sorry, yeah, chocolate, not the same. In my defense, I was drinking.

I don't think cocaine is in any way safe - but generally you're right, many drug legalisation supporters point out that it's possible to be addicted to some substance and still function without any major problems. Compare to the situation of former heroin addicts - many are now dependent on methadone, but it isn't a substance that causes dramatic consequences. Also because it's a pharmaceutical quality drug... Price also makes a huge difference - tobacco addicts are generally able to support their habit (however, when my granny gave up smoking, it was because of the prices. Any reason for quitting is good...), but lots of people addicted to illegal drugs turn to crime to get money for a daily dose...
Btw, I think you meant COCA and not COCOA? ;)

I wrote about meth vs. coke neurotoxicity in this posting a while back, with good references.

I also read in the newspaper that one of the students actually asked the officers if thier arrest would affect their chances of becoming a federal law enforcement official.

Well done officers! Another group of troubled youth put to rest, except, they were mostly financing their education, and now they'll have federal records and be unemployable, and forced to live a life of crime. Smooth move indeed. I'm sure there won't be any drugs on campus now.

This is true; methamphetamine has been proven to be neurotoxic, which of course means it causes cell disruptions in the nervous system. The same is not true of cocaine. Imagine, a drug that lasts a short enough time that you can sleep at a normal hour, while still provides a high of the (punny) highest quality. Too bad it's so expensive.

One thing that always troubled me; what is necessary to isolate sugar from sugar cane or beets? Is this process not similar to the isolation of cocaine from cocoa plant matter? Why then, is sugar 2$ a Kg, while Cocaine is, well, significantly more. Imagine, if cocaine and opium and marijuana, hell, all drugs, were priced relative to the cost required for their production in a legal setting? You could BE an addict and work for minimum wage. As we all know, the right drugs make an otherwise boring situation, much more exciting. Cocaine lozenges, packs of joints instead of cigarettes, vali-gum, if drugs were cheap, well, wouldn't.....

***

I'm a dreamer I guess.

meth IS way more dangerous...bllaahh!

What were we talking about?

I feel like Caesar had these or something very similar a few years ago. . .

Have no doubt, whatsoever, that mind interfacing drugs will soon be multiplying in number. The molecular complexity of the brain is starting to be comprehended and correlated with aspects of the mind. Current psychoactive drugs have a wide variety of targets in the brain - even if it's one type of receptor it will have different functions in different brain areas, and therefore different aspects of mind.

When we get targeted drug formulations (and we will), I hope that we as a society as humanity will learn more about our own minds from them.

I think it's good that they put the part about vaporizing and edible forms. A lot of people still haven't heard about those, thanks in part to the DEA's ignorant propaganda which only mentions smoking joints as a reason for medical worthlessness.

At one point, I was selling cocaine for my college education too. This is not uncommon, I knew a lot of people in college whose main income source was from selling drugs.

Oh come on, Cascadia is one of the safest parts of the country. Give me a break. Look at the stats for natural disasters: hardly any damage or death ever in the Northwest. Sure, the scientists say that some day there will be a huge earthquake... but there was a magnitude 8 in Tennessee a hundred years ago, so what? (the New Madrid quake)

I agree with most of what you say, z, but none of it contradicts my main point, which is that this memory-erasing-drug business in both extremely interesting, and some seriously scary shit. :)

As for the researchers, there are a few sickos like you describe, but it's much more likely to find them among the technicians than among the scientists. The vast, vast majority of scientists are very progressive-minded people who are very compassionate about human suffering and/or very curious about how the universe works and have entirely positive motivations. As the Buddha pointed out, the suffering arises because of ignorance: They do not, in fact, "know damn well" that none of that is needed to understand how to cure anything. Seriously, ask yourself, how many average Americans really do know how important balanced, sustainable living in harmony with nature truly is for physical and mental health? Almost none, right? That is the problem. People don't know that, and so even though their intentions are good they cause problems by focusing their efforts in the wrong places.

Trust me on this. :)

It's also known that you need none of that and can cure anything with the correct waves of energy, plants, and some types of surgery.

"it has seemed clear that there is one mechanism for short-term memory, and another mechanism for long-term memory, and some mechanism(s) for transferring from short-term to long-term."

Yar, it's called RAM for short-term, and ROM for long-term. And the transference, that's known as the bus. You forgot BIOS.

Seriously, the biosciences and medicine are a total mess. More than any other science they build upon nothing whatsoever known about health and medicine that has worked all along, and the overall failure to notice the correlation between a decline in naturalness in general and a huge rise in diseases and new types of viruses goes all the further to proving that true.
Take the 'black death' - why did it spread / exist to begin with: because people did totally un-natural things with their waste & excrement) in concentrated areas, where they also lived and worked.
They packed themselves into paved areas and threw their shit and piss out into the street.
And what do most of our infrastructures do with it now? They do the same, except they put it into pipes underground instead, and then add poisons to it, then dump it back in the land or sea or rivers.

Which is odd, cause when they lived out in nature they knew to bury it in the ground properly. Composting.

And many of the biosciences people are just sickos that want to do tests on animals and fetuses. They know damn well none of that is needed to understand how to cure anything.

I think that's great, they not only allow prescriptions but they recognise the naturally-grown stuff is the best.

Let's ensure that California (and Cascadia in general) definitely doesn't fall into the ocean. What is with places that have the most sane policies on many things & they are built in such precarious locations? Holland is also that way with the sea.
It must be this: because most other places in terms of their policies are so crap, that all the right-thinking oritented types migrate towards places where they stand a chance of being quickly put out of the others' misery.

Deep down, you don't really want to live in a world that let's those morons exist, do you. So you move to dodgy places, in terms of their overall siting.

ah, typo's. one of the minor banes of my strife.

"Moving the meat puppet"; that's the most Service-oriented CIA MIB phrase I think I've ever heard.

**krrrh**

*the meat is is motion, repeat, the meat is in motion**

*copy that*

**krrh**

**it's coming right for me. request back up. not a drill!**

*okay there, sending no drills*

They draw straws and whoever gets the shortest one has to wear the smelly hairy human suit. For four years. And they can't tell anyone or they're out of the Orion People club. And this time it went wong. Yes, wong.

'No shades and suits other than black for four years?! AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH'

omgoleus: there are plenty of evil's that if they had been killed when they ought to have been, there wouldn't be the mess there is today. Not just in the area of illegal drugs.

You don't look at society as a complete thing, that is why you cannot tell anyone how to run it! If you tried to run a farm, then you wouldn't allow the farmers to remove any diseased plants - you'd make them feel guilty for keeping the rest of the farm healthy and operable. If you were the immune system of a body, you'd let HIV come right on in - and don't let any of those bad Killer-T cells and Killer-B cells do their job and kill the virus!

Now onto the article: I think the Mayor's idea is the most sensible and workable type of suggestion yet seen when it comes to legalisation and decrim. It covers all bases: because sadly there are lots of idiots who misuse drugs and ruin it for the rest of us.
It also takes the sacramental angle into account; do you really, really, want to take a trip and be shown the majesty of the universe etc, or.....are you just wanting a buzz and would probably be better off having a coffee or a beer, depending, because you have no idea at all of the nature of the entheogen you are wanting to eat you pill-popping dumbass.

I appreciate it might f- things up if you are only going there for a few days; but you may be able to order them before you get there?

And now Brown-sville one-eye Sauron's dipshit government have gone and made cannabis even more illegal. Someone needs to order a hit out on all those morons. The Reptilians will come Gordo, they'll come and they'll take you away.