05-01-2009, 05:44 AM
Good one, LeeE. It sort of lays some suspicion as to why certain drugs remain illegal while other more poisonous drugs aren't. Disgusting, isn't it?
What seems to be missed in all this nonsense is that the USA is not the only market for drugs.
This is as good a time as any to reiterate the contemptuous lunacy in switching the illegality of booze to marijuana (it happened within a relatively short period of time), and address additional issues as well. It has to do with logistics, practicality, profit, and manufactured social acceptance. For argument's sake (and using VERY round numbers throughout this discussion), a bottle of whisky weighs 3 pounds and consumes 100 cubic inches of space. The manufacturing process involves all kinds of vats, cooking, and distilling. That 3 pound bottle, which retails for $25.00 plus government-imposed tax, may last an average person, who has one stiff drink a day, about 2 weeks. By comparison, an average person who smokes one joint a day may consume half an ounce of weed, which costs $150.00 with no government-imposed tax, and it's a product that requires next to no cost for industrial processing or labor that's commonly associated with legitimate enterprise. In the past 40 years, a bottle of booze may have increased 100% while an ounce of weed has gone up 1000%. For packaging, processing, shipping, handling, and profit, the comparisons are electrifying. Now, add to this the common knowledge as to how socially destructive alcohol abuse can be. Then compare the wildly popular and cute "The Thin Man", which followed the end of prohibition and made drinking fun and carefree, to the filthy lies of "Reefer Madness" which terrified an ignorant public as to the dangers of marijuana in order to make it illegal, and it was done with little more than a signature. On the other hand, the start and end of Prohibition involved acts of Congress and Amendments to the Constitution. In view of the above, ask yourself how a government that couldn't stop the flow of illegal alcohol and was directly responsible for creating a crime syndicate that turned the streets of America into a shooting gallery would think, even in its wildest delusions, that they could eradicate marijuana (or, as we will see below, white powders). Think about it. Then think about it again. And again. And then remember that Joseph P. Kennedy was a bootlegger.
Last week's Sunday NY Times magazine section had an article on Columbians building "semisubmersible" craft (most of it travels underwater with a bit sticking up on the surface). They're made mostly out of plastic, cost about $500,000.00 each, and are used once. There's a crew of 4, they use GPS gizmos, and navigate to within a few hundred miles of the mainland where they are met by fast boats. The stuff is unloaded, and the craft is then sunk. The Coast Guard captured one off Costa Rica in 2006, and it's on display at the Truman Annex, NAS Key West. It was 49 feet long, had 3 tons of coke and as the photo shows and the Times sort of mentions, it looks like something out of a science-fiction movie. Definitely not a slapped-together piece of junk. About 45 of them were made in 2007, they're projecting that about 70 will be made this year, and they're thought to carry about 30% of Columbia's total coke export to the mainland. Elsewhere in the article, the carrying capacity is quoted at 10 tons. They were talking about Tamil rebels builing them as well, so I'm not sure where one sub begins and another ends. I realize this is drifting a bit from the posted topic, but it's in the ballpark and in a somewhat perverse way, it's kinda cool.
Newbies who are interested in this stuff, please read an earlier posting "Legal Pot Coming?"
What seems to be missed in all this nonsense is that the USA is not the only market for drugs.
This is as good a time as any to reiterate the contemptuous lunacy in switching the illegality of booze to marijuana (it happened within a relatively short period of time), and address additional issues as well. It has to do with logistics, practicality, profit, and manufactured social acceptance. For argument's sake (and using VERY round numbers throughout this discussion), a bottle of whisky weighs 3 pounds and consumes 100 cubic inches of space. The manufacturing process involves all kinds of vats, cooking, and distilling. That 3 pound bottle, which retails for $25.00 plus government-imposed tax, may last an average person, who has one stiff drink a day, about 2 weeks. By comparison, an average person who smokes one joint a day may consume half an ounce of weed, which costs $150.00 with no government-imposed tax, and it's a product that requires next to no cost for industrial processing or labor that's commonly associated with legitimate enterprise. In the past 40 years, a bottle of booze may have increased 100% while an ounce of weed has gone up 1000%. For packaging, processing, shipping, handling, and profit, the comparisons are electrifying. Now, add to this the common knowledge as to how socially destructive alcohol abuse can be. Then compare the wildly popular and cute "The Thin Man", which followed the end of prohibition and made drinking fun and carefree, to the filthy lies of "Reefer Madness" which terrified an ignorant public as to the dangers of marijuana in order to make it illegal, and it was done with little more than a signature. On the other hand, the start and end of Prohibition involved acts of Congress and Amendments to the Constitution. In view of the above, ask yourself how a government that couldn't stop the flow of illegal alcohol and was directly responsible for creating a crime syndicate that turned the streets of America into a shooting gallery would think, even in its wildest delusions, that they could eradicate marijuana (or, as we will see below, white powders). Think about it. Then think about it again. And again. And then remember that Joseph P. Kennedy was a bootlegger.
Last week's Sunday NY Times magazine section had an article on Columbians building "semisubmersible" craft (most of it travels underwater with a bit sticking up on the surface). They're made mostly out of plastic, cost about $500,000.00 each, and are used once. There's a crew of 4, they use GPS gizmos, and navigate to within a few hundred miles of the mainland where they are met by fast boats. The stuff is unloaded, and the craft is then sunk. The Coast Guard captured one off Costa Rica in 2006, and it's on display at the Truman Annex, NAS Key West. It was 49 feet long, had 3 tons of coke and as the photo shows and the Times sort of mentions, it looks like something out of a science-fiction movie. Definitely not a slapped-together piece of junk. About 45 of them were made in 2007, they're projecting that about 70 will be made this year, and they're thought to carry about 30% of Columbia's total coke export to the mainland. Elsewhere in the article, the carrying capacity is quoted at 10 tons. They were talking about Tamil rebels builing them as well, so I'm not sure where one sub begins and another ends. I realize this is drifting a bit from the posted topic, but it's in the ballpark and in a somewhat perverse way, it's kinda cool.
Newbies who are interested in this stuff, please read an earlier posting "Legal Pot Coming?"