Damned, the CIA is getting its orders mixed up in Afghanistan again. Obambas going to have to appoint a new Foreign Asset Inventory Czar now!

Well, I suppose that is one way to look at it. I suspect the PC police may call you out though.

SHUSHHH!!!!........do the world a favour and keep a lid on this.
/sarc.

It would be interesting to see if you made Drug addicts that are caught (usually theft). Instead of just putting them in jail. They are to do their time in a morgue, dressing up the bodies of the dead? This could impress upon them some reality one would figure.
Who knows though? Human nature is perverse if not highly adaptable from facing the consequent realities of their own actions. We love rationalization like a bear loves fat insulation in winter.
JMO

Hmmm, same thing in Glasgow last week, I'm liking this trend.

Me, I'm worried. Murdering heroin addicts is easy enough if you have access to a supply of heroin. But anthrax? It's much harder to get than any number of toxins, and it's communicable. That means that the target might not be the addicts. It might, for example, be an effort to target a society one viewed as sick, via one of its more sick parts.

I hope they are all nominated for Darwin Awards.

Completely OT, but what great news out of Commoschussetts

Completely OT - Response to Tex

I'm wondering if jlc could put up his list of 20 places NOT to visit and the reason for each. Like military intelligence, the best info is from those with feet on the ground.

Posted by: Texas Canuck at January 19, 2010 12:15 PM

Tex - Ill do that. I should have prepared list before I commented. I'm currently in Malaysia (obviously not one of the 20).

Won't be too many surprises, but certainly Colombia won't be on the list. Haiti certainly is among the top 3: Sudan, Somalia, Haiti.

Any truth to the rumour that all of the departed had just fueled up at a government run "Safe Injection Site"?

What group of people in France and other European countries would you suspect of fooling around with anthrax?

No, it's not the Anglicans...or the Protestants...or Bhuddists...or Jews...

Where is the anthrax going to show up next?

I just don't know why terrorists would tip their hand by going after heroin addicts...which means it likely wasn't terrorists (at least smart terrorists). But, the point remains, if SOMEONE can get their hands on anthrax, so can the Religion of Pieces.

Posted by: jlc>

“Haiti certainly is among the top 3: Sudan, Somalia, Haiti.”

Mine are easy – West Africa, India, Bangladesh, and any country or region with ……"stan" on the end of it!!!!

I just left Kemaman the other day, Malaysia wouldn't make the top 100 worst places.

1) Junkies getting killed by junk? Its just quicker this way, the outcome is the same. Whoever put the anthrax in is no bigger an evil than the usual drug creeps, IMHO.

2) Someone is -experimenting-. That's not good. They're trying to make germ warfare vectors out of drug addicts, because the drug trade is a nice easy route for them. They need to be found and killed soonest. This is where a functional CIA/CSIS/MI5 whatever apparatus would be helpful. Time to start rolling up the drug dealer chain.

3) If I were a sneaky jihadist, I'd make lots of noise at the front door while my guys were busy sneaking in the basement window. I get the feeling this is the knife that the airline bombers are just a distraction from.

The Phantom
[....They're trying to make germ warfare vectors out of drug addicts, because the drug trade is a nice easy route for them.]

This fits the jihadi mindset.
This is a clever manner to widely vector a pandemic into western society, in their mindset. A clandestine, international, distribution network already in place which in their mind is distant from "the faithful" in western society.

What fact seems to have arisen is that likely the heroin users are not that sociable, actually sort of hermits, with the majority of the population, not commuting to work or circulating in the bars etc....or the infection rate would be much higher, especially with such a robust, highly contageous pathogen.

This has all the hallmarks, to be expected, of a WMD attack Al Qaeda style. A fizzle......

jlc, thanks, I'm sure a lot of us would find your list enlightening. Just listened to an interview with some Canuck missionaries that were down there fixing up an orphanage. They had their kids with them believe it or not. Seems people like that have secure compounds to live in.

Back onto the topic at hand, if tainted (illegal) drugs end up in one of those "safe" government run shooting galleries, would junkies be able to sue the government? If you warn a jaywalker that crossing a particular street (or Hwy 401) is illegal and dangerous and they decide to try it anyway and get killed, are you responsible?

anthrax is not spreadable by human to human contact...
and there could be an innocent reason anthrax is in the dope..
but I prefer the possibility that the spores are being prepared for air spreading and it is contaminating the room and people who distribute the dope

This is unfortunate and tragic. Thank god wisdom prevailed in the BC Court of Appeals in that it upheld a lower court ruling allowing a government funded safe injection site to remain open, reasoning that health care is to remain under provincial jurisdiction as it pertains to providing services. The federal government lost and knowing the mentality of the Harper government, it will likely appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, where in all likelihood, based on the sound reasoning of the appellate court, it will lose as well. Safe injection sites are invaluable in that they provide counselling, medical referrals, and an environment that has health care professionals available to assist the clients.

"The likeliest source is heroin contaminated by anthrax spores."

Maybe it's not in the dope; better check their blankets.

Its just quicker this way, the outcome is the same.

The outcome is the same for everyone, idjit.

"Thank god"

I appreciate the gratitude, butthead, but God requires a capital.

"The outcome is the same for everyone, idjit."

Well, probably the same for your friends, phil. Not sure how what my outcome will be, but it will not be self-induced and just plain sad. It might be premature, but it won't be my choice.

The outcome is the same for everyone, idjit

Not everyone dies prematurely of preventable causes, idjit.

The outcome is the same for everyone, idjit

So noted. Can we go back to private health care now?

So I guess those 'how to inject yourself with heroin' health ads were kind of a waste.

That's a great way to 'take out the trash".

Faster please.

Sorry no sympathy here, heroin users useless to society.
So it's true sympathy lies between shit and syphilis.

Not sure how what my outcome will be
Not sure? You're gonna be dead.

Not everyone dies prematurely of preventable causes, idjit.
No, but everyone does end up dead.
Besides, opiates, if administered correctly, are not at all lethal or life shortening. The early deaths of users are directly attributable to prohibition.
Using is no more suicidal that going to a dog show. But I wouldn't expect the small dead taliban mind to be able to grasp that reality.

That's a great way to 'take out the trash".

Faster please.

This is why you should buy you heroin from a trusted distributor.

This is why you should buy your heroin from a trusted distributor.

fixed

"Using is no more suicidal that going to a dog show. "

Except maybe for the fact that no dog show enthusiasts would rob you to get a "fix" of Schnauzer.

"Using is no more suicidal that going to a dog show."

So noted. Can we close down all the free needle exchanges now?

"Besides, opiates, if administered correctly, are not at all lethal or life shortening. The early deaths of users are directly attributable to prohibition."

I guess people should stop screwing with others about smoking, trans fats, drinking and the like. Hell if heroin won't shorten my life then a Bic Mac should be the equivalent of my daily vitamin.

If you know any old ranchers, you may have noticed some ugly, black moles on their skin. That would be anthrax. It isn't all that serious, in its natural state, unless you stick your nose in the dirt, for hours at a time. Injecting into your veins might be a bit more serious.

I would guess that the anthrax ended up in the herion, accidentally. Probably from a "factory" that stores it outside, in dusty conditions.

According to information on wikipedia, some of the comments above about anthrax are not accurate.

"Anthrax does not spread directly from one infected animal or person to another; it is spread by spores. These spores can be transported by clothing or shoes. The dead body of an animal that died of anthrax can also be a source of anthrax spores."

A"nthrax is an acute disease caused by Bacillus anthracis. It affects both humans and other animals. Most forms of the disease are lethal."

Why stop at free needles? Give 'em the dope to go with it. Might cut down on the B & E rate. Might even be cheaper in the long run. Hell, it might even make T happy.

@ T, does this mean you will be moving to BC soon?
Can we help you pack your socialist carpetbag?

I guess people should stop screwing with others about smoking, trans fats, drinking and the like.

Uh, last time I checked, you could smoke till the cows come home, mainline trans fats to your heart's content and drink yourself into oblivion 24/7.

Except maybe for the fact that no dog show enthusiasts would rob you to get a "fix" of Schnauzer.

Nor would an opiate enthusiast were it not for the prohibition imposed by interventionist, nanny state, anti-liberty right wing "conservatives".

So noted. Can we close down all the free needle exchanges now?

As soon as we cut rural conservative welfare bums off the dole.

See what you started,Kate? Now we have guys like phil who are happy to help addicts(with someone else's money,of course)kill themselves,but not help the farmer putting food on the table. It's true...liberalism is a mental disease!

Persons of faith are first and foremost to be persons of compassion. If you do not want herion addicts commiting crimes donate to or start a recovery center. Currently there is less than .25 of a bed for every male addict and .05 of a bed for female addicts in Canada. More than 80% of users do not want to be slaves to the substance, yet recovery programs that work (12 Steps is the least effective - less than 5% recovery rate whereas other recovery modalities have 60% - 80% recovery rates) and is only supported because it is free and useless for most. I suggest waiving the $5000 fee for the safe 3 day intervenous treatment to remove all opoid from the body that is followed by 2 months intensive therapy.

In Canada we are considering paying for Gender Reassignment Surgery costing tens of thousands, but refuse to offer a 3 day intervenous program to save a persons life. Canada will cut off my boobs for free, but will not increase my cup size if I complain of the same body image prolems as a transgendered person - what a crazy world we live in. (example only - do not want a boob job - just sayin)

Proverbs 16:18 (NIV)

18 Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall.

phil is as cr@p as T. Honestly, I'm going to start tolling, just to raise the standards around here.

I shall call myself "ghost of Che".

pill said: "Besides, opiates, if administered correctly, are not at all lethal or life shortening."

pill baby is obviously still hurtin' from the Dems getting took out to the woodshed last night. pilly is also horribly, horribly wrong about being an "opiate enthusiast", which has to be the stupidest circumlocution for junkie I've ever seen.

Junk laced with anthrax will kill you a bit quicker than the average street junk pill baby. Medical grade takes a lot longer to kill you, but it most assuredly will. Among other things it strips the myelin off the peripheral nerves, leading to some really lovely neurological symptoms.

The only real question at issue is to "Let them die!" in the words of James T. Kirk, or spend a zillion tax dollars to let them die slllloooooowwwwwly. I favor the less expensive solution myself.

phil:

If you dislike subsidies to farmers that much, just stop eating what they produce.

That would be a sensible way to put yourself out of your misery.

Yep. You don't want any toxic substances in your *heroin*.

Now we have guys like phil who are happy to help addicts(with someone else's money,of course)kill themselves,but not help the farmer putting food on the table.

I say, when it comes to intoxicants and business, let the free market, and freedom, reign, baby.

If you dislike subsidies to farmers that much, just stop eating what they produce.

You might have a point, if I got my food for free, or even if I subsidized only the food I buy, but I don't, and you don't either. (have a point, that is)

So just to be clear, phil - you would be all in favour of letting junkies:

a) pay for their own AIDS meds ("let the free market... reign, baby")

b) go to prison for a really, really long time once they're caught stealing to finance their habits (legal or not, heroin ain't free, and serious addicts can't/don't hold down jobs)

c) die in the gutter

Please understand that I do not necessarily reject these ideas outright. I'd just like to know where you stand.

phil

yer knowledge seams a little limited on this issue

booze is not prohibited, but drunk driving deaths are NOT at zero, shoots that nonsense down

and I have one child, stone deaf, probable cause, heroin

and that child stated that when stoned, you think differently, kinda sounds like a "drunk" who is not quite rational

now go out and de-liberalize yerself, and then re-educate yerself to some facts

and as to the topic, dead users is a bad thing?????, only for the suppliers

Jesus, GYM, I'm sorry about your kid. I didn't know that could happen. Hope s/he's better now.

The Phantom

They're trying to make germ warfare vectors out of drug addicts, because the drug trade is a nice easy route for them

You have a point. You get to the big fish through Prostitution which is married to the drug culture. If we here about water contamination, food or drug tampering we know where in a new phase of terror by the Islamists.
At this juncture mercy will not be an option for folks like these. No population will put up with poisoners in their midst.
Thats why they killed so many Women as witches. Just for normal sickness out of ignorance. Now imagine the rage towards monsters who actually
did this on purpose?
JMO

"phil is as cr@p as T. Honestly,...."

No kidding, the troll quality on SDA has dropped significantly in the last several months.

That said – Why is society paying for the laziness and weakness of individuals in our society? Where is their family? They have obviously turned their backs on these individuals who were helpless in life, and left the mess for society to clean up.

Obviously people like phil or T most likely as queer as three dollar bills, have a vested interest in society paying the bill. Generally it’s their friends at the bath house that are users and wasting away with addiction and aids.

a) If everyone else is financially responsible for the medical costs of their lifestyle choices-alcohol, tobacco, sports injuries, etc. I stand for equal treatment before the law.

b)see equal treatment above. Theft is theft, whatever the motivation.
Serious addicts don't hold down jobs because prohibition exorbitantly drives up the black market value to such a degree that working just doesn't pay the rent. Opiate intoxication is far less debilitating than alcohol intoxication and many alcohol abusers function quite satisfactorily in society. Theft to finance one's habit of socially sanctioned drugs like alcohol and tobacco is not to my knowledge a huge problem. Why would legal opiates be any different?

c)One should have the right to live and die where ever one chooses.

So here I am arguing for equality, and for liberty and against socialism, yet I am being vilified by the usual suspects. What gives?

People are only taking drugs to numb the pain of living in a Capitalist-Military death society, okay?!?!. All property is theft, people; "property" is like a bourgeois concept to justify slavery and the fact that we all have too much stuff because we got rich colonizing Afghanistan and killing peaceful First Nations People. This whole stupid country was stolen.

The CIA invented heroin in a lab to kill poor people. It's still really awesome though.

Stealing "property" isn't a crime, okay, when there are, like, criminals in Israel who murder everybody. Arrest Bush!

Alcohol is legal so you're all total hypocrites anyway. People who take heroin are coping with their emotional issues the best way they have. Do you know what you should do? You should congratulate them, okay? Seriously.

When the revolution comes I'm gonna be Minister of Free Drugs. Most of you are gonna get shot.

Racists!!!

Peace!!!

So you consider yourself a radical libertarian, phil?

ghost:

Look in the mirror.

Oh, phil @8:21 - just one more thing from me, re. "point b)": Assuming, quite ridiculously, for the sake of argument, that drugs would be nice and cheap if they were legal - and that violent crime is generally more lucrative than actual employment - ask yourself this: Would you burgle (burglarize?) a house, or mug an old lady in the street, to finance a habit? If the answer is no, your point falls apart. If the answer is yes, how can you possibly claim said habit is not a serious problem?

set you free - no reflection, dude. I have a poster, though.

Assuming, quite ridiculously, for the sake of argument, that drugs would be nice and cheap if they were legal

There is nothing ridiculous about that assumption.
Indeed, it would be ridiculous to assume the opposite- that the economic laws of supply and demand and their effect on price would be suspended in a free and legal trade in opiates.

Would you burgle (burglarize?) a house, or mug an old lady in the street, to finance a habit?

Don't know. Having never had a habit, it's hard to say what one would do under those circumstances. People do extreme things in extreme situations. Think of the Donner Party. What would you do?

phil @11:35 - "Using is no more suicidal than going to a dog show."

A little more desperate, though, huh?

Kate doesn't like her bandwidth wasted on extended "debates", so you'll need to find someone else to argue with.

ahh, I guess I won.

A little more desperate, though, huh?

Not at all. I find chasing the dragon much more interesting and entertaining than watching a bunch of mutts prance around, but, to each his own.

That thing about it being commendable in addicts to have found a "coping mechanism" - not understandable, mind, but commendable - I once saw part of a documentary where a social-worker-woman-thingy in Junkie Central, Vancouver said that, in complete earnestness.

Posted by: phil>

“Think of the Donner Party. What would you do?”

He he, I like that. Compare pioneering migrants stuck in the snow covered mountains with desperate middle class “kids” 2 blocks from a burger joint and a job if they cared.

Extreme!

Hey what would you do if you have been in a Nazi concentration camp for 3 months and the guards came one morning and haul your feeble father away to somewhere unknown?

“See people on drugs are in the same desperate boat”…………Un huh.

Ahhhhhhh.....I see phil missed Black Mamba's comment re.trolls.Hey. Can I be the ghost of Fidel??
But we will have to start our own blog,as I don't want to waste Kate's

One problem with your fantasy pill-boy. Heroin addicts can't hold down jobs to pay for their heroin, not because of the oppression of all us mean people, but because the heroin destroys their nervous system.

You know why Rush Limbaugh is deaf? Oxycontin! That's pure, medical grade gold that stuff. You know why he finally got off it (if he still is)? Because the drug was killing his brain, just the way it killed his ears.

You know what killed Michael Jackson? Medical grade drugs, delivered by a doctor no less, over a 10-15 year period. Killed him deader than a mackerel, but first it completely destroyed his life and his vast fortune.

That's what makes opiates bad pilly. They're destructive and ultimately deadly. Its not just some Puritan plot to to make sure nobody has any fun, as you're saying.

Have you picked out your nursing home yet pilly? Get to it boy, you won't have the capacity to make an intelligent choice much longer. If you do now, that is. Your comments today indicate the rot has advanced pretty far.

My harsh comments are not meant to demean, you by the way. They are meant to pierce the fog of justification you have surrounded yourself with. Had I the power I'd stick your ass on a desert island for a couple years and dry you out. As I don't, a few truths will have to suffice.

Live or die, pilly. Its on you, not me.

This thing about opiates causing deafness is certainly news to me. They should publicize it.

This thing about opiates causing deafness is certainly news to me.

As it would be news to any objective scientific inquiry.
there is no case to be made for associating Oxycontin with deafness and an opioid/deafness link in general is far from proven. And in fact, far more people are killed by bleeding related to aspirin and other NSAID painkillers like ibuprofen (Advil) and the COX2-inhibitors like Celebrex than by opioids.

That's what makes opiates bad pilly. They're destructive and ultimately deadly.

Not sure if you're making a point or just flapping your idjit gums for all to see but by your "logic", substances that are destructive and ultimately deadly should be proscribed by law. Anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together would soon realize that tobacco and alcohol are by a country mile at the top of that list. So, when you gonna do your Carrie Nation thing, phantom, or are you just a garden variety right wing hypocrite, talking out of your arse.

The ultimate point is not whether a substance or activity is destructive or unhealthy. It is whether a free individual should be able to make that determination for themselves, or whether the nanny/taliban state is going to make that determination. Most of you seem to side with the nanny state/taliban approach. Kind of undermines every other thing you preach about here, no?

No, not really, phil. In a "free-market" world, the junkies would all be either dead or in prison.

As it is, we finance programms to keep them on subsistence; we can't nerve ourselves either to help them with "tough love", nor to hang them out to dry.

I don't have all the answers, phil - there are legitimate questions here concerning libertarianism vs. compassionate conservatism - which divide I see as constituting the fault-line of Conservatism generally.

But look, I get it. You're a big-time Libertarian. Go rent "Bullsh*t" by Penn and Teller. You're boring.

Phantom Mamba...demonstrating yet again, as if it was required...scratch a conservative, find a hypocrite.

In a "free-market" world, the junkies would all be either dead or in prison.

Please, enlighten us. How would that be so?

I don't have all the answers,

But you more than make up for that with your amazing grasp of the obvious.

Hey, as it happens, whenever I think of the Donner party, I think, "Donner kebab!"

Natural selection? Like those 'special people' who decide not to wear seat belts. Taking their lives into their own hands by doing something not recommended by society's collective knowledge.