Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: On joining the international…, in reply to Dennis Frank,
I’ve often pondered the continual failure to include ethics & morality in our educational curricula.
Um. Using the internet effectively to find answers to questions is also taught in schools these days.
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Hard News: On joining the international…, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Don Brash’s latest from last night is this pearl of wisdom;
He just had to go. John Key's main positive legacy, apart from the three way handshake, was ridding us of this tedious old fool.
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Hard News: Dilemmas: the drug-driving ad…, in reply to Russell Brown,
They’re high.
Oh, I see. I was completely confused. The only time I've ever had a break from reality at that kind of level was on booze, so I thought it was about that.
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Hard News: Reassure Me: cannabis,…, in reply to Russell Brown,
You only need a very little bit.
A very experienced user will probably be accustomed to getting a dosage far beyond what they actually wanted (I don't want to say overdose because that implies toxicity, which is not quite the same thing), and have some inkling that time will probably get them back down, whereas a first timer going sky high is likely to have a very bad trip, scaring the daylights out of them.
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Hard News: On joining the international…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Yeah I couldn't enthuse about the idea of telling other people they missed an opportunity to invite a snake into their house, let alone telling people that snake is almost certain to bite, to do so. Tim could have interviewed them himself, just to get the idea out of his system.
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Hard News: On joining the international…, in reply to william blake,
It restores my faith in human nature.
Ditto. They got their free speech and most NZers neither wanted to hear it, nor host it. It's a precedent I'm happy with. I hope this is how it goes for any similar acts who want to come here. We do not tolerate preaching intolerance, and sure, that's a paradox. It's a much better paradox than the alternative, that ending violence often takes more extreme violence.
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Hard News: Reassure Me: cannabis,…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I’m not sure about the way some jurisdictions aren’t allowing concentrates for that reason.
If the plant itself is legal, then concentrates are somewhat less of a high priority. Yes, of course they are more efficient, but they are also more...concentrated. I guess once doses are well controlled and understood that's less problematic, but people getting mega wasted as their first experience doesn't seem like a good idea. The main impediment to good portable vaporizers that simply take the herb itself is that it's not legal to carry the herb, or anything clearly used for taking it. If that changes, then a slower process for the introduction of concentrates doesn't seem like a dreadful thing.
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And despite what various people have been keen to tell me on Twitter, that process will not be a simple or straightforward one for the government.
Word up on that. However simple individual views may be, finding a pathway to turning 2 million views into new and well designed laws is anything but simple.
But this is, as you say, a moment. National outflanking Labour on the liberal side on cannabis reform was not something I would have expected 2 years ago. But we were all staring down the barrel of another John Key term then, so it's pretty amazing how fast politics can change, at times. Since then the elected PM is junior to me and has carried a child to term, and had her maternity leave while had our first ever NZ First MP essentially in charge of the country. I'm pretty optimistic about what NZ can achieve at the moment and I think National under Bridges has realized that times, they are a-changing.
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Hard News: Reassure Me: cannabis,…, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Yes, the concept of there being any level of refinement in the taste of tobacco smoke is something I have to take people’s word for, but I would pretty strongly suspect that acclimatization is a very big part of it. But we digress – I think it’s true that cannabis would be easier to grow and usefully harvest than tobacco, and there would probably be an initial flurry of interest after legalization, until mass produced volumes undermined the return from growing your own for all but hobbyists. The plant would probably end up, like tobacco, growing everywhere as a weed, but preferences would lock in on particular cultivars. It would soon stop being cool when it was neither uncommon nor rebellious to have, and the mucking around with a garden would end up being something old people like me would bore people talking about. Probably it would be next to the sage and rosemary in the gardens of old ladies with rheumatism, or in huge plantations.
ETA: It's quite likely, IMHO, that smoking it at all would end up being far less common, at which point the whole thing of drying it out would fall by the wayside. For pain it would probably be eaten, and for recreation, vaporized. Both are much healthier than inhaling hot smoke.
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You dry it out and shred it, or roll it into cigars.
But yes, as with most tastes, people probably lock into favourites and would sorely miss all the yummy additives that are in commercial tobacco.