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Tom D Ford's comments:
on Meth Laws: Five Years Later
pdxmimi — Fri Feb. 25th 9:49a.m.
Your points remind me of people who are apparently pathologically greedy for wealth. Can that be considered an addiction that is harmful to society and ought to be well regulated?
Hmm, awfully similar.
"wacky subculture of drug abuse" could be paraphrased as the "wacky subculture of wealth abuse".
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Meth Laws: Five Years Later
I have read that the US Air Force gives their pilots amphetamines on long flights to keep awake and alert. I wonder if their research and techniques and methods are available to the general public?
That is, if they have problems with pilot addictions and what they do to handle it? I imagine that a trained pilot has at least a few millions of dollars invested in them by the time they are given responsibility and so keeping them healthy would be very important
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Meth Laws: Five Years Later
"I`m wondering if hearing someone cares is useful?"
I don't know for sure but I'd like to think so and I suspect that you would never know if it was the first time or after many many times that finally got the caring message through.
And I would be aware that you might get a violent response from someone drugged out so in my opinion you ought to be careful.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Meth Laws: Five Years Later
I thought that the Sudafed makers changed the ingredients to something nearly as effective but not useful for making meth? That apparently does not work for you? Or am I misinformed?
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Meth Laws: Five Years Later
sberry — Fri Feb. 25th 9:20a.m.
I had not seen those figures and you make good points.
I wonder how many of the users in each category are what could be considered "functional", that is, they are able to "use" and yet still do their work and relationships without harm or much harm to themselves and others.
Or stated the other way, how many are actually "problem" users to themselves, families and society?
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Meth Laws: Five Years Later
pdxmimi — Fri Feb. 25th 9:43a.m.
I agree with all of your points and I would add that old saying that "religion is the opiate of the masses".
A lot of things can and ought to be recognized as gateway drugs and their bad effects ought to be minimized.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Meth Laws: Five Years Later
DFUND
"i do not blame the MEXICANS , THEY ARE JUST DOING JOBS THAT AMERICANS WONT DO."
That is a Conservative lie.
They are imported to undercut American wages as Cheap-Labor. The real problem is that American employers don't want to pay American wages to American workers to do the work. That is a problem in residential carpentry for one example.
American workers are willing to compete with other American workers for American jobs and American wages but they should not be forced to compete against illegal workers, to the detriment of our nation and our nations security.
Maybe the law should be changed so that an employer of illegals would be stripped of their American citizenship when caught and put on some ship to travel as a man or woman without a country for the rest of their lives.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Meth Laws: Five Years Later
I'd point out that Islam teaches that no one should use any stimulants and I believe it is a pretty strict taboo, so they prohibit alcohol and other drugs. So those various Muslim peoples could be studied for the effects of a total ban. I have heard and read that they do actually use various stimulating drugs, like coffee and tea, and I heard on NPR recently that some Afghanis are abusing and getting addicted to Opium.
And of course the weathy elites from some nations like Saudi Arabia use alcohol when they are in western countries.
So total bans don't seem to be effective, even when it is imposed by religion and theocracies.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Meth Laws: Five Years Later
Brains scans are the latest new thing in scientific studies and I see that as a good thing , but I think that the elephant if the room that needs study is religion.
Around 80 % of Americans claim they are religious and most of those are in one of the versions of the Abraham religion, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The central teaching about parenting in that religion is the King Solomon instruction "spare the rod and spoil the child", also taught as "put the fear in the kids early". The problem I have seen is that a child who lives in fear of punishment will do whatever she/he can to relieve that fear, mentally and behaviorally, sometimes with small harm to themselves, but sometimes huge bad effects. And drugs can change that persons personal experience of reality. So alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs get taken up and a few percentage of users go overboard to change their reality and harm themselves.
I suggest changing to parenting with positive psychology to reinforce desired behaviors and mental confidence, and avoiding punishment.
I think that the religions ought to be revised to fit modern science about effective parenting because this is one more instance where the religion is wrong.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Meth Laws: Five Years Later
The thing I have seen about fear type teaching is that if a person feels out of control of their own life, they might begin to use that feared thing in order to show the parents or other authority figures who really is in control of that persons life. In other words the person is even willing to hurt themselve to get back "perceived" control of their life.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Meth Laws: Five Years Later
I think it is a shame that Sudafed was taken away as a cold medicine, because it was the only one that did not make a person drowsy and unable to work. So a lot of normal people suffered unnecessarily because of the meth users and cookers.
And that is a problem with a lot of illegal drugs, they are taken away from all non-abusing personal users because of the abuse of a few.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Meth Laws: Five Years Later
In one of the teasers teeing up for this show they said that they will have someone talking about "gateway" drugs.
Pot is pretty much always slandered and libeled as a gateway drug, but I suggest that the real gateway drugs are alcohol and tobacco, which are legal and heavily advertised, and even celebrated as signs of what it means to be an adult in movies and on TV shows like Mad Men. I suggest that a person does not need either alcohol or tobacco to be, or even act like, an adult.
And I suspect that alcohol and tobacco are at the root of more harm to individuals, families, and society than all of the other illegal drugs combined.
Two drinks of alcohol are enough to loosen a persons inhibitions and corrupt their mental decision making processes, making them vulnerable to the offer of other gateway drugs whether legal or not.
Long ago I learned that the CIA teaches their agents to never have more than two drinks of alcohol because of what it does. That is probably a good policy for civilians too.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Meth Laws: Five Years Later
DFUND
Sorry man, over here in Central Oregon it is pretty much all white guys and gals.
I learned that as a Grand Jury Foreman who had to listen to the detectives presenting their evidence against them.
You simply cannot blame American Drug culture on Mexicans. In fact the problems that Mexico is having with drug gangs is due to the American demand for drugs.
I wish it were not so, but it is.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Northwest Passages: Lynn Schooler
There is a great 1922 movie, Nanook of the North, which is a silent documentary of the life of an eskimo and his family, and is considered the first example of a documentary movie and which set the bar for how to do documentaries. I very highly recommend it.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Northwest Passages: Lynn Schooler
"Cheechako"
If I recall correctly you became a "sourdough" at two years. I became one around 1958 or so.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on Northwest Passages: Lynn Schooler
I had not heard of that civil war battle.
The poems of Robert Service are fun:
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw22.html
Jack London wrote some books, and the early flying stories are extraordinary, of Wiley Post, Carl Ben Eielson, and Will Rogers.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on The Biomass Question
"geothermal"
Companies have spent many millions of dollars on research and development of it and it has apparently not worked out.
A company spent decades and millions drilling and testing on and around Paulina Peak, which has active thermal venting, near Bend, without success.
Some places use it successfully, like Lakeview, and I don't know the reasons for failure in other places.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on A Jazz Bridge
Naming something takes away just about everything from it and reduces it to the letters of that name, "the map is not the territory"! The words on a map that say "Cascades Mountain Range" leave so incredibly much out that personal experience, or photos, or even a good storyteller provides.
I think people can get a little too analytical about this, and it is important to "get out of your head"!
I like klezmer and I like jazz, and both have huge ranges that the names describe.
Play it, listen to someone else play it on media, listen live, whatever, just get out of your analytical head and experience it. It's like making love to your ears.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on A Jazz Bridge
I'm glad that clarinets are coming back into popularity, I have missed them, they have a particular mellow sound. Reminds me of the voice of Nat King Cole. Also like the low frequency voice of a very sultry sexy woman like Bacall and others.
There is one particular note on the lower end that really gets me, and I don't know enough about music to describe it.
posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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on The Biomass Question
The coast range and the west side of the Cascades really need to have the "slash" and other bio-mass left in place to replenish the soils and help hold it in place, because the rains dissolve and wash away the soil nutrients if the soil is left bare. If I recall correctly there is only a relative thin layer of upper top soil that supports plant growth and if that washes away you are left with essentially sterile bare ground.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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