Category Archives: Keeping It Real

Forbes: Everything You’ve Heard About Crack And Meth Is Wrong

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By Jacob Sullum

Growing familiarity with marijuana has been accompanied by growing support for legalization because people discovered through personal experience that the government was lying to them about the drug’s hazards. But it is easier to demonize less popular drugs such as crack cocaine and methamphetamine, which in the public mind are still linked, as marijuana once was, with addiction, madness, and violence. Any attempt to question the use of force in dealing with these drugs therefore must begin by separating reality from horror stories.

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That is where Carl Hart comes in. Hart, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Columbia who grew up in one of Miami’s rougher neighborhoods, has done bold, path-breaking research that challenges widely accepted beliefs about crack and meth. In his inspiring and fascinating new memoir High Price, he describes both how he overcame his early disadvantages to secure a tenured position at an Ivy League university and how he came to question everything he thought he knew about drugs as he learned to think critically about the issue.

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Before he became a scientist, Hart believed that people who use crack generally get hooked on it and thereby lose control of their behavior. But when he looked at the data on patterns of drug use as an academic, he could plainly see that only a small minority of people who try crack become heavy users. “Even at the peak [of] widespread use,” he writes, “only 10–20 percent of crack cocaine users became addicted.” According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, just 3 percent of Americans who have tried this reputedly irresistible and inescapable drug have smoked it in the last month.

Contrary to what anti-drug ads claim, Hart observes, addiction “is not an equal-opportunity disorder.” He notes that even rats, whose voracious consumption of cocaine in certain contrived conditions supposedly shows how powerfully addictive that drug is, tend to use it in moderation when they have other options, such as food, sex, or an interesting environment to explore.

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Crack “gained the popularity that it did in the hood…because there weren’t that many other affordable sources of pleasure and purpose,” Hart writes. “And that was why, despite years of media-hyped predictions that crack’s expansion across classes was imminent, it never ‘ravaged’ the suburbs.”

Furthermore, Hart’s own research with heavy crack smokers found that, in contrast with the stereotypical addict who cannot help but immediately consume whatever crack is available, they frequently rejected the drug in favor of small cash payments or vouchers. He got similar results with meth snorters, even though he deliberately recruited frequent consumers who had no interest in stopping. These findings underline a crucial truth that Hart emphasizes: “The effects of drugs on human behavior and physiology are determined by a complex interaction between the individual drug user and her or his environment.”

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Hart debunks various other misconceptions about crack and meth. He notes that the vast majority of violence attributed to crack grew out of black-market disputes, as opposed to the drug’s pharmacological effects. His studies found that cocaine and methamphetamine do increase heart rate and blood pressure, but the effect of typical doses is not dangerous in otherwise healthy people. He argues that research linking meth to brain damage confuses correlation with causation and fails to show that meth users’ cognitive capabilities are outside the normal range. And in case you were wondering, “There is no empirical evidence to support the claim that methamphetamine causes one to become physically unattractive.”

Read more >>>here<<< ********* drug-abuse-is-bad-drug-war-is-worse

Well Shucks!
Do you really think that Bigotry, Paranoia, and Tyranny has been propagating lies about how bad drugs like Meth are to maintain public support for their persecution and grievous oppression of an unpopular minority of Citizens????

Well DRRRRR! OF COURSE THE NASTY BASTARDS HAVE BEEN!
That’s how evil powers justify violating such principles as our personal sovereignty and property rights over our own bodies and our right to peacefully pursue our own happiness… at our own expense.
I salute Carl Hart for his bravery in presenting his observations which challenge the popular prejudices and delusions of the Status quo, and Forbes for running this story.
Evil prevails when good men do nothing.
We need to expose the war on Drugs for the Brutal tyranny and injustice that it is and empty our prisons of innocent people, and remove such revenues streams from the vicious Drug Cartels and gangs… exactly as ending Alcohol prohibition achieved.

Read my blog post >>> The New Jews… Meth Users.

and >>> New Prohibitions. How our Police and Government work for Criminal Gangs.

And >>> Historic battles. The Libertarian struggle against Drug Prohibition. Why BZP should have been kept Legal.

and >>> Drug users fill New Zealand jails

And >>> What you should know about Drug Prohibition.

And >>> The Child Casualties of the Jihad on Drugs.

And >>> Prohibition is a Bad trip!

And >>> A Transitional Drug Policy

Update: 13-10-14 …
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METH HEAD ALERT: Report statest that Hitler used crystal meth

Guy Fawkes. Agent of The AntiChrist. (Re-post)

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Guy Fawkes night is creepy! Yet raise your glasses high Ye Liberty Lovers!
As a Libertarian Christian it creeps me out to think about how as a child I took great pleasure in making a Guy for the Bonfire. It bothers me that in my innocence that the sight of a Man burning at the stake did not provoke in me any horror whatsoever… but joy.
Pondering this I shudder at the thought of times and places where Real Men and woman were burned on bonfires, and worse still many of these were Heroic and Righteous people, completely innocent of any wrongdoing. They were victims of persecution and corrupt Laws and Governments, and Religious intolerance. Many were like myself… fringe dwellers labeled Unorthodox ‘Heretics’ and Non-conformists whom dared to challenge the Authority and Doctrines of the Orthodox Church.
Yet Guy Fawkes was not Officially a Heretic , nor was he burned at the stake. For the crime of High treason, He was Hung, Drawn, and Quartered! This is a process in which after being dragged through the streets and Hung on the Gallows, the Body is then cut into 4 pieces. These were then usually fed to Dogs.
All this heinous business churns the stomach and one may wonder why it is that 400 years after the barbaric punishment of Guy Fawkes we still celebrate the event? It is here where I must say that despite the atrocious fate of Guy Fawkes, I am a Fan of this celebration as it memorializes one of the most important circumstances of Providence in establishing Liberty in Western Civilization. Today there is a lot of Fireworks and money changing hands yet the truth behind this celebration is all but forgotten. Let me touch briefly upon the monumental events of the time and activities of Guy Fawkes, and revive understanding of the true meaning of this strange Day.

1605 Guy Fawkes was a devout Catholic, a Jesuit, and enemy of the Protestant King of England and Scotland James the 1st. The Jesuits were a Machiavellian Order…the KGB of the Catholic Church. They were involved in Covert / black opps and because King James had authorized an official translation of the Bible into English, The Catholic Church had marked him for Assassination. The last thing they wanted was the Bible placed into the hands of the common Man! They wanted to maintain their Monopoly on the word of God, the control of which left the populations of Europe at the mercy of the Priest-craft of the church of Rome. In these times Protestant Christians called the Pope the Antichrist, and as if to prove them absolutely right, his Satanic church moved to suppress The word of God from reaching the common Englishman. Enter Guy Fawkes and the Gun powder plot. He was caught planting Gun power in the cellars of the House of Lords to be detonated when King James was in attendance. After getting a forced confession He was sentenced to death and executed. There is not space here to lay out just how dire it would have been to the Liberation of Western Civilization from the yoke of religious tyranny had the Plot succeeded. When the Authorised King James Bible was published in 1611 the effect was Explosive! It is no exaggeration to rank its publication as the single greatest impetus to Freedom and Justice in Modern history. I will leave you with a 200 word letter I sent into the Waikato Times earlier this year in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the KJV.

Dear Ed…This year marks the 400th anniversary of the 1611 King James Bible. Its publication was the greatest single event of the Protestant Reformation inspiring enlightenment, religious toleration, independent thought, and justice among English speaking peoples and beyond. It was onboard the ships of the Pilgrim fathers whom set sail for America desiring freedom from old world tradition and ‘orthodoxy’. An explosion of denominations and sects occurred, which many conservatives mistake as a great evil, when in truth this represents true religious liberty from the tyranny of priest craft and the establishment. Tom Payne quoted the KJV in his ‘Common Sense’ sparking the American Revolution. John Locke used it in formulating his two treaties on civil government upon which Jefferson founded the American Declaration of Independence. It was the Mighty sword used by Wilberforce to end slavery in the British Empire , and later fostered the fraternal inspiration of North American abolition. The Font of civilization, it dispatched brave Church missionaries down to the antipodes to liberate savage tribes from superstition, cannibalism, and lawlessness. It was often upon the lips of Martin Luther King jr calling for peaceful civil disobedience in the fight for equal rights for blacks, etc. Praise God Almighty!
Tim Wikiriwhi

Nothing less than this entire history was at stake in 1605. As a Libertarian, I’m sure glad Guy Fawkes failed. I celebrate the survival of King James the first as an act of Divine Providence from which Western civilization embarked upon the road to religious liberty and enlightenment.

Picture: Painting of the Radical Abolitionist John Brown who inspired by the King James Bible set about to overthrow slavery in the American South by force of arms. Some believe him to be a murderer, Yet in my view He was a righteous Man. He did nothing which was not done on a much grander scale in the Civil War which soon followed after his capture and execution. For an interesting first hand account of this Radical Christian and the abolition of slavery in America I suggest reading ‘The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.’

Antichrist pseudo morality: Democratic social arbitrary Law, The greatest happiness principle, and the mandate of the majority vs Freedom, and Objective right and wrong.

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“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
Jesus Christ.

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GoodPeopleDontNeedLaws

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An Atheist’s Amoral Manifesto. Joel Marks.

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Just ‘Liberated this from ‘Philosophical Theist’

“..I became convinced that atheism implies amorality; and since I am an atheist, I must therefore embrace amorality. I call the premise of this argument ‘hard atheism’ because it is analogous to a thesis in philosophy known as ‘hard determinism.’ The latter holds that if metaphysical determinism is true, then there is no such thing as free will. Thus, a ‘soft determinist’ believes that, even if your reading of this column right now has followed by causal necessity from the Big Bang fourteen billion years ago, you can still meaningfully be said to have freely chosen to read it. Analogously, a ‘soft atheist’ would hold that one could be an atheist and still believe in morality. And indeed, the whole crop of ‘New Atheists’ (see Issue 78) are softies of this kind. So was I, until I experienced my shocking epiphany that the religious fundamentalists are correct: without God, there is no morality. But they are incorrect, I still believe, about there being a God. Hence, I believe, there is no morality.” ~ Joel Marks, An Amoral Manifesto (Part I)

I post the following You tube vid in memory of an old atheist wastrel associate who mocked my faith… and ended up shooting himself

Read more… Francis Schaeffer ‘Materialism renders Man Nought. Meaning-less, Value-less, Right-less’

And…. ‘Poster child for Atheism…Hannibal Lecter.’

And…. Hiding in the Dark….

Party pills now on sale at supermarkets

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Party pills are now on sale at supermarkets. You know, the ones that

assist you in remaining ALERT and WIDE AWAKE!

and that

relieve mental fatigue, drowsiness and general inertia, keeping you BRIGHT and ALERT!

NO-DOZ® AWAKENERS. $7.45 for a box of 24 tablets. Way better value than Cosmic Corner’s Pepe party pills which go for a cool $25 per 4-pack.

Focus, energy and a clear head. These guys are great for sports, study, shift work, or partying and are OK with alcohol.

I got my NO-DOZ® AWAKENERS at the local New World. But you can shop smarter and get them online at Countdown for only $6.79.

SHARPEN UP WITH NO-DOZ!

exhorts Countdown.

EACH TABLET HAS THE SAME AMOUNT OF CAFFEINE AS A CUP OF COFFEE, GIVING YOU THAT EXTRA KICK NEEDED TO KEEP YOU GOING

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The active ingredient in both products is caffeine. NO-DOZ® AWAKENERS contain 100 mg caffeine per tablet. (And glucose.) Pepe contains caffeine in an unstated amount. (And black pepper extracts, vitamin B6 and a proprietry blend of amino acids.)

So what does this have to do with the Psychoactive Substances Act?

Section 9 of the Act gives the meaning of psychoactive substance.

9 Meaning of psychoactive substance
(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, psychoactive substance means a substance, mixture, preparation, article, device, or thing that is capable of inducing a psychoactive effect (by any means) in an individual who uses the psychoactive substance.

On the face of it, that includes both NO-DOZ® AWAKENERS and Pepe and their active ingredient caffeine.

Section 5 of the Act gives its application.

5 Application of Act
(1) This Act applies to the importation, manufacture, sale, supply, or possession of a psychoactive substance or approved product for the primary purpose of inducing a psychoactive effect in an individual who uses the substance or product.

On the face of it, the Act applies to both products and their active ingredient caffeine.

But Section (9)(3) of the Act tells us that the Act does not apply to any dietary supplement or to any food.

Cosmic Corner hopes that the Act does not apply.

our understanding is that it will not affect products which are classed as herbs or dietary supplements. For example, caffeine has a psychoactive effect, but it is classed as a food product/dietary supplement. This means the COSMIC range of party pills should continue to be available because their ingredients are classed as dietary supplements and herbs.

So does the Act apply? I don’t know. But I do know that Cosmic Corner has submitted an application for an interim product approval and presumably paid the $10,000 application fee. If their application is either approved or declined (rather than returned and the fee refunded) then I expect the Ministry of Health to come down on New World, Countdown and any other supermarket chain selling the unapproved product NO-DOZ with the full force of the law, i.e., a $500,000 fine per supermarket. (Troughers gotta fill the coffers.)

Silly supermarkets. You don’t go selling caffeine “for the primary purpose of inducing a psychoactive effect.” You’ve got to be way more subtle than that. Here’s how it’s done.

Richard Dawkins Produces Another Theist: Proslogion

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Dr. Laura Keynes grew up in Cambridge, arguably the intellectual center of the United Kingdom. She studied at the University College of Oxford on a full-ride scholarship and ended up earning a Doctor of Philosophy degree. Her doctoral thesis was on epistemology, the study of knowledge and justified belief. As her last name indicates, she is the great-grandniece of the famous economist John Maynard Keynes. She is also the great-great-great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin.
Why am I telling you about this young lady? Because she recently wrote an article entitled, “I’m a Direct Descendant of Darwin…and a Catholic.” Now the title didn’t surprise me at all. I know a lot of Catholics (and even more Protestants) who believe in evolution. Indeed, one of the leaders of the Intelligent Design movement, Dr. Michael Behe, says:1

You can be a good Catholic and believe in Darwinism. Biochemistry has made it increasingly difficult, however, to be a thoughtful scientist and believe in it.

However, as I read the article, I couldn’t help but smile. You see, Laura was raised Catholic but drifted away from the faith after her mother became a Buddhist and her brother rejected all organized religion. By the time she was studying for her Doctor of Philosophy degree, she was an agnostic. During that time, however, Richard Dawkins had opened up an international dialogue on the existence of God with his thoroughly awful book, The God Delusion. Well, Laura decided to read Dawkins and his fellow New Atheists, and she says:

I expected to be moved from agnosticism to atheism by their arguments, but after reading on both sides of the debate, I couldn’t dismiss a compelling intellectual case for faith. As for being good without God, I’d tried and didn’t get very far. At some point, life will bring you to your knees, and no act of will is enough in that situation. Surrendering and asking for grace is the logical human response.

I don’t think that’s the response Dawkins and his colleagues were hoping for. The entire article is worth a read, because it really shows how an intellectual person should respond to what the New Atheists have produced:

I read central texts on both sides of the debate and found more to convince me in the thoughtful and measured responses of Alister McGrath and John Cornwell, among others, than in the impassioned prose of Hitchens et al. New Atheism seemed to harbor a germ of intolerance and contempt for people of faith that could only undermine secular Humanist claims to liberalism.

Notice what she did. She read the central texts on both sides of the debate. Most people don’t do that, but it is the most important thing a real intellectual can do. I suspect that working on her dissertation made her realize that there is no such thing as an unbiased argument. All authors start with their preconceived notions, which color the way they view and present the evidence. As a result, the only way to come close to getting an unbiased view of the debate is to read from both sides. By doing that, you will hopefully be able to start seeing how the various authors are “coloring” the evidence, and that will allow you to remove some of the “coloring” and look at the evidence a bit more clearly.

When Laura did that, she saw something that should be immediately obvious to those who read both sides of this debate: the New Atheists are full of bluster and bravado, but their arguments are incredibly weak. Those who have responded to the New Atheists (at least the ones she read) provide a start contrast. They are calm, measured, and rational in their response. According to her, this contrast helped to demonstrate that the majority of the evidence clearly goes against the atheist position, and the bluster of the New Atheists is an attempt to cover up this inconvenient fact. As a result, she returned to the faith of her childhood.

Read more >>here<<

Tim Wikiriwhi represents Affordable Waikato in the Hamilton City Council Elections. Mayor and West Ward.

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Due to gross incompetence our city wallows in high rates and crippling debt.
Yet still I believe Hamilton could become New Zealand’s premier city via the rigorous application of the principles endorsed by Nobel Prize winner for economics Milton Friedman.
Reducing Council interference with private property, individual liberty, and business will allow you to realize your full potential.

Hamiltonian’s interests are best served when Council keeps costs down.
Lower rates means lower rents, and ultimately lower food and petrol bills.
Lower rates gives Hamilton business’s the greatest advantage to compete both domestically and globally.
While you forge a brighter future, I’ll focus on the reduction of city debt and rates by running a tight ship.
Council should stick to essential utilities.
I will promote community interests by soliciting philanthropy from the Private sector, encouraging voluntary community initiatives to develop art, charity and culture.
Let’s think smart, and aim for success.

Tim Wikiriwhi
Affordable Waikato.

Heretic! Defying the Establishment…Secular Excommunication for Free Thinking and Un-orthodox Scientific Research: PHD Welfareism

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Try denying Big Bang Dogma…and see what happens to your career in science..
Try suggesting that Naturalistic Materialism is a blind faith….
Try suggesting Science has not dis-proven the Soul…or Freewill.

The Big Con. Lew Rockwell

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Click>>>> Enslaved by your own Gullible Stupidity! Taxation and Tyranny.

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Click>>>>> Tim Wikiriwhi’s Submission to the New Zealand Government’s Constitutional Review. 2013

Crank it up….