Song(s) of the Day # 2,300 Langkamer
3 hours ago
Thursday, 14 June 2012
Reminder: The Netherlands Isn’t a Lawless Hellscape
During my vacation last week one of the places I visited was the
Netherlands. I’m happy to report the country isn’t a lawless
hellscape. In fact, it’s a lovely place.
Apparently, it hasn’t been overrun with gangs of dangerous drug addicts nor has it become a crime ridden anarchistic wasteland where the only law is the thunderdome. Amazingly, none of these horrible things have happened to this small country, even though it has openly allowed the use and commercial sale of cannabis for decades.
In fact I found the Netherlands a wonderful place to visit, and talking with residents I came to believe it is also a great place to live. It is an extremely prosperous and well run first world democracy with a rich history and culture.
The reality is the data has shown the Netherlands’ decision to take an approach completely opposite to that of the United States’ misguided war on marijuana has worked out much better.
Despite marijuana being effectively legal in the Netherlands, the country actually has a much lower rate of cannabis use than the United States and several other countries with more draconian marijuana laws. According to the United Nations World Drug Report 2011 the Netherlands has an annual prevalence of use for people age 15-64 of just 5.4 percent. In the United States it is an incredible 13.7 percent.
Similarly the people of the Netherlands use fewer hard drugs. The annual prevalence of use for cocaine is just 0.6% in the Netherlands, compared to 2.4% in the USA. For opiates the prevalence rate is 5.9% in the United States but just 0.31% in the Netherlands.
The war on drugs approach has completely failed to stop the United States from having higher rates of use. What it has succeeded in doing is create a massive prison population that is a huge drain on tax payer money. The incarceration rate in the Netherlands is less than on eighth that of the United States. USA has a prison population rate of 730 per 100,000 people compared to the Netherlands rate of just 87 per 100,000.
While it is not news that the Netherlands is a great country, it is very important to remind voters of this while debating marijuana legalization in the United States. If the United States ended its failed marijuana prohibition, it would not be some bold untested step into the unknown or uncertain future. It would simply be the United States following the decades old example set by the Netherlands, a very nice country with lower drug use rates and a much smaller prison population.
When voters oppose reforming our marijuana laws, they should know it means they think spending billions of dollars on arresting over 800,000 Americans a year for marijuana is somehow a price worth paying to prevent America from simply becoming slightly more like the Netherlands.
Jon Walker @'Just Say Now'
(Thanx George!)
Tho' I haven't lived there for 26 years I really did have to laugh when Bill O'Reilly & Fox came up with all this crap...
Apparently, it hasn’t been overrun with gangs of dangerous drug addicts nor has it become a crime ridden anarchistic wasteland where the only law is the thunderdome. Amazingly, none of these horrible things have happened to this small country, even though it has openly allowed the use and commercial sale of cannabis for decades.
In fact I found the Netherlands a wonderful place to visit, and talking with residents I came to believe it is also a great place to live. It is an extremely prosperous and well run first world democracy with a rich history and culture.
The reality is the data has shown the Netherlands’ decision to take an approach completely opposite to that of the United States’ misguided war on marijuana has worked out much better.
Despite marijuana being effectively legal in the Netherlands, the country actually has a much lower rate of cannabis use than the United States and several other countries with more draconian marijuana laws. According to the United Nations World Drug Report 2011 the Netherlands has an annual prevalence of use for people age 15-64 of just 5.4 percent. In the United States it is an incredible 13.7 percent.
Similarly the people of the Netherlands use fewer hard drugs. The annual prevalence of use for cocaine is just 0.6% in the Netherlands, compared to 2.4% in the USA. For opiates the prevalence rate is 5.9% in the United States but just 0.31% in the Netherlands.
The war on drugs approach has completely failed to stop the United States from having higher rates of use. What it has succeeded in doing is create a massive prison population that is a huge drain on tax payer money. The incarceration rate in the Netherlands is less than on eighth that of the United States. USA has a prison population rate of 730 per 100,000 people compared to the Netherlands rate of just 87 per 100,000.
While it is not news that the Netherlands is a great country, it is very important to remind voters of this while debating marijuana legalization in the United States. If the United States ended its failed marijuana prohibition, it would not be some bold untested step into the unknown or uncertain future. It would simply be the United States following the decades old example set by the Netherlands, a very nice country with lower drug use rates and a much smaller prison population.
When voters oppose reforming our marijuana laws, they should know it means they think spending billions of dollars on arresting over 800,000 Americans a year for marijuana is somehow a price worth paying to prevent America from simply becoming slightly more like the Netherlands.
Jon Walker @'Just Say Now'
(Thanx George!)
Tho' I haven't lived there for 26 years I really did have to laugh when Bill O'Reilly & Fox came up with all this crap...
'Game of Thrones' Season 1 Showed George W. Bush's Head on Spike
In Game of Thrones, political figures’ careers don’t usually end in voluntary retirement. An newly discovered Easter egg in the HBO series’ first season serves as a reminder of how much more dangerous it is to seek the iron throne than the White House.
Pointed out by a fan on Reddit and then further explored by i09, a model of President George W. Bush’s head appears on a spike in several scenes in Season 1. The presence of the 43rd president’s head is actually acknowledged in the Game of Thrones commentary.
The creators of the show, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, said the choice to use Bush’s head was driven by budget, not politics. According to the commentary: "George Bush's head appears in a couple of beheading scenes. It's not a choice, it's not a political statement. We just had to use whatever head we had around."
The only scene yet identified to feature the head comes near the beginning of episode 10, in which Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson) forces Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) to look at the decapitated head of her father. Bush’s head is not completely visible, but the bottom half of his face isn't hard to recognize.
And then of course you have to "apologize"..... HBO Apologize for Bush's Head on Spike
Blackwater (now Academi) was just awarded a $17 million contract for "security services" at FOB Dwyer in Afghanistan. h/t @robertcaruso
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