Hard News: Dude, what just happened?
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With my shonky eyes, I first read this:
The answer to the ennui of life is not soma.
as
The answer to the emu of life is not soma.
Which in some ways made more sense.
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The answer to the emu of life is not sumo.
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After work you could, oh read a good book, write a good book, go for a run, cycle, aerobics class, enjoy a hobby, have fun with the family, chat to people online. Any number of things that are more life affirming than mind altering substances (alcohol included).
All those things they say about Dunedin really are true.
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You really are Satan, aren't you?
Peter is so inspirational: I was seriously considering being stoned for a Plunket nurse visit after reading his post. ;)
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I was seriously considering being stoned for a Plunket nurse visit after reading his post. ;)
The comedian on the TV said last night after reading in the Bible that those who work on the Sabbath need stoning, he pointed out he loved being stoned on the Sabbath.
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After work you could, oh read a good book, write a good book, go for a run, cycle, aerobics class, enjoy a hobby, have fun with the family, chat to people online. Any number of things that are more life affirming than mind altering substances (alcohol included).
Perhaps I could, but I reserve the right to make that decision for myself,
And every so often I like the way a quarter of a joint makes me feel. The excess of a percentage of other users doesn't mean I need the right to make that decision taken away from me, just as vomiting drunks, alcoholics and underage drinkers downtown are not a rational or morally supportable reason for denying you the occasional expensive single malt. -
Be fair to Peter now. He was just pushing a different lifestyle choice as being good too, and quite clearly said he didn't think Mary Jane was the Wanton Wicked Weed of Satan, the Damnation of all Immortal Souls. She's just not worth slitting one's wrists over, if the supply tightens a tiny bit.
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She's just not worth slitting one's wrists over, if the supply tightens a tiny bit.
Well, the 250 arrested citizens have a different perspective on it: i.e., it's also about people's lives and freedoms, not simply the tightness of supply.
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The police have made many accusations of what they've found SOG to be doing...
And while supplying cannabis seedlings is obviously illegal.... some of the other things I assumed were ok. (ie. they've been accused of not something not illegal?)
Can any of our legalistic types explain where the border lies?
If a car salesman sells a car to someone who then uses it in a bank robbery... no one arrests the car salesman do they?
It cant possibly be illegal to sell gardening equipment if you are ignorant of the use it will be put to.
Is the "crime" in knowing to what use it will be put? What if you don't "know" but have suspicions?
What about giving advice? I couldnt tell you much about how to grow anything, but I can tell you how to exceed the speed limit, or break a window to unlock a door from inside... is simply the sharing of knowledge illegal if the knowledge pertains to an illegal act?
I've seen so many bongs and p-pipes for sale in the open that I assumed that was legal too?
What are "head shops" legally allowed to do, and where is the line?
Also... this new imposition that they have to record names/photo Id if they want to re-open the shops... can the police/courts actually do that? It seems like making up new law on the spot? Secondhand dealers and pawn brokers have to record who they buy stuff from, and pharmacists have to record who they sell certain medicines to... but these requirements have been specified in laws passed by parliament.
Confused...
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After work you could, oh read a good book, write a good book, go for a run, cycle, aerobics class, enjoy a hobby, have fun with the family, chat to people online. Any number of things that are more life affirming than mind altering substances (alcohol included).
The answer to the ennui of life is not soma.
Ah. I thought we were overdue for Peter's Usual Sermon ;-)
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Is the "crime" in knowing to what use it will be put?
Excellent Questions Fletcher.
I was quite interested to read Jo Kerr's wikipedia link to Cannabis by country and then cross check with adult cannabis use by country, finding very little correlation between legality and use. Also
Why stop at 24?
Such legislation has more to do with ignorant wooden tops and free trade agreements than any rational policy in my experience.
The US state by state rundown of cannabis legality doesn't match the hypothesis that our laws are linked to any kind of potential NZ/US FTA. Our laws seem more in line with the Empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_cannabis_in_the_United_States
More to the point
In Hawaii, Senate Bill 862 became law on June 14, 2000. Patients can possess a maximum of 3 ounces(84g) of usable marijuana and a maximum of 7 marijuana plants
And I've been trying to recall the name of the New Zealand celebrity who has a holiday home there of all places.
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write a good book,
Easier said than done. Islander, any advice on where to start?
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@chris
Some role models among the writers ?
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/1943.html -
"Also... this new imposition that they have to record names/photo Id if they want to re-open the shops... can the police/courts actually do that? It seems like making up new law on the spot? Secondhand dealers and pawn brokers have to record who they buy stuff from, and pharmacists have to record who they sell certain medicines to... but these requirements have been specified in laws passed by parliament."
My thoughts exactly, I guess if its a bail condition and the agreed to it, its fine. I can't see it being applied to other stores legally though.
It reminds me a lot of the police making the rules up as they went along with firearms law, and declaring firearms with thumbhole stocks as MSSAs. This went to court, and the police lost. The cops don't make up or interpret law, they enforce it. They need to be reminded of this.
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Just as an aside...
One of my hobbies is the cultivation of perfectly legal tropical plants. I'm not too hardcore, but back in the 90s I used to hang around the "scene" (it wasn't big, but it was there). It was perfectly normal to go around to a mate's place and inspect the awesome tropical rainforest tank system set up in their underfloor space. Again, all plants entirely legal in NZ (carnivorous plants, if you're wondering), but requiring rather a lot of equipment that is more commonly used for slightly less legal cultivation activities. It was a generally accepted fact that once you had a reasonably large set-up, after a while you'd somehow get on some list, and the police would occasionally pop around for a brief chat on some pretext or another. Many people had stories of police seeing the grow set-up, watching their eyes light up with an easy bust, and then slowly extinguishing that light over the course of a half-hour tour of the differences between cultivars of Heliamphora clones from Brazil.
Certainly, it was commonly accepted that the police kept tabs on people buying lots of grow equipment, and would come around and occasionally search the place.
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brewing beer is a lot easier than spirits , and you can add more hops....
http://www.drugtext.org/library/books/recreationaldrugs/hops.htm
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Keith Locke has a post about the SOG bail conditions up on frogblog - Bail conditions digging up too much info
This bail condition is a clear violation of the Bill of Rights provision against unreasonable search. Those on bail can be subjected to certain constraints, but those constraints cannot be extended to any customer walking into a shop. There is no legal requirement for customers to produce ID unless there is a law governing the sale of that particular consumer item – as with alcohol where it is reasonable for retailers to ask for the ID of those who appear under 18.
In this case the the Police are misusing their powers to require shop staff to help them in their surveillance of citizens purchasing items on sale to people of all ages.
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If a car salesman sells a car to someone who then uses it in a bank robbery... no one arrests the car salesman do they?
It cant possibly be illegal to sell gardening equipment if you are ignorant of the use it will be put to.
... confusedI think they knew what use the gardening equipment would likely be put to !
Guess they might be a bit naive tho ... I heard that someone closely related to the owners once got busted because the cops turned up to investigate when the burglar alarm on his warehouse fulll of weed went off :) -
Keith Locke has a post about the SOG bail conditions up on frogblog - Bail conditions digging up too much info
I'm becoming increasingly alarmed by the police's behaviour this week. And their extralegal surveillance demand just makes it worse.
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Thanks Jo I enjoyed that.
then slowly extinguishing that light over the course of a half-hour tour of the differences between cultivars of Heliamphora clones from Brazil.
Sounds like a bit of fun. There's absolutely no question that the world (and most poignantly the west) is in the midst of the most totalitarianised non-war period in recorded history.
Obviously these trends ebb and flow, but a mere cursory glance at one's surroundings indicates the reality that the freedom of 100 years ago bears very little resemblance with the countenance of the same concept today.
It is perfectly clear to those with the wherewithal that unless people are prepared to stand up in significant numbers, again and again and again, in the name of freedom, we as a society are dutifully sentencing our own children and theirs to lives in less free, more marginalized societies.
I'm saying nothing new. but the restrictions continue to increase with every addition to the body of legislation. The time must come for us to take responsibility and reassert control over these many aspects of our lives.
We must finally begin to truly and fully exert our fullest power to peacefully force the hand of the state to relinquish unsubstantiated controls over our lives.
and truly being the process of disenfranchising our emu.
If anyone's interested, there will be a meeting at Jol's house next Tuesday 7:30pm (bring a plate)
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Well, the 250 arrested citizens have a different perspective on it: i.e., it's also about people's lives and freedoms, not simply the tightness of supply.
Surely. But take into account that they were breaking some serious laws and profiting by that, when you consider their lives and freedoms.
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Surely. But take into account that they were breaking some serious laws and profiting by that, when you consider their lives and freedoms.
Some of them -- commercial growers and dealers -- certainly were. But it seems that SOG employees have been arrested wholesale. I'm troubled by that.
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Some of them -- commercial growers and dealers -- certainly were. But it seems that SOG employees have been arrested wholesale. I'm troubled by that.
So am I -- and I'd be polishing up my CV right about now if I was working at a liquor store.
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I'm troubled by that.
We'll all be watching it closely. If there's no evidence of them committing crimes in a large number of cases, it will be very concerning. If, on the other hand, most of the ones who are arrested are linked directly to some illegal sale of, say, cuttings, to one of the undercover cops, then the really big question will be "to what extent did the environment they work in encourage that?". Oh, and the usual question of whether the cops actually entrapped them.
I'm sure the purpose of this whole thing is to scare people off using SOG, and to give the impression the police are doing a worthwhile job.
But I doubt anything really worthwhile will be achieved. As always, they're just making some other manufacturers richer. 250 sounds like a lot, but there must be thousand upon thousands of grow houses, and there are hundreds of thousands of customers. This raid will just make people a bit more careful - they'll use fake IDs to buy stuff, or intermediaries.
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