For the majority of people when they hear the term drugs they are more in mind of those substances which alter consciousness and states of mind, and of course which may or may not be hallucinogenic, make us feel good, love our fellow species members, make us look better, question the bollocks we're fed on a daily basis and realise the nonsense of contemporary power structures and paradigms; and are subsequently banned, excoriated and war'd on.
In our modern society drugs are taken by the majority of people, in one form or another, at some stage or another, for things that are now so routine we forget that only 50 years ago, without them would either mean a certain death or being the recipient of severe life-shortening disability. We’re including vaccinations in that pantheon too, as vaccines are also drugs.
Drugs have had a bit of a mixed audience over the centuries, suffering ups and downs along the way. A way to keep the less fortunate sophomoric and their better offs giddy with delight. But who can forget wandering along the Thames river in the Victorian era and popping into an apothecary to get a vial of cocaine to help with that pesky cold?
Since Jenner and his smallpox vaccinations there have been problems with drugs along the way. With Governments (USA) doing experiments on their third class citizens with STDs, or governments (USSR/Russia) being early proponents of gender swapping, as long as it only (okay mainly) involved sports women! Of course it’s understandable why people would prefer not to have their children vaccinated in the hope of saving them from one of the many dreadful side-effects that may impact them, or saving them from deliberately introduced side effects just to see what impacts there might be. But apart from the few highly reported incidences regarding adulterated vaccines, the improvement in global improved life-span, over only a few decades, hasn’t just being down to improvements in food, nutrition, and improved water supplies, all of which played a huge part, but mainly the ability of medicine to bring to heel once terminal illnesses and diseases.
Getting through the blah blah on the war on drugs in the USA, we quickly realise that it’s not really a war on the perceived horrors that impact poorer sections of communities, but a war on many other fronts to ensure that power remains in the hands of those who believe they know better! A Nixon aide famously said that the reason for the war on drugs was basically to divide and conquer, with a healthy dose of racism thrown into the mix. Three of his colleagues have poured scorn on the whole idea, but as jailed prisoners are unable to vote, what better way of killing many stones with the one policy. That was before gerrymandering really took off, which makes imprisoning an unnecessary throwback to a more barbaric time. Make black people and hippies who consume marijuana appear to be the bogeyman of all that’s right and just, and those who support them being just as bad. So why not help such perceptions along by ensuring gang wars, supplies can get through, and the media reporting like the good boy’s that they are. Once people have a conviction for drug possession they become forever a felon. Felons are not allowed to vote. So the war on drugs disproportionately affects black men, many end up in prison as part of the money making venture that is the prison industrial complex of a privatised prison system. Then when they get out they are not allowed to vote. Which helps with gerrymandering, especially as they would only vote democrat anyhow.
In the 1930’s the drug war was against mexicans, Will Randolph Hurst was a politician, owned a lot of newspapers and also a lot of paper producing companies. The target was the evil hemp, “reefer madness” 1936, with white women being seduced by reefer smoking black jazz musicians. As that was so successful a similar war on drugs was enacted a few decades later, using crack as the weapon of choice for Ronald Reagan, ans targeting the black community because white people tended to do powder cocaine. Before reefer madness there was a campaign against opium because the Chinese were smoking it!
Of course in about 1900 you could legally buy cocaine, morphine, cannabis. Queen Victoria used cannabis for period pains.
Why do we care here in the UK? Well ever since the master and servant roll was reversed, the UK has slavishly followed whatever US policy they can get away with implementing.
Over the years, the US policy has helped limit and hold back research into the use of LSD or molly MDMA for sufferers of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Ergo, a lovely catch 22. No research, no proof that it works. So cannot (legally) be used for treatment. Even internationally, politicians prefer people (poor) to die of cancer in Africa and India, than for them to get morphine to relieve their pain.
Hypocrisy much? As society guzzles vast tankers of alcohol with terrible damage to individuals, and a community cost of pub fights hospital bills, prison, it is rarely viewed as a drug that shouls be banned, as it brings lots of money in to the chancellery, and those with power do enjoy the off tiple. Whilst prescribed opiods have more people becoming hooked on them, and deaths from their use increasing. But, have one person (out of millions that week) unfortunately die, who popped a pill to enjoy themselves and it’ll be plastered across the headtops for weeks to come.
Showing posts with label by P&D. Show all posts
Showing posts with label by P&D. Show all posts
Monday, 16 September 2019
Monday, 2 September 2019
Rocking it like Methuselah
There is an increasing amount of research being published relating to the possibility of extending life by tinkering with the inner workings of genes. Soon the question may well be when can you take the age adding serum, rather than if; as societies will start to experience citizens leading longer, healthier, happier, and more fulfilled lives!
However, not to be outdone, rightwing think-tanks are working to swing the pendulum back on life expectancy, by flexing their ideological control over governments and swathes of societies across the globe - their snake-tongues finding fertile ground. Whether it’s the burning of the rainforests, selling arms to rival groups, or whittling away the remaining safety nets leaving nothing but bare concreted ground. They will have a solution to your problem which will decimate those with the least in your society. But that stark eventuality is at least a generation or two removed from coming back to bite anyone implementing the measures, so really, where’s the harm?!
One such think tank has already instigated the disaster which is Universal Credit in the UK. The very same organisation, with chief snake Ian Duncan-Smith, has recently being blowing in the wind their latest wonderful idea of increasing the retirement age from 68 years to those reaching their 75th birthday. With every increase in the average lifespan, such bodies will always exist trying to ensure that people (the undeserving poor, the disabled, the workshy, the skivers, the menials, the unwilling, the lazy, the febrile, the mentally unwell, and the IQ challenged) will work for as much of that time as possible. That, after all, is simply their lot in life.
People are, rightly, grumbling a bit. But that is only a seven year increase, with a possible working life range of 59 - 66 years - for those lucky enough to be in fully paid/perked/benefitted employment, or successful self-employment, or atop black market income stream verticals. If you think retiring when you are 75 might put a spanner in your idyll of a happy pension everafter, just imagine being alive centuries from now, when the retirement age has (after consultation) been raised to 540, only to find that on your 539th birthday a new legislative directive has been automatically implemented raising the retirement age by another 50 years. So your retirement party and presentation of a golden teapot, for 500 years good service, has been postponed until you reach the tender age of 590! On a positive note, after 570 years of working imagine the size of that pension pot, which will just be enough to buy a broom cupboard on the empires farthest off-world outpost.
All of the above currently sounds nothing but far-fetched grandiose nonsense, but if the species doesn't kill itself, or significantly regress its ability to build on incremental medical and technological advances being made, we can only imagine how things will look in 500 years time. The first recorded use of a firearm was under 700 years ago in 1364. First passenger jet airliner entered service in 1952, mobile phones in 1973. Ultrasound guided nerve blocks (pain blockers for us lays) for anaesthesiology in 1978. Will be a remnant homosapien rump scratching out an existence amongst the wreckage of its fall, or will it rise beyond the always-on-display-of-itinerant-pettiness, towards a future only restricted by its ability to imagine.
In the life extension experiment simply blocking the expression of one gene increased the lifespan of a test subject (a nematode, is still a test subject) by up to 25 percent. If a similar extension could be enabled in humans, then potential life expectancy could be pushed up to 143 - for those already lucky enough to be living towards the top end of human life expectancy. For those on the other end however, it would at the very least provide an extra few months of existence, regardless of how grubby and miserable that existence is. How many years of endless grind would society deem acceptable? Or would another enlightenment take place and consign such ideas to the periods of barbarism.
Okay 550 years is hardly a dent on Methuselah’s fictional lifespan. But if you had to work over 500 years of your life, just what would that look like? Surely you wouldn’t be working for the same company, that would be tragic! But then again, if the company rotated roles, offered stock options and flexible possibilities, became more dynamic, and less static, was 100% open and transparent, why not? Apart from seeing the same 50 people, over and over and over and over and over and over again!
However, not to be outdone, rightwing think-tanks are working to swing the pendulum back on life expectancy, by flexing their ideological control over governments and swathes of societies across the globe - their snake-tongues finding fertile ground. Whether it’s the burning of the rainforests, selling arms to rival groups, or whittling away the remaining safety nets leaving nothing but bare concreted ground. They will have a solution to your problem which will decimate those with the least in your society. But that stark eventuality is at least a generation or two removed from coming back to bite anyone implementing the measures, so really, where’s the harm?!
One such think tank has already instigated the disaster which is Universal Credit in the UK. The very same organisation, with chief snake Ian Duncan-Smith, has recently being blowing in the wind their latest wonderful idea of increasing the retirement age from 68 years to those reaching their 75th birthday. With every increase in the average lifespan, such bodies will always exist trying to ensure that people (the undeserving poor, the disabled, the workshy, the skivers, the menials, the unwilling, the lazy, the febrile, the mentally unwell, and the IQ challenged) will work for as much of that time as possible. That, after all, is simply their lot in life.
People are, rightly, grumbling a bit. But that is only a seven year increase, with a possible working life range of 59 - 66 years - for those lucky enough to be in fully paid/perked/benefitted employment, or successful self-employment, or atop black market income stream verticals. If you think retiring when you are 75 might put a spanner in your idyll of a happy pension everafter, just imagine being alive centuries from now, when the retirement age has (after consultation) been raised to 540, only to find that on your 539th birthday a new legislative directive has been automatically implemented raising the retirement age by another 50 years. So your retirement party and presentation of a golden teapot, for 500 years good service, has been postponed until you reach the tender age of 590! On a positive note, after 570 years of working imagine the size of that pension pot, which will just be enough to buy a broom cupboard on the empires farthest off-world outpost.
All of the above currently sounds nothing but far-fetched grandiose nonsense, but if the species doesn't kill itself, or significantly regress its ability to build on incremental medical and technological advances being made, we can only imagine how things will look in 500 years time. The first recorded use of a firearm was under 700 years ago in 1364. First passenger jet airliner entered service in 1952, mobile phones in 1973. Ultrasound guided nerve blocks (pain blockers for us lays) for anaesthesiology in 1978. Will be a remnant homosapien rump scratching out an existence amongst the wreckage of its fall, or will it rise beyond the always-on-display-of-itinerant-pettiness, towards a future only restricted by its ability to imagine.
In the life extension experiment simply blocking the expression of one gene increased the lifespan of a test subject (a nematode, is still a test subject) by up to 25 percent. If a similar extension could be enabled in humans, then potential life expectancy could be pushed up to 143 - for those already lucky enough to be living towards the top end of human life expectancy. For those on the other end however, it would at the very least provide an extra few months of existence, regardless of how grubby and miserable that existence is. How many years of endless grind would society deem acceptable? Or would another enlightenment take place and consign such ideas to the periods of barbarism.
Okay 550 years is hardly a dent on Methuselah’s fictional lifespan. But if you had to work over 500 years of your life, just what would that look like? Surely you wouldn’t be working for the same company, that would be tragic! But then again, if the company rotated roles, offered stock options and flexible possibilities, became more dynamic, and less static, was 100% open and transparent, why not? Apart from seeing the same 50 people, over and over and over and over and over and over again!
Friday, 30 August 2019
Happy 20- oh f'it
We are well past the midway point of 2019, and weather records across the globe are being broken like each lane in a bowling alley scoring record after record. With the Gulf Stream slowing, Greenland ice sheets and glaciers experiencing record melting, plus a slew of scientific data indicating that we’re more or less fucked. What are governments around the world effectively doing to alleviate the awaiting crisis of having many of their populace sploshing around halfway through the night?
So far, it seems not much. There’s a lot of PR and marketing guff doing the rounds, but when it comes to the nitty gritty day-to-day reduction in waste, inefficiency, switching from fossil fuels to renewables, a whole bucket of snails would beat these hares in a race, and that’s only if the race covered a 10 yard stretch.
There is an increasing awareness amongst the general populace that there is a growing issue taking place with the climate, simply from the increasing reports even on their favourite TV/cables nesshows, that the 500 year and 100 year occuring records now appear to being broken on a monthly basis.
Of course the Gammonistas take it as a matter of pride to ignore all these warnings. As we know, we don't need experts (Mr Gove), regarding anything we know nothing, or very little about. Naturally this is taken to extremes in america, rolling coal, with your breakfast quadruple burger? Helped of course by Trump and his minions taking great pride in rolling back environmental protections. With methane as one of the potent greenhouse gases, what better thing to do than relax the regulations regarding their emissions from oil & gas drilling, as that might save up to $19m a year. With methane approximately 30 times more potent a gas as carbon dioxide at trapping heat, show that you understand the calamity the species is heading towards, by pouring more fuel on the fire. Perhaps they are reptilian after all, and their evil plan is working towards warming the planet up, so they can increase the size of their clutch eggs.
Bolsanaro in Brazil carries on as a mini-me henchman, encouraging the burning of the Amazon rainforest. The Amazon, often called the vital lungs for the world. If burning your lungs weren’t bad enough, we find out that the Democatic Republic of the Congo, home to the largest Ebola epidemic and 38 private armies all battling each other, now has more fires than the Amazon basin. This is a country which is as big as Western Europe… Oh, and it also happens to have the biggest measles epidemic which has so far killed about 5 times as many kids as the Ebola epidemic has killed people. There appears to be no end in sight for any of these catastrophes, and the list only seems to be getting bigger. Any help from the west? Well, there are lots of tut tutting, action plans and promises. Which, as we all know, is the battle nearly won.
So far, it seems not much. There’s a lot of PR and marketing guff doing the rounds, but when it comes to the nitty gritty day-to-day reduction in waste, inefficiency, switching from fossil fuels to renewables, a whole bucket of snails would beat these hares in a race, and that’s only if the race covered a 10 yard stretch.
There is an increasing awareness amongst the general populace that there is a growing issue taking place with the climate, simply from the increasing reports even on their favourite TV/cables nesshows, that the 500 year and 100 year occuring records now appear to being broken on a monthly basis.
Of course the Gammonistas take it as a matter of pride to ignore all these warnings. As we know, we don't need experts (Mr Gove), regarding anything we know nothing, or very little about. Naturally this is taken to extremes in america, rolling coal, with your breakfast quadruple burger? Helped of course by Trump and his minions taking great pride in rolling back environmental protections. With methane as one of the potent greenhouse gases, what better thing to do than relax the regulations regarding their emissions from oil & gas drilling, as that might save up to $19m a year. With methane approximately 30 times more potent a gas as carbon dioxide at trapping heat, show that you understand the calamity the species is heading towards, by pouring more fuel on the fire. Perhaps they are reptilian after all, and their evil plan is working towards warming the planet up, so they can increase the size of their clutch eggs.
Bolsanaro in Brazil carries on as a mini-me henchman, encouraging the burning of the Amazon rainforest. The Amazon, often called the vital lungs for the world. If burning your lungs weren’t bad enough, we find out that the Democatic Republic of the Congo, home to the largest Ebola epidemic and 38 private armies all battling each other, now has more fires than the Amazon basin. This is a country which is as big as Western Europe… Oh, and it also happens to have the biggest measles epidemic which has so far killed about 5 times as many kids as the Ebola epidemic has killed people. There appears to be no end in sight for any of these catastrophes, and the list only seems to be getting bigger. Any help from the west? Well, there are lots of tut tutting, action plans and promises. Which, as we all know, is the battle nearly won.
Friday, 9 August 2019
In alternate reality 45823….
The Pots woke terrified and heavily sweating, and begins recalling his vivid dream. He was laying naked amongst a bunch of nukes; rubbing his parts over their very large, very big, smooth and metallic exteriors. He remembers being exultant hearing them “ooooo”, and “ahhhh”, calling out his name at his every touch and each of his gyrations -he’d never experienced that before- he was finally doing what he wanted, and getting to play with his nukes! In the next instant he is speeding with them to China, Russia, and North Korea, all at the same time. The next, he watches as billions of bodies ignite and burn to ash, before being ripped asunder by a ferocious gale. He shudders, still remembering, as the sweat drips from his third chin.
Hours after the latest nuclear summit between: North Korea, China, Russia and the USA, President Trump, normally referred to as Pots (President Of the Thin Skins), flushed the toilet after a 3am text dump. Headed down for his early morning briefing, and helped himself to the generously proportioned breakfast happy-meals.
“Oo, oo. When I was on my fifth happy meal at the Nuclear Summit, I heard President Kime say to President Vlade that he’d fix the whole ecological thing, real good.”
“Fix, Mr President?”
“Yep, fix. I liked the sound of that. Which is why I have my ecological big-boy pants on, ready for our next meeting.”
“I see Mr President.”
“Has Miss beautiful Peach Lady called?”
“Who, Sir?”
“The one with an even more voluptuous rear than me. The one going out with that singing butler. It’s surprising he’s still a butler, he talks as much sense as i do.”
“You mean Kanye, Sir?”
“Yes, my best friend Kimye.”
“And, Kim Kar-”
“Yes Kime two. She's very cool. All the best people are called Kime. What’s your name?”
“It's still Bruce, Sir.”
“Good.”
“Er, we were talking about the ecology Sir?”
“Yes, Kime the fourth, you’re right. We were. Now, what did he... Ah yes. President Kime said they’d be sending lots of things over, to help us out with our ecologicals, but that I shouldn’t worry. They’ll create the biggest and brightest shield; a really really big shield, full of the best little floating particles, that will blot out the sun for weeks...”
“Er, Sir?”
“And help bring down the temps. Ah. Kime the fourth, where are the temps on this briefcase? I can’t see them anywhere.”
Hours after the latest nuclear summit between: North Korea, China, Russia and the USA, President Trump, normally referred to as Pots (President Of the Thin Skins), flushed the toilet after a 3am text dump. Headed down for his early morning briefing, and helped himself to the generously proportioned breakfast happy-meals.
“Oo, oo. When I was on my fifth happy meal at the Nuclear Summit, I heard President Kime say to President Vlade that he’d fix the whole ecological thing, real good.”
“Fix, Mr President?”
“Yep, fix. I liked the sound of that. Which is why I have my ecological big-boy pants on, ready for our next meeting.”
“I see Mr President.”
“Has Miss beautiful Peach Lady called?”
“Who, Sir?”
“The one with an even more voluptuous rear than me. The one going out with that singing butler. It’s surprising he’s still a butler, he talks as much sense as i do.”
“You mean Kanye, Sir?”
“Yes, my best friend Kimye.”
“And, Kim Kar-”
“Yes Kime two. She's very cool. All the best people are called Kime. What’s your name?”
“It's still Bruce, Sir.”
“Good.”
“Er, we were talking about the ecology Sir?”
“Yes, Kime the fourth, you’re right. We were. Now, what did he... Ah yes. President Kime said they’d be sending lots of things over, to help us out with our ecologicals, but that I shouldn’t worry. They’ll create the biggest and brightest shield; a really really big shield, full of the best little floating particles, that will blot out the sun for weeks...”
“Er, Sir?”
“And help bring down the temps. Ah. Kime the fourth, where are the temps on this briefcase? I can’t see them anywhere.”
Wednesday, 7 August 2019
The ecologist
So here is a proposition, hear me out now, "Donald Trump is an ecologist!"
"What?" You shriek in horror.
Well he is determined to use nuclear weapons and he has been fascinated by them for years. Go on, Google it. I will wait. Ah fuck it, too slow, but take my word for it, that it predates his stay in the White House. After all, why have these powerful shiny and expensive things if you can’t use them? They appeal to his inner spiteful toddler.
The ecology part? Well if he starts a hot war with China, for instance, there will be barrages of icbms between China and the USA. This will kill a lot of people. Dead people don’t produce carbon emissions, well some briefly would as they rot. But they will not be driving around, nor using air conditioning. So that’s a plus for the planet. More importantly the nuclear explosions will send clouds of debris into the air and decrease solar warming. The "nuclear winter" benefit bonus. It’s what we used to worry about before other new fangled anxieties like global warming and genocide, rudely decided to intrude.
So there you have it. Donald Trump, the ecologist.
"What?" You shriek in horror.
Well he is determined to use nuclear weapons and he has been fascinated by them for years. Go on, Google it. I will wait. Ah fuck it, too slow, but take my word for it, that it predates his stay in the White House. After all, why have these powerful shiny and expensive things if you can’t use them? They appeal to his inner spiteful toddler.
The ecology part? Well if he starts a hot war with China, for instance, there will be barrages of icbms between China and the USA. This will kill a lot of people. Dead people don’t produce carbon emissions, well some briefly would as they rot. But they will not be driving around, nor using air conditioning. So that’s a plus for the planet. More importantly the nuclear explosions will send clouds of debris into the air and decrease solar warming. The "nuclear winter" benefit bonus. It’s what we used to worry about before other new fangled anxieties like global warming and genocide, rudely decided to intrude.
So there you have it. Donald Trump, the ecologist.
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