has the courage to deal with the nearly insurmountable fiscal problems this country has." "Absolutely true. This guy has more knowledge of the budget in 1 finger than the entire Oministration. I like the call." "Ryan is a perfect choice. He will keep people talking about what Obama does not want to talk about: the economy."
"Are you Americans even thinking about electing [anyone] other than Obama... come on! [...] After years that led you exactly where you are and finally making the curve, [you're] now thinking about going back there again?" "I simply cannot comprehend how anyone can truly believe that Obama has been anything but a disaster. Makes me pessimistic of our future as a country, honestly."
"Are the Republicans trying to lose? I think if they tried harder they could have found bigger losers to run. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit though." "This is a great pick. Ryan will wipe the floor with Biden during the debates, just as Romney will to Obama. The problem is that most Americans are too ignorant and caught up in who's the latest Idol winner to care."
"Now I know Mitt can't win. Ryan is like a third rail." Do you mean Mr Ryan is absolutely essential, or that he can be dispensed with? If you mean the latter, I think you wanted to say "fifth wheel", as a car doesn't need a fifth wheel, but any train that isn't a steam engine needs a third rail, which supplies electromotive power to the engine. -- Ed.
"Here's a real dyed-in-the-wool brown shirt brown-noser! He can sniff up a storm, plays every opportunity to the extreme, stalls, withholds aid ... [from] people in need & will sacrifice his country to a cult member with big shoulders that gets its operatives from Salt Lake City & the
Mormon brotherhood—heaven isn't heaven in the Book of Mormon. Thank God for all those young Mormon girls to fill their harems...on earth, not in Paradise, American Taliban." "Actually, I was going to vote for Mitt because he has excellent Mormon values and can bring jobs to the masses in countries that obviously need the income. Some people will become so much richer than they already are when he takes office in 2013. Even if it were actually true that Obama had anything to do with the death of Osama bin Laden, he wasn't the one to actually PULL the trigger. Mitt would've done it, though. ... My vote: Romney!"
"Ahahahahahah. Congratulations on your reelection, Mr. Obama." "It's a risky move. It could reinvigorate Romney's campaign or have it fall flat on its face." "Paul Ryan is a far-right whackadoodle who will ruin the country." "This is a very good choice ... Paul Ryan is a very solid [candidate]. He is all business and this is just what this country needs. I am sure the Obama administration does not like this [...] I know for a fact Ryan is not liked very much in the White House." "Good choice. If he upsets the left this much, then he is the guy to go with."
"Awesome! Paul Ryan is a guy who actually has the courage to deal with the nearly insurmountable fiscal problems this country has." "Absolutely true. This guy has more knowledge of the budget in 1 finger than the entire Oministration. I like the call." "Ryan is a perfect choice. He will keep people talking about what Obama does not want to talk about: the economy."
"Are you Americans even thinking about electing [anyone] other than Obama... come on! [...] After years that led you exactly where you are and finally making the curve, [you're] now thinking about going back there again?" "I simply cannot comprehend how anyone can truly believe that Obama has been anything but a disaster. Makes me pessimistic of our future as a country, honestly."
"Are the Republicans trying to lose? I think if they tried harder they could have found bigger losers to run. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit though." "This is a great pick. Ryan will wipe the floor with Biden during the debates, just as Romney will to Obama. The problem is that most Americans are too ignorant and caught up in who's the latest Idol winner to care."
---"It is hard to imagine what economy would be worse than this. I mean there is Greece, Spain, Italy, and our own Great Depression. It looks to me that President Obama has us well on our way to all of those. He can still blame everyone else for that and most will believe him."
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Could two girls change the lives of Canadian junkies?
Well, Naomi and Salome aren't really girls; they are groundbreaking Canadian studies that can help change the world. Of course, many studies may, rightfully or otherwise, claim that they are significant; NAOMI and SALOME, however, are different in that they portray the harsh reality, one which politicians are unwilling to even acknowledge, in what must be the ugliest branch of medicine: addictions. Traditional news media keep mentions of the studies under wraps, as the sensational 'articles' about the crimes of this community bring far too much resources for the cure to be revealed. Even Big Pharma resists, as I'll reveal below, for the simple reason that (as a study staff member, whose name will remain anonymous, revealed) addiction medicine was not on their priorities.
The Conservatives, who are usually less wrong than the other parties in Canada, certainly make up for it this time. In an ideal world, drugs, just like every other thing, would be traded on the free market like everything else; this was the case for nineteen centuries, in which chaos (contrary to common belief) did not rule the Earth. This isn't an ideal world, of course, so one has to live with such hare-brained ideas as Prohibition.
Prohibition, in fact, has three populations of people that it maims or kills. The fulcrum is the addict himself, who risks amputation as a result of impure drug, loss of income when a company drug-tests (which, in Canada, are illicit unless solely for alcohol), and incarceration as a result of law enforcement activity. The family 'only' suffers emotional complications, but these can be hell on wheels. Those who choose to assume responsibility and either a) the satisfaction of a moderate amount supplied for free or at cost, or b) abstinence, are also in jeopardy of harm if neither the two usual treatments in Canada are effective.
The standard Canadian treatments for addiction are buprenorphine and l/r methadon (Metadol), although their use is far more common for pain (this is how I have had the opportunity to try both). Methadon can be used in any dose; however, it is damaging to the nerves, causes tiredness and lethargy in some, and it is more difficult to cease use of. Furthermore, because it is a mixture of two active drugs, to wit: a) l-methadon, an opiate, and b) r-methadon, a cough suppressant, taking methadon provides the effect of (for example) morphine and dextromethorphan (DM) simultaneously. Although this is great in nerve pain, where r-methadon and its relatives work better than opiates, it is of no use in organic pain or in addiction. Buprenorphine is harmless, but is a newer, less trusted drug, and only works up to 32 mg daily; above this, methadon becomes the sole option.
NOTE: For consistency, the drug diamorphine, also called diacetylmorphine, morphine acetate, and heroin, will be hereafter referred to as heroin. The diluted form of this product sold as a drug of abuse will be referred to as crude heroin.
In other countries, such as Great Britain, all drugs can be, and are, prescribed for all conditions, although a licence is required to prescribe heroin, dipipanone (a drug available only in the UK), and cocaine for addiction treatment only. Concurrent pain and addiction can be treated (in the bureaucratic sense) as simple pain. There are a few opiates considered semi-standard for drug addiction treatment, however. Morphine and heroin, in both oral and injectable form, continue to be used. Dilaudid is also an option, as are methadon and buprenorphine.
Whew! That was a damn long introduction. Time for the story. So, although the UK had originally floated the idea of quitting crude heroin by using pure heroin, this was also taken up by other countries: Switzerland, Denmark, Holland, and Germany all allow this treatment. Canadians needed to also have this option; today, there are only two available treatments, neither of which is entirely the answer to the question. Therefore, in 2005, a study known as NAOMI (the North American Opiate Medication Initiative) was launched in the cities of Vancouver, British Columbia, and Montréal, Québec. Its goal was to independently test the efficacy of treatment with heroin.
The Vancouver arm of the study needs special mention. It was held in the Downtown East Side, the poorest postcode in the country. The problem with crude heroin in the DTES is so godawful that this area has the most heroin abusers per square mile in Canada.
This was a scientific trial; therefore, a control group was also established. Study participants in the control group received methadon. The rest of the participants received injections; one-fifth of these got dilaudid, while the rest got heroin. Neither the staff nor the participant knew which injection he was getting. Each participant was in the study for a year; the trial ended entirely in 2008. Participants, who actually formed an advocacy group for themselves, were royally pissed off about the aftermath. Some had successfully held down a job thanks to the heroin they received; then, even in its obvious success, the heroin was yanked from within their reach. Nowhere else did this situation occur. Either the study results were so good that the situation was made permanent, or the participants were given heroin on compassionate grounds. In its infinite wisdom, Health Canada so magnanimously refused to do so.
The trial had one unexpected result. The ten per cent. of people who unknowingly received dilaudid rated it as equal to heroin; there was no perceivable difference. Although this was a breakthrough, it was nothing shocking. In fact, a study in India, where buprenorphine is such a common hospital painkiller that it rivals or surpasses morphine in its usage, holds that drug addicts given it ranked buprenorphine (there known as Bupregesic or Morgesic) equal to morphine.
The results just had to be further tested, as if they weren't apparent already. A new study was figured out, again with no exit plan, called SALOME (the Study to Assess Long-term Opiate Medication Effectiveness), to do so. This experiment has only one location: Vancouver, again in the Downtown East Side. The control group, this time, are receiving heroin by injection; the other half are receiving dilaudid. After six months, half of each group will continue with injections, while the other half will receive oral treatment with the same drug. The breakdown, then, is as follows: one-quarter of the subjects will be on heroin by injection; one-quarter, on heroin (morphine) by mouth; one-quarter, on dilaudid by injection; and one-quarter, on dilaudid by mouth.
The study started this year—2012. Just as NAOMI was fraught with difficulties, so is SALOME; however, this time, the problems came from Big Pharma.
There is only one company in Canada which makes ampoules of the proper dosage for use in this setting: this company is Sandoz, the "generic products" (i.e., those that don't make any money) division of Swiss giant Novartis. Sandoz is well aware that many of its products are habit-forming; it makes almost every known opiate in use around the world, with the exception of national specialties like dipipanone, piritramide, and dextromoramide. It would stand to make a king's ransom on remedies for addictions, since those remedies are the products themselves. Therefore, promoting these trials is in the best interest of Sandoz and Novartis.
Let it be said here that dilaudid is a naturally-derived product; it is essentially a chemically-transformed version of morphine, which is prohibitively expensive to manufacture synthetically. The cheap and traditional way (five thousand years, in my opinion, constitutes tradition) to get morphine is from poppies that grow in the earth. Therefore, it is possible to have a shortage in morphine, and thus a shortage in dilaudid.
In the true spirit of Murphy's Law, of course, this is what happened; Sandoz announced that there was a shortage of ampoules of the strength required for the SALOME project. From March to June, SALOME had only enough hydromorphone for 12 or 13 patients (out of 25; the others were on heroin); the targeted number was 60 (out of 100). It's understandable that there is a limited capacity for hydromorphone; the problem is that Sandoz obviously doesn't have its priorities straight. Apparently, drug addictions patients are low on the list of priorities, because Sandoz doesn't get the idea of spend money now, make more money later. Instead, it focuses on pharmacy and hospital distribution, because it makes more money at the present time.
What the people at Sandoz don't understand is that even though dilaudid is an off-patent drug (which means anyone can make and sell it), Sandoz effectively has a monopoly on its distribution within Canuckistan, which means they have zero competition and would receive all profits from the new patients prescribed it for their addictions. Well, there is Knoll, the original inventors of dilaudid, and then there's Janssen Cilag, and Teva, and Sorres, and Pharmascience, and Purdue, but none of these make the injections. Knoll makes quick release dilaudid pills; Purdue makes eight-hour delayed release pills; Janssen Cilag makes full-day extended release pills; and Pharmascience makes dilaudid cough syrup, but only Sandoz makes the injections. Assuming that the situation would stay as it is, that the study would have a positive result, and that hard-core addicts would like the injections, Sandoz would stand to make a killing once doctors realise that the current programme of oral methadone and buprenorphine maintenance needs alternatives.
Thank God and the Flying Spaghetti Monster that the people at SALOME didn't fuck around. The researchers were quick-minded enough to know that the manufacturing process for dilaudid is rather simple. Somehow, they managed to obtain a manufacturing licence from Her Majesty's Government and are making the stuff onsite.
Seriously, this research is going to change the world, if politicians don't somehow find a way to bugger it up with moralistic, paternalistic, preachy laws. Natural opiates like morphine and dilaudid are harmless enough; there is no organ they can harm. Methadon, though, harms one's nerves and is harder to get off than either morphine or dilaudid. It should be a valid choice for someone to prefer one of the natural opiates (even buprenorphine, though that isn't really an option at high doses) to the synthetic methadon, and I hope to God that the research which proves it so makes its way into current medical thinking and practice. Morphine has been around for five thousand years. Why the hell is it criminal to own it just now, for the last hundred years, when humanity got along just fine without this law before? And if it must be criminal, give the people that become slaves to it a way out without making them slaves to something worse!
The Conservatives, who are usually less wrong than the other parties in Canada, certainly make up for it this time. In an ideal world, drugs, just like every other thing, would be traded on the free market like everything else; this was the case for nineteen centuries, in which chaos (contrary to common belief) did not rule the Earth. This isn't an ideal world, of course, so one has to live with such hare-brained ideas as Prohibition.
Prohibition, in fact, has three populations of people that it maims or kills. The fulcrum is the addict himself, who risks amputation as a result of impure drug, loss of income when a company drug-tests (which, in Canada, are illicit unless solely for alcohol), and incarceration as a result of law enforcement activity. The family 'only' suffers emotional complications, but these can be hell on wheels. Those who choose to assume responsibility and either a) the satisfaction of a moderate amount supplied for free or at cost, or b) abstinence, are also in jeopardy of harm if neither the two usual treatments in Canada are effective.
The standard Canadian treatments for addiction are buprenorphine and l/r methadon (Metadol), although their use is far more common for pain (this is how I have had the opportunity to try both). Methadon can be used in any dose; however, it is damaging to the nerves, causes tiredness and lethargy in some, and it is more difficult to cease use of. Furthermore, because it is a mixture of two active drugs, to wit: a) l-methadon, an opiate, and b) r-methadon, a cough suppressant, taking methadon provides the effect of (for example) morphine and dextromethorphan (DM) simultaneously. Although this is great in nerve pain, where r-methadon and its relatives work better than opiates, it is of no use in organic pain or in addiction. Buprenorphine is harmless, but is a newer, less trusted drug, and only works up to 32 mg daily; above this, methadon becomes the sole option.
NOTE: For consistency, the drug diamorphine, also called diacetylmorphine, morphine acetate, and heroin, will be hereafter referred to as heroin. The diluted form of this product sold as a drug of abuse will be referred to as crude heroin.
In other countries, such as Great Britain, all drugs can be, and are, prescribed for all conditions, although a licence is required to prescribe heroin, dipipanone (a drug available only in the UK), and cocaine for addiction treatment only. Concurrent pain and addiction can be treated (in the bureaucratic sense) as simple pain. There are a few opiates considered semi-standard for drug addiction treatment, however. Morphine and heroin, in both oral and injectable form, continue to be used. Dilaudid is also an option, as are methadon and buprenorphine.
Whew! That was a damn long introduction. Time for the story. So, although the UK had originally floated the idea of quitting crude heroin by using pure heroin, this was also taken up by other countries: Switzerland, Denmark, Holland, and Germany all allow this treatment. Canadians needed to also have this option; today, there are only two available treatments, neither of which is entirely the answer to the question. Therefore, in 2005, a study known as NAOMI (the North American Opiate Medication Initiative) was launched in the cities of Vancouver, British Columbia, and Montréal, Québec. Its goal was to independently test the efficacy of treatment with heroin.
The Vancouver arm of the study needs special mention. It was held in the Downtown East Side, the poorest postcode in the country. The problem with crude heroin in the DTES is so godawful that this area has the most heroin abusers per square mile in Canada.
This was a scientific trial; therefore, a control group was also established. Study participants in the control group received methadon. The rest of the participants received injections; one-fifth of these got dilaudid, while the rest got heroin. Neither the staff nor the participant knew which injection he was getting. Each participant was in the study for a year; the trial ended entirely in 2008. Participants, who actually formed an advocacy group for themselves, were royally pissed off about the aftermath. Some had successfully held down a job thanks to the heroin they received; then, even in its obvious success, the heroin was yanked from within their reach. Nowhere else did this situation occur. Either the study results were so good that the situation was made permanent, or the participants were given heroin on compassionate grounds. In its infinite wisdom, Health Canada so magnanimously refused to do so.
The trial had one unexpected result. The ten per cent. of people who unknowingly received dilaudid rated it as equal to heroin; there was no perceivable difference. Although this was a breakthrough, it was nothing shocking. In fact, a study in India, where buprenorphine is such a common hospital painkiller that it rivals or surpasses morphine in its usage, holds that drug addicts given it ranked buprenorphine (there known as Bupregesic or Morgesic) equal to morphine.
The results just had to be further tested, as if they weren't apparent already. A new study was figured out, again with no exit plan, called SALOME (the Study to Assess Long-term Opiate Medication Effectiveness), to do so. This experiment has only one location: Vancouver, again in the Downtown East Side. The control group, this time, are receiving heroin by injection; the other half are receiving dilaudid. After six months, half of each group will continue with injections, while the other half will receive oral treatment with the same drug. The breakdown, then, is as follows: one-quarter of the subjects will be on heroin by injection; one-quarter, on heroin (morphine) by mouth; one-quarter, on dilaudid by injection; and one-quarter, on dilaudid by mouth.
The study started this year—2012. Just as NAOMI was fraught with difficulties, so is SALOME; however, this time, the problems came from Big Pharma.
There is only one company in Canada which makes ampoules of the proper dosage for use in this setting: this company is Sandoz, the "generic products" (i.e., those that don't make any money) division of Swiss giant Novartis. Sandoz is well aware that many of its products are habit-forming; it makes almost every known opiate in use around the world, with the exception of national specialties like dipipanone, piritramide, and dextromoramide. It would stand to make a king's ransom on remedies for addictions, since those remedies are the products themselves. Therefore, promoting these trials is in the best interest of Sandoz and Novartis.
Let it be said here that dilaudid is a naturally-derived product; it is essentially a chemically-transformed version of morphine, which is prohibitively expensive to manufacture synthetically. The cheap and traditional way (five thousand years, in my opinion, constitutes tradition) to get morphine is from poppies that grow in the earth. Therefore, it is possible to have a shortage in morphine, and thus a shortage in dilaudid.
In the true spirit of Murphy's Law, of course, this is what happened; Sandoz announced that there was a shortage of ampoules of the strength required for the SALOME project. From March to June, SALOME had only enough hydromorphone for 12 or 13 patients (out of 25; the others were on heroin); the targeted number was 60 (out of 100). It's understandable that there is a limited capacity for hydromorphone; the problem is that Sandoz obviously doesn't have its priorities straight. Apparently, drug addictions patients are low on the list of priorities, because Sandoz doesn't get the idea of spend money now, make more money later. Instead, it focuses on pharmacy and hospital distribution, because it makes more money at the present time.
What the people at Sandoz don't understand is that even though dilaudid is an off-patent drug (which means anyone can make and sell it), Sandoz effectively has a monopoly on its distribution within Canuckistan, which means they have zero competition and would receive all profits from the new patients prescribed it for their addictions. Well, there is Knoll, the original inventors of dilaudid, and then there's Janssen Cilag, and Teva, and Sorres, and Pharmascience, and Purdue, but none of these make the injections. Knoll makes quick release dilaudid pills; Purdue makes eight-hour delayed release pills; Janssen Cilag makes full-day extended release pills; and Pharmascience makes dilaudid cough syrup, but only Sandoz makes the injections. Assuming that the situation would stay as it is, that the study would have a positive result, and that hard-core addicts would like the injections, Sandoz would stand to make a killing once doctors realise that the current programme of oral methadone and buprenorphine maintenance needs alternatives.
Thank God and the Flying Spaghetti Monster that the people at SALOME didn't fuck around. The researchers were quick-minded enough to know that the manufacturing process for dilaudid is rather simple. Somehow, they managed to obtain a manufacturing licence from Her Majesty's Government and are making the stuff onsite.
Seriously, this research is going to change the world, if politicians don't somehow find a way to bugger it up with moralistic, paternalistic, preachy laws. Natural opiates like morphine and dilaudid are harmless enough; there is no organ they can harm. Methadon, though, harms one's nerves and is harder to get off than either morphine or dilaudid. It should be a valid choice for someone to prefer one of the natural opiates (even buprenorphine, though that isn't really an option at high doses) to the synthetic methadon, and I hope to God that the research which proves it so makes its way into current medical thinking and practice. Morphine has been around for five thousand years. Why the hell is it criminal to own it just now, for the last hundred years, when humanity got along just fine without this law before? And if it must be criminal, give the people that become slaves to it a way out without making them slaves to something worse!
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