Posts by Richard Aston
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
The jewel in our drug policy crown, however, is the Psychoactive Substances Act which came into force last year. We have called the bluff of the legal highs industry and told them to prove their wares are low-risk before sale, through tight regulations
Pity we couldn't do this with alcohol suppliers, would they pass the same test?
-
Your mention of Murray Cammick , Howick in the 60s, Triggered me back to my teens in Howick , playing in a band - well trying to - Hauraki was where I heard all the good music , that and test listening to records - but not buying - in that shop in Lorne st - forgotten the name.
Couldn't wait to get out of Howick though. -
Hard News: Drugs, development and reality, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Yes Ian the war on thinking is winning . I despair at times.
To what end is bloody good question, I fear I may descend down the rabbit hole with that one.
It doesn't help that I have been reading The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli . Man his ideas were pretty basic compared to the geopolitics of today. -
Hard News: Drugs, development and reality, in reply to 81stcolumn,
The nightmare scenario would see massive growth in synthetics, which should scare everyone.
+1
Which is why the "war on drugs" thinking is so dumb. -
Hard News: Drugs, development and reality, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
So a billion dollars would buy the whole crop? Cheaper than one Stealth bomber. Why doesn't the US just buy the lot and process it into morphine for pain relief in the developing world?
There was talk of that in 2001 but it never seemed to happen .
Buying up the opium crop sounds like a no brainier but the argument against that says
If the US or some medical council tries to buy up Helmand’s poppy production, opium will become scarce in the black market and prices will skyrocket. This will induce other provinces to take up poppy cultivation. Indeed, cultivation will also spread rapidly to neighbouring countries (Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan , Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) and the resultant opium will be smuggled into Afghanistan. The Taliban will, of course, profit handsomely from this illicit trade.
Others are saying the CIA are heavily complicate in the trade.
It's complex it seems.
Thailand reduced its poppy production via a much wider community development programme that addressed the root cause, poverty.
I agree pain relief is a real human need and opiates are the best but how does the dynamic of legal verses illegal opium trade actually work.
-
Hard News: Telecom and TV, in reply to Ross Mason,
Over the weekend someone pointed to the reverse spelling of the new name..
oh dear... -
Hard News: Poor Choices, in reply to Emma Hart,
love collaborative creativity. I suppose we could use PAS to do a ‘paragraph at a time’ story. The only problem might be people making additions at the same time
I am up for that emma, could be a wild ride but a a good one.
-
Hard News: Poor Choices, in reply to Emma Hart,
don’t use someone else’s death to make your point.
Yup that stands well Emma , in my experience of other people's deaths there are many gifts, cause for reflection, retrospection and just good old grief in all its teary glory but to make a point... yeah nah.
-
It seems for many people there is a weird disconnect between their selves and their online selves. They just say shit they would never dream of saying to someone's face. Anonymity is maybe to blame but its like that thing when some people get drunk and say awful shit to others .. duh sorry I was drunk.
Was it really them that said that shit ? Of course it was but they hid their dark shadow self behind alcohol, anonymity or another person's failings.Empathy, the call to kindness or at least "don't be evil" is all we have really.
-
I think Deborah Hill Cone's piece could have been ok if she acknowledged getting triggered by Charlotte Dawson's suicide and then stayed talking about her own experience of aging, its a very valid topic . But she just kept coming back to talking to the ghost of Charlotte , trying to do a Hamlet , almost hiding behind her and in the process her story lost its potency.