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  1. As I mentioned earlier, I do not think that a punishment scheme will help to resolve the issue. The justification of hard vs soft drugs (and associated punishment) is more of a distraction than anything else in my mind. It should be treated as any other public health issue and legislature should reflect that. Withdrawal symptoms or anything related to that only provides the illusion of objectivity. This only provides law makers with the possibility to take a hard stance against X, without actually resolving the issue itself. These are indeed withdrawal symptoms and as you mentioned are transient and the inconvenience is fairly minor. Nonetheless, they can be traced and are considered clinically relevant. IIRC these tests (while quite often in use already) tend to give out false positives. Though to be fair, roadside alcohol tests are not that accurate, either.
    1 point
  2. Perhaps it helps to recognize that these terms mean different things in different contexts and as John pointed out, the one used here is mostly a legal-political distinction. If you look into scientific literature you will find that these distinction are also blurry there. For example, in some studies "hardness" is defined as likelihood of addiction, in which case nicotine, and alcohol would rank among the hard drugs and LSD and ecstasy among the soft drugs. Often, you won't even find a definition, rather the direct use of the legal terms. If you want to add cheeseburgers to the mix, you'd have to show me the type and amount of involved psychoactive substances. The point however, is that it is not a good way to decide on legalization, especially as the legal definitions are often vague and based on historic reasons (e.g. classifying drugs associated with certain ethnicity as hard, whereas categorizing more familiar ones as soft). To OP: the fact that criminalizing drugs has not help to curb their abuse and puts users into legal jeopardy on top of health issues does seem to indicate that legal actions are useless to address this issue. Revamping drug abuse as health problem is more likely to save lives by the fact that drug users can actually try to get help without facing the risk of legal challenge, for example.
    1 point
  3. I think the issue in your reasoning (or at least the way you convey your reasoning) is that you keep elaborating on a singular element out of several contributing factors. While you acknowledge it yourself, you then revert focus to the singular element again. From a broader viewpoint the question you would have ask yourself is what the relative contribution of these elements (including women's right, access to family planning, access to food and housing, socio-economic development, religion etc.). What you keep pulling out is that religion explains the high birth right in a number of Muslim countries, then when confronted with deviation, you handwave it away due to "other factors" and thereby ignore that these other factors may actually play the bigger role. It is pretty much acknowledged that in many (typically patriarchal) religions, reproductive rights of women are restricted. Likewise, there is an overlap with conservative world views, who tend also to be more religious. As such it does not come as a surprise that e.g. devout Catholics and Muslims have higher birth rates on average. Yet, it clearly is not the major driver as, again, if it was, the other factors (such as socio-economic development) should have less or no effect on birth rates in Muslim countries. Yet in a number of countries social policies had a massive effect in a short amount of time, while religiosity did not change appreciatively. Also, I just realized that I should not waste my time in repeating arguments and actually get some work done.
    1 point
  4. Is that a portable treadmill, a mobile bicycle one, a 6hp electric or a foot powered treadmill?
    1 point
  5. Years ago my employer purchased a new crane truck for me to operate; it was equipped with the customary duel air horns on top of the cab above the driver’s seat. A cord in the cab was connected to some linkage that passed through a rubber seal in the roof to where it then connected to a valve assembly on the air horns. On what may have been the first or second day of driving it; I was pulling out onto a street near an intersection just as the traffic light changed to red for the direction I was intending to go (right turn). There was about two car lengths of empty traffic lane extending from the driveway where I was waiting, to the stop line at the intersection. There was only one car that was immediately approaching from the left, but a block or so down the way was what looked like an endless string of cars. I anxiously waited for the young woman driving that first car to drive past me so I could pull in behind her before all those other cars came. (This town is known for how the cars and the traffic lights seem timed to conspire against you. And if someone would take up the left turn lane at the light I would not be able to make the turn into the street because the truck is so long, it was go now or wait much later in this regard) The young woman, who looked to be in her early twenties, stopped an entire car length short of the intersection, just past the front of my truck, so close I could not even put my bumper into the street. I put my hand in the center of the steering wheel where a padded horn button was located and lightly pressed down . . . nothing happened!, the smaller “car” like horn, that my previous trucks had been equipped with, was either malfunctioning or deleted by this manufacturer. As I looked back down the street at those fast approaching cars I reached for the air horn, I had only used the air horn in this truck once but I knew from using the ones on my old trucks that all I had to do was just barely pull the cord to let a little bit of air into the horns to make a small little squeak so as to get the young woman’s attention. Well, the air pushed open the valve and let out a blast so loud it caused the poor girl to jump in her seat as she quickly hit the gas to get out of the way. Worst yet, the horn would not shut off, I let the cord go completely slack at the first squawk but the valve stayed open, and as I pulled in behind her car I continued to try to release the valve only to make it louder!!! By now, she was sitting at the light pleading through her rear view mirror to the deranged psycho truck driver not to kill her. I could only continue to frantically yank on the cord while cussing at it in the most colorful display of language and what probably appeared to her as the angry shaking of my raised left fist. The light finally changed and we preceded slowly ahead, the horn shrieking its monotone death wail, and her, now turning her upper body to directly plead for her life between her car’s headrests while I continued my assault on the horn cord. We traversed in front of a gas station with probably a dozen people standing motionless as the spectacle slowly passed and then stopped behind the cars waiting for the next signal to change. By this time the young lady was so terrified I’m sure she thought about abandoning her car and making a break for safety. But the traffic began to move again and we continued on with her pleading for her life and me yelling and shaking my fist. When I finally reached the next intersection I couldn’t take her terrified gaze and the angry stares of the bystanders anymore and made a left turn against the signal to get to a large parking lot where I could finally disarm this WMD.
    1 point
  6. That only applies to Eu countries that are members of the Schengen Area.
    1 point
  7. I wouldn't bet on that. In my (very limited) experience, if you wanted to get on or off the ship, you needed a passport. What would another document achieve?
    1 point
  8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rubber Do you feel the following materials can have a paint color coated to the Rubber material which should last for a long time ? i.e Blue, Red, Green, Yellow, Orange etc 1. Conveyor Belt. 2 Rubber tires in a Vehicle - Two/Three/Four wheeler. 3 Escalator. 4 Treadmill Thanks & Regards, Prashant S Akerkar
    -1 points
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