My country has no portfolio

My new hobby, for those with an interest, is buying gold bullion. A healthy hobby, in that one never totally loses all the money one spends on it, and stands to make a small sum too. Always wanted to own bullion ever since i was told as a kid that one wasn't allowed to buy it. Not the best time to be jumping into the market either, but fun none the less.

Accordingly, daily gold prices have been added to the links at the side of the page, taking this blog in ever more random directions...

Had a quick look at 'Frank'for the first time in awhile, and it seems like they've got many of their initial bugs ironed out and are doing some useful work. Glad to see that the section on quitting cigarettes notes that doing so will help with quitting cannabis smoking too.

One of the forgotten elements of prohibition seems to be that many people get hooked on tobacco through smoking it with cannabis, and think they crave a spliff when in actual fact they're craving the tobacco in it. Health education under a legalised system could cover this more effectively and 'promote' forms of non-tobacco smoking for those that smoke cannabis, but it's a start.

Also odd that the results of their drug survey don't seem to have been published in any detail at all. Didn't see what the questions were at the time, but doubt the results can have been what they were looking for...

Many people have contacted me to start writing regularly for this blog again, the last of whom was Jade, and given that she's recently been skanked on a chris morris video, i point her, and all, across to the best chris morris site i know...

and i hope to post soon...

This story amused as much as it disturbed me. I have often noticed the UV light toilets all across the Bristol - London line and thought them a rather foolish idea. As whilst heroin addicts should of course be discouraged from sticking needles in themselves in toilets, the UV light solution just moves them on, and doesn't deal with their problems in any meaningful way whatever. Yet another example of the NIMBYism of the drug war.

So now it seems addicts are marking their veins with UV pens before going into the toilets, and thus their veins are showing up brighter than ever. The most ridiculous part of all this is that it's exactly what happened when tried elsewhere in europe.

You couldn't make it up...

Emerging blurry eyed and hungover from a most wonderful valentines day, the most excellent news arrives in my inbox. The Wildhearts will be being supported by Therapy? on their forthcoming UK tour. Oh my god, could it get any better? Two of my all time favourite bands together on one bill. On a friday night. Nurse, the screens...

and how better to mark such a day than with, erm, a map of places i've been to in the UK. On one level it's just more pointless blog filler, on another it says a surprising amount about me i feel...

I've visited the counties in yellow. Which counties have you visited? made by marnanel map reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data by permission of the Ordnance Survey. © Crown copyright 2001.

No time to post, but have ben terribly lax in not announcing the blog based existence of a good friend of mine. Ladies UNT gentlemen, Mr Tom Paul...

Funny things blogs, they need regular feeding and watering to stay healthy and happy. In the beginning, the lib dem bloggers were few and far between, and now there are myriad lib dem bloggers, which is a happy thing indeed.

I used to be able to introduce newcomers individually, but the hordes have overcome me, and so here’s a list of the 'newbies' (some hardly new, but that's the scale of catch up i'm playing), duly linked to your right.

Votenemo
MKNE
Francesca Montemaggi
Martyn Hencher
Alex Folkes
Gareth Epps
Duncan Borrowman
James Blanchard
Chris Black
Nick Barlow


And given my recent poor showing in the geek test, here are a few bands you really need to hear before you die.

Little T and One Track Mike were friends of mine at uni in New Jersey, and have gone on to fairly great things since. I’m also track 1 of their second album, but since it never got a commercial release, hardly anyone will ever hear it. Unless you all hit their bulletin boards and demand that the track receive a commercial release. Check out the site anyway, the artworks and animations are pure Little T (Tim Sullivan by birth) and he’s a pretty froody artist at the best of times.

Second, if you haven’t heard of the wildhearts, then there really is a gap in your life that needs filling. They’ve been around for yonks now, occasionally hitting the big time, before being dragged down by drink/drug/shitty label problems again. The lead singer of the fucking darkness guests on their latest album, and they’re supporting them on the forthcoming euro tour. Should be the other way round, but that’s the world of flower sniffin’, baby kissin’, corporate rock whores for you.

Antiproduct are also worthwhile, another wildhearts linked band, like 3 colours red, the yo yo’s, plan b, clam abuse, and the like. I roadied for them a bit, but stopped after ‘differences of opinion’. Word on the street is that the wildhearts have now fallen out with the lead singer too, seems everyone does. Interesting times, but glad I made the career change…

took the geek test as jade did, and it seems, despite my mohicaned history and baggy clothes, i'm actually a geek.

You are 54% geek

You are a geek. Good for you! Considering the endless complexity of the universe, as well as whatever discipline you happen to be most interested in, you'll never be bored as long as you have a good book store, a net connection, and thousands of dollars worth of expensive equipment. Assuming you're a technical geek, you'll be able to afford it, too. If you're not a technical geek, you're geek enough to mate with a technical geek and thereby get the needed dough. Dating tip: Don't date a geek of the same persuasion as you. You'll constantly try to out-geek the other.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

ho hum...

here's another couple for ya.

First, some local drug worker has been interviewed by a local paper about local matters. She thinks moving cannabis to class c will cause more hard drug addicts because 'they start on cannabis'. Not got the time to lower myself into that demonstrable nonsense and all it implies, but the saddest part of what "Mandy Stevens, who as resettlement manager, works with recovering drug addicts at Yeldall Manor near Maidenhead" said is;

"Because so many people won't be arrested (for cannabis), we may lose the opportunity of putting intervention programmes in place".

So people can only be treated for a health problem, as an addiction is, by arresting them? What? What about groups set up to help people quit smoking? What about alcoholics anonymous? Are these not intervention programs? Do people need to be arrested to get onto them and for them to work? No they do not. What a fool. It's a sick government and a nanny state that sends its public health messages through the criminal law.

second, seems melanie phillips was truly, objectively dreadful on a radio drugs debate the other day, and her comments have inspired a flood of activists to her semi blog. Highly amusing, since she keeps deleting their links to evidence, and they keep on putting them back up there. Still, don't confuse her with facts i guess...

well, still not much time to blog when real life gets in the way, but a quick precis of cannabis stories might be of use i guess.

First there's the coroner who found 'the first EVER death from cannabis toxicity'. A lot of his more fundamental errors have yet to be fully and publicly demonstrated, and i shall leave those who are working on such things to disprove that one. But interesting he's had to put a faq up about the death, and the immediately staring errors in the report he's put up. such as...

"The samples showed a high concentration of Carboxy-THC, consistent with heavy cannabis usage. There were also traces of cannabidiol, indicating that cannabis and/or cannabis resin was used within a few hours of death."

to which the response clearly is -

high levels are far more often common with prolonged cannabis usage, which does not necessarily still linger as an effect discernable by conventional aptitude testing. cannabis residues linger in the blood stream for up to 60 days in cases of heavy usage. their presence does not indicate effects or impairment of the drug however. Cannabidiol is certainly a variant of cannabinoid that is more commonly associated with hasish, but is present in all froms of cannabis (THC is not by a long way the only active ingredient, which is an element of the 'skunk does not exist' paper i have that i must post up here someday). Cannabidiol lingers just as long as THC, and is no indication of recent usage by a long way.

a couple of other stories worth mentioning. Too late in the day/early in the moring to reference them properly, thus one link is to uk420.

a pastor is apparently to challenge the police to arrest cannabis users. His arguments are simple and some of the least convincing and more flawed of the prohibition lobby, but whilst i thougt there would be test cases aginst the government's continued restrictions on cannabis, i never thought there would be test cases arguing for a retraction of the law. Tkaes all sorts i guess. Fool.

and finally, Chris Davies MEP is one of the few lib dems to stick his head above the parapet on the cannabis news. Real pity it's just him, but his support for Colin Davies (no relation) was superlative, and good to see he's carrying the debate on...

Can it be any coincedence dear reader, that the weather gets colder and more dangerous on the day cannabis is reclassified. The gods are displeased, i tells ya...

Pleasing to see a more balanced articles on cannabis today thoughOne featuring the government advisor Sir Michael Rawlins, who notes that the claims of schitzophrenia links are not new and not as strong as many have been making out over the last few weeks. He also questions the carcinogenicity of cannabis is less clear cut that it has been presented, and that the 'new super potent skunk weed' is an unproveable myth too.

As he says "The police, whom one relies on for this sort of data, say that actually it is so variable you just can't tell."

Hello

Just to let you know i haven't forgotten you. Been manic round here again. As real politics takes off, blogging politics suffers accordingly. Can't talk about anything related to my job obviously, im taking the 'politically restricted' part of it very seriously indeed, but all is very interesting, and hopefully worthy.

Just a quick update on cannabis i guess. As i type, the UK is an hour and a half away from total destruction, as the change in the law unleashes wave upon wave of new mindless cannabis addicts, all days away from moving on to inter ocular heroin injection. So perhaps this will be the last thing i ever type. I guess the emergency services will be totally snowed under, more cannabis fatalities will be found (correspondence i've seen with the coroner who made that pronouncement is making him look as shaky as i would have expected so far - more soon i hope) and house prices will plummet.

Or, of course, you could see the daily mail for what it is and laugh at its drug induced misconceptions.

Pleasing as well that even after a few weeks of hardcore media campaign about the dangers of cannabis, for the first time i can remember, a majority has come out in favour of decriminalisation or legalisation. A very slim majority admittedly, but just imagine what could have happened if those with the facts had had as much coverage as the those with the lies.

Happy Jan 29th everyone, wonder if it'll become the British April the 20th?

9 days til reclassification of cannabis, and the anti lobby have finally gone that extra mile no-one ever thought they would dare to, they've claimed that Britain's first death from 'cannabis toxicity' has occured. Not only should the timing of this 'first death' make one very suspicious, the story is utter, utter, utter bollocks.

It is technically impossible to overdose on cannabis. Overdose potential is measured in 'LD50', a ratio of the quantity of a drug needed to feel its effects against the quantity needed to cause death. Alchohol has something like 1:8, cannabis has 1:40,000. You would need to remove all the blood from your body and replace it with hash oil to die from cannabis toxicity, and the loss of blood would kill you first anyway.

All the warning signs are there in this story, "cannabis stronger today than it was in the 60's" (not true) and a quote from David Davis.

Bet the retraction of this story won't be anywhere near as well publicised. The prohibitionists have run insane...

So the Tories aren't opposed to tuition fees really, and have just borrowed a mutant version of our policy for the sake of political capital until next weeks vote has passed. Despicable.

and in other news, 6 police forces have announced they don't intend to apply the changes in the cannabis laws when they come into effect on the 29th. Whether you agree with the changes or not, is no one else amazed that the police refuse to do the government's bidding?

Finally as i write, the today program is reporting a study that has 'found' that the Taliban were excellent at destroying opium production in afghanistan, and that production has shot up again now they've gone. Didn't need research to find that, it's been common knowledge for ages, but with drugs in the news at the moment, every academic is rushing to get their exposure and resultant boosted funding i guess.

I can't wait for all those who called the taliban regime 'despicable', 'terrorist' and the like (as indeed i do) to start singing the praises of their approach to drugs.

seems blogspeak has gone down. Feel sorry for the guy who runs it, seems he gets more hassle than it's worth at times.