The Raelian Movement
for those who are not afraid of the future : http://www.rael.org
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Prohibition of cannabis counter-productive
http://www.physorg.com/news205749537.html
October 8, 2010
Prohibition of cannabis in the United States may be
counter-productive, with a new study showing that a period of
increased law enforcement against the drug coincided with an increase
in the number of young adult cannabis users smoking cheaper and more
potent produce.
The report, Tools for Debate: US Federal Government Data on Cannabis
Prohibition, conducted by researchers from the International Centre
for Science in Drug Policy in Vancouver, focused on the effects of
national drug prohibition in recent decades, and in an editorial
published online this week for the British Medical Journal (BMJ),
Professor Robin Room from the University of Melbourne and Turning
Point Alcohol and Drug Center, outlined why this new evidence should
be used to reassess approaches to America's management of cannabis
use.
"The evidence from the Tools for Debate report is not only that the
prohibition system is not achieving its aims, but that more efforts in
the same direction only worsen results," he said.
According to the report, the US federal antidrug budget increased from
about $1.5bn in 1981 to more than $18bn in 2002. Between 1990 and
2006, cannabis related arrests increased from fewer than 350,000 to
more than 800,000 annually and seizures of cannabis from less than
500,000 lb to more than 2.5 million lb. In the same period, the retail
price of cannabis decreased by more than half, the potency increased,
and the proportion of users who were young adults went up from about
25% to more than 30%. Intensified enforcement of cannabis prohibition
thus did not have the intended effects.
Professor Room said the challenge for researchers and policy analysts
in light of these findings was to flesh out the details of an
effective regulatory system. He suggested that countries who chose to
adopt a new approach to cannabis control could allow a regulated legal
domestic market while keeping in place international market controls.
"State control instruments - such as licensing regimens, inspectors,
and sales outlets run by the government – which are still in place for
alcohol in some areas could be extended to cover cannabis and would
provide workable and well-controlled retail outlets for cannabis," he
said.
Provided by University of Melbourne
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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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