Holly Nicholas looks at Ontario’s restrictive vaping laws and compares the crack-down to the fervour for the so-called safe-injection sites.
Holly Nicholas looks at Ontario’s restrictive vaping laws and compares the crack-down to the fervour for the so-called safe-injection sites.
Cognitive dissonance isn’t a bug, it’s a central feature in politics.
Crusade against the evils of tobacco with one hand while legalizing pot with the other.
And let’s not even talk about how all levels of government obfuscate the link between HIV and homosexuality. I once caused a minor tempest in a conversation with someone who was essentially advocating denying healthcare to smokers and the obese.
I chipped in with, “OK then, so while we’re at it, can we do the same with homosexuals and AIDS treatment?”
Heroin addicts are not reliable tax payers.
Well lance, maybe now you have some understanding how many pot smokers have felt for decades.
To witness the endless destructiveness to society from legal alcohol while enjoying the much safer social drug of marijuana can get you a criminal record is insanity. Especially when you see alcohol openly and legally marketed to our youth. Especially when you see governments raping their alcohol addicts, often already the poorest in our society, with sin taxes.
While on the topic, vaping also solves the only real potential harm from responsible adult use of weed. Inhaling smoke.
As I have stated here before, I agree vaping is a blessing for those who want to quit cigarettes. My concern is the thousands of chemicals used for the flavorings for recreational use and the possible long-term risks to inhaling them. You poo-pooed this as a ridiculous concern many months ago which I thought hypocritical since you’re from the “Settled Science blog”.
Anyways, congrats again on quitting ciggie-butts. I agree governments should be promoting this as a potential lifesaver, not condemning it as a vice.
“I agree governments should be promoting this as a potential lifesaver, not condemning it as a vice.”.
They can’t. The anti-smoking lobby is too big and strong, with too many LIV’s in it that vote Lieberal. The real biggie,though, is the gubermint is MORE addicted to smoke taxes that smokers are to nicotine. Congrats Lance on quitting. Been 3 years for me now,and I still am haunted by the addiction in times of stress and sometimes just relaxing. Keep busy! It helps.
My concern is the thousands of chemicals used for the flavorings for recreational use and the possible long-term risks to inhaling them.
But the random crap that’s in your weed, that’s totes fine, amirite?
The issue is consistency. Some mind-altering substances like PCP and cathinones can predictably cause extremely violent behaviour and so should be regulated as a matter of public safety, for the same reason we regulate public drunkenness and driving while drunk. Beyond that it’s not the business of the state whether I commit suicide all at once or over the course of a few years.
It’s certainly in the best interests of society to strongly discourage such behaviour, but they shouldn’t get to use guns to do it.
Except our governments DON’T discourage such behaviour.
Out here on the left coast, “safe injection sites” are de riguer! These are anything but discouraging, a junkie can shoot himself a hot load, and there’s a nice helping hand to revive him, so he can continue his thieving, scamming, dealing and stealing lifestyle, at the expense of everyone else.
Think union jobs…………….nurses union……..
Yes, the hyperventilating by governments over all forms of vaping is the height of hypocrisy and ignorance, typical.
So is claiming the pot is medicinal, to the extent that 95+% of the “patients” are just phony nonsense. From a former head, 22 years reformed, the pot movement is laughably stupid and hypocritical. It is still a drug, it still causes harm, and addiction, just in different forms than alcohol.
So Daniel, do you ever find any “random crap” in your beer? Of course not, because it is legal and thus REGULATED for certain standards. It is made by responsible businesses who are competing for market share. You do understand that alcohol during the prohibition era was often tainted with all sorts of dangerous crap, don’t you? BTW, my sources are long-time and trusted.
I was simply pointing out the hypocrisy of those who think destructive alcohol is okey-dokey but comparatively benign marijuana is some kind of blight on society. It is a fair comparison to lance’s example of hypocrisy on vaping/smoking vs safe injection sites/heroin and the government’s inconsistency based on ulterior motives.
Just say no saves even more lives.
Remember, as Instapundit likes to say, that piling regulations onto vaping provides increased opportunites for graft. That explains almost everything.
Cognitive dissonance, as in jack up green power technologies, impose a carbon tax, and then wonder why industry is disappearing to the U.S. Mexico and China.
Some drugs … and some addicts … are more equal than others. Has our society not evolved one iota beyond the time when Animal Farm was written ? Are all leftists really that retrograde ? It’s 2016 leftist politicians ! Try to keep up ! Try to evolve !
It’s not about healthy choices or protecting kids or any of that nonsense. It is about control. It is about messing with people for the pure joy of messing with them.
The short game is just that: poke the proles and watch them have their hissy fits. It’s great entertainment for the ruling class.
The long game is the wearing down of the middle class through such constant poking and meddling. The long game is eroding the moral values and financial holdings of the middle class through things like legal weed and injection sites.
The long game will keep the elites in power, but the short game is great fun.
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“danbc says… Out here on the left coast, “safe injection sites” are de riguer!”
hang on… isn’t there a government program out in bc that actually supplies
free pharmaceutical grade heroin to addicts?
heroin good… vaping bad?
sweet baby jebus.
ps… on second thought, i guess it’s worth it, now that vancouver has totally
eliminated that nasty junkie problem it had.
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I have never heard of a program by the BC government to supply addicts with heroin.
I wish they would,instead the government supplies them with shooting galleries,which causes them to break into my car or house to pay for their drugs. Socialists are great at half-measures.
And they made the author of all this,Larry Campbell,a Senator.
Notice that lung cancer deaths from smoking are never quantified per hundred thousand by the antismokers.
They say one doubles the risk of lung cancer by smoking but never state what the orginal risk is.
They also never differentiate between dying from lung cancer at age 45 or at age 80.
The original Surgeon General’s report that linked cancer to cigarette smoking included a study that found pipe smokers lived on average two years longer than non smokers. So much for second hand smoke.
If the government wanted harm reduction for cigarette smokers than they would be advocating the use of vaping,pipes, cigars, snus and snuff instead of cigarettes.
The government has a great scam going, tobacco companies make the product and take the blame.
The government collects taxes and funds the antismoking groups.
The antismoking groups, composed of otherwise unemployable “activists”‘, blame the tobacco companies but never mention the biggest beneficiary of the tobacco business, the government.
Of all the trouble in the world having a smoke is not a big deal.
Meanwhile … I fully expect that the State of California will LEGALIZE all use of Marijuana. Of course they will tout the NEW TAXES that the state will collect … and how legalization will END the Mexican Drug Cartels.
Me ? I fully expect our H.S. graduation rate to fall even further … even MORE precipitously … the graduation chart is going to look like the Stock Market in 1929
I fully expect our H.S. graduation rate to fall even further … even MORE precipitously … the graduation chart is going to look like the Stock Market in 1929
Yes, no wonder they’ve had to dumb down the curriculum. Pot causes intelligence to become lower. Pretty much proven here every time it’s brought up…
I’ve been off cigarettes for 2 years and 5 months because of access to vaping products. Ditched the flavored liquids a few months ago because I don’t trust them. Ontario ‘ new regs are completely out of touch with reality and science. I’m willing to wager there were some large contributions to the ontario liberal party by anti tabacco leagues and even tabacco companies. Ad always with corrupt governments we only need to follow the money.
It has been almost a year since I started vaping, it has been almost half a year since my last cigarette. Have been a smoker for the preceding two and half decades.
I had a good conversation with an ex-‘Nam vet who was 27 years clean from a heroin addiction. Yet he could not quit smoking despite an advanced respiratory illness (COPD). He confirmed it was harder to quit cigarettes than heroin. The government should be encouraging anything that helps smokers kick the habit.
(I am 9 years quit as a smoker so I sympathize.)
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“don morris says… I have never heard of a program by the BC government to supply addicts
with heroin.”
well, don… sorry to burst your bubble.
“Should we be giving free heroin to addicts? Don’t choke. Researchers in Vancouver say yes.”
“And they’ve just spent $8-million in public money to prove their case.”
“Last month, after concluding a landmark clinical trial, they announced that the best way to
treat hard-core heroin addicts is: Give them more heroin!“
so they did.
oh… you’re welcome.
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No bubble burst! You linked to an article on your own site,that when I clicked on it said,”oops sorry not available”.
It sounds like you linked to an article about an experiment done by some researchers. The BC government doesn’t provide heroin to addicts,that would be BIG BIG news out here! The poor dears have to break into my car,steal my stereo, pawn it for $25 then go to Larry’s Insite to shoot up.
One of the most powerful tools of the left: control the language.
“Safe injection sites” are de riguer!”
That’s so yesterday. The word injection has such negative connotations. The word of the day is “safe consumption sites.”
Get with the program.
I have heard first hand from users that marijuana makes one forgetful. Ergo, marijuana is safer than alcohol? Alcohol’s moderate use does not result in cognitive decline on that scale.
“Big Tobacco” is basically the tobacco companies effectively working in collusion with the government to sell a highly addictive product that is very bad for people’s health. Both sides benefit tremendously from the sale of cigarettes–profits to the big tobacco players and the government in the form of sin taxes.
Well, after attacking smokers for years for engaging in an unhealthy habit that also annoys others with second hand smoke, we have a technological breakthrough that seems to solve so many problems associated with smoking cigarettes:
-vaping is 95% safer than traditional smoking (as per the posted video)
-the problem of second hand smoke is completely resolved.
-people who are addicted to nicotine now finally have a product where they can engage in a habit that the enjoy that is much healthier for them.
What’s the problem here? Obviously, as more and more people quit smoking cigarettes in favor of vaping, this presents a threat to the collusion between tobacco companies and the government to maximize revenue from those who use nicotine. Don’t be surprised when vaping reaches the point of critical mass where all sorts of laws will be passed so that all the small time players in the vaping industry are squeezed out as a result of red tape and regulation that only the big tobacco companies will be able to afford to comply.
There was a Democratic senator who said with a straight face that vaping should be banned and people should smoke cigarettes instead because at least the dangers of smoking are already known, and the dangers of vaping are still unkown.
Drug addiction is big business that employs a lot of people on both sides of the law. Prohibition ensures that drug lords and their lap-dog politicians get obscenely rich on the suffering of others. Legalizing and controlling drugs would reduce the cost for addicts, and put a lot of influential people out of work. Addicts are cash cows that are farmed and cultivated by social workers, lawyers, police and government bureaucracies. Like the never-ending search for the “cure for cancer” there’s a lot more money to be made by maintaining the status quo and never finding a solution to the problem.
Most of the homeless and addiction problems are caused by drugs being illegal. Making drugs legal, cheap and controlled would get most addicts out of the crime cycle. It’s the most logical and effective approach to true harm reduction. The high cost of drugs fosters property crime and prostitution to feed the habit and organized crime gets rich off the ludicrous mark-up on street drugs. If drugs are free to registered addicts then they have a chance to get their life together out of the crime world.
Yes, some will undoubtedly OD; they probably would have anyway. The ones that overdose will reduce the cost to our overused health care system and make room for people with treatable illness who want to get better. There are more addicts than the system can treat; adopt a triage approach to save the savable and make the end as painless as possible for the others.
Just giving out free paraphernalia only makes the drug lords richer. All of these do-gooders who support useless ‘harm reduction’ programs using taxpayer dollars should spend their own money on programs they think are worthwhile and invite the addicts to come live with them.
The real problem is the resources sucked-up by the “anti-poverty and homelessness ‘industry’ “. There’s no accountability or documented results for the money wasted by a bunch of bureaucrats and their flunkies. It would be far better to decimate the “anti-poverty and homelessness” bureaucracy from the top down and instead use the money to build simple, durable, utilitarian, multi-unit housing for the homeless. It needn’t be fancy, just the basics. If they want better housing then they can get a job.
Of course we can’t expect any change. It’s far easier to distract people with endless discussions of the symptoms instead of addressing the causes. Homeless addicts are acceptable ‘collateral damage’ when so many get rich off other people’s misery and addiction issues.
Yes, it is about control. I could go on and on with examples proving empirically that government does not have those whom it governs at heart when it comes to legislation.
Government motive always defaults to control and to graft.
I have heard first hand from users that alcohol makes one forgetful. Ergo, alcohol is safer than marijuana?
It would be far better to decimate the “anti-poverty and homelessness” bureaucracy from the top down and instead use the money to build simple, durable, utilitarian, multi-unit housing for the homeless.
Build ghettos, what a novel idea…you want it, you pay for it.
You’re correct but forgetting one key player: big pharma, the smoking cessation drug industry. They can’t stand that there is an effective safe and comfortable alternative to all their useless patches and gums and they will stop at nothing to eliminate vaping.
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“don morris says… No bubble burst! You linked to an article on your own site”
no, don… i referenced a newspaper article. unfortunately, i can’t control how
long the globe & mail keeps anything up on their website.
how about we ask the toronto red star?
In November 2014, McGarragan became one of the first people in North
America, outside of a clinical trial, to receive heroin via a doctor’s prescription.
$27,000 — Average cost of heroin maintenance for one patient for one
year.
how’s your bubble now?
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ps, don morris…
“$27,000 — cost of heroin maintenance for one patient for one
year.”
that comes to 27 million dollars for every thousand junkies in
east van every year. how many thousands are there in total?
if you build it… they will come, and come… and come…
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