Endangered Species Traded Online

Petition to Protect Homo Magnanimous, specie in danger of extinction. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=109639505731340

Prison populations? A whole new and exciting topic. I am of the opinion that the way to battle the "drug problem" is the same way you battled the prohibition problem, legalize them all thereby removing the dark allure that attacts a certain type of people, removing the crimanal element which is what really makes the drug trade dangerous and opening up the addiction problem to medical help. I think it has been shown that every dollar spent on prevention is worth about 9 dollars spent in interdiction. And lets face it, most "illegal" drugs are no more harmful than alcohol and tobacco, both of which are huge money makers for the governments. Subject the now illegal drugs to the same type of controls and taxes, spend the revenue on education and prevention and empty your prisons to make room for real criminals. Of course driving, flying or being intoxicated at work would still be subject to the same penalties it is right now.

While I'm on my soap box how about legalizing prostitution and any of the other victimless crimes that are more moral judgments than legal ones?

Well if you are talking aboput prostitution there is the issue of conveying diseases, which was one of the primary concerns before antibiotics, and with antibiotic resistance and new viruses, should still be a concern. Prostitution has psychological implications to the women involved that can lead to direct adverse impacts on those people who are involved or depend on them, like children. Additionally, it is a high risk behavior that endagers the women involved, and potentially their families. It has strong ties to violence against those women involved, as a means of controlling them as a revenue source for others. It leads to higher incidence of pregnancy. So all of these issues would have to be moderated by the government to make it a safe working environment. As it stands now, however, over most of the world prostitution represents a form of sex slavery or very high risk endeavor for the women involved and is not a simple service, and has for centuries.

Drugs and their manufacture finance terrorism in many places, and sometimes the drug providers become terrorists as a means of control and protection of the production and supply. Also, if you have ever met anyone addicted to Meth you begin to understand the adverse uncontrollable influence the drug has on their lives and how it adversely impacts their mental/psychological processes. Since these people exist within our societies and have families, anything that impacts them also impacts these other people surrounding them in degrees based on proximate relationship. Violation of other laws prohibiting things like theft and murder come to be less comprehensible to meth and many opiate addicts, and they end up becoming relatively non-productive, non-functional adverse impacts on other people presenting a higher danger to society then when they are not addicted.

For the most part however, besides a few biologists who espouse a need for infinite funding to study and preserve whichever species they have tied themselves to, in violation of evolutionary theory (thus funding their own lifestyles without having to seek employment in a more valuable field as measured in benefits to humanity), most of humanity gains by having direct experience and knowledge of the other species, rather than hearing about it from highly biased ecologists who create more fiction than science to sell their views (and thereby receive grants or funding). The mammoth disappeared recently, and it has had no notable impact on the progress of humanity. Besides, we can not correlate the extinction of any single species solely on humanity since we are one of the species on the planet and represent evolutionary forces just like any other, driving adaptation or extinction amongst other species we encounter to advance the species we encounter or in accordance with evolution drive those unsuited to survive in an ever changing world to extinction. Preservation is something perceived solely, like that commercial by the mountain climbing business guy who talks of making aluminum wedges instead of the old steel to preserve rocks, in the observers personal benefit, it is a personal need to keep things the way they were (or actually the way they were perceived later to have been, biased memories and recollections of the past). conservation is reasonable and reckless destruction without some understanding of consequences is unreasonable, but preservation is even more unreasonable because it comes at the cost of the advancement of humanity. Humanity can not adavnce and thus survive if we fight against evolution to control everything else and maintain the status quo.

Your first paragraph is just too paternalistic for this day and age. Women are big girls now and quite capable of taking care of their own health and business without big brother looking out for them. Note that I was referring to willing participants not slaves in my earlier posts. My contacts with the industry have been mostly with people paying their way through university or with people who for one reason or another did not have the advantage of higher education to qualify for such high paying jobs. They either ran their business alone or with a group of friends. All the problems you perceive exist only because the industry is illegal. Several countries and at least one state have legalized the trade without all the doom and gloom scenerios coming to be. In fact I think you will find countries where prostitution is legal have lower rape rates. (Speaking of damage to women)

The same is true for your arguments about drug selling and production. You don't see pharmacists gunning each other down to control the Viagra trade in their district. If you don't like the foreign drug suppliers make it domestically, don't we need more jobs here? Again the Chilian apricot farmers are not killing each other to assure they get to supply us with fresh apricots.

Then on the original topic, if you don't think we should cutback or cut out the trade in endangered species you are entitled to that opinion. So then there is no need for CITES, border inspections or any other control mechanism. I find it funny though why you espouse non-interference in this matter but complete control in the first two areas.

Yes Nevada as an example has legalized prostitution and has a ton of laws built around enforcement of health standards and business practices to conduct a legal prostituion business, versus illegal prostitution which is still by far the dominant form in Nevada even. Making an argument for any criminal activity on the basis of your perception of the activity as you have partaken in a limited number of these activities is highly biased and likely not to be very representative of any activity that has any frequency of occurrence. Your example of prostitution in comparison to education should tell you something even in your own mind about the conditions, considering that prostitues earn at a higher rate than most people with a bachelors degree at the age of say 25. So even you must realize there is something there, as the money and earning potential is much hirer, to create the desire to be in some other field of work even when they will earn far less money and work more hours.

As far as drugs go and apricots, I think anyone over a 80 IQ who observes the behaviors of the users of those items and the behavior of those using heroine or meth could identify the obvious difference that drives demands. meth and heroine get a response more in line with food in general then just one type of specialty fruit. So conside to what lengths people who can not afford food would go for an apricot. In addition, if the market demand for apricots is there, like it is for food in general people do go to great lengths and levels of violence to control the production and distribution of food, consider places like the Sudan or Central Africa. Heroine Addiction and Meth Addiction create that drive like starvation in people and the altered consciousness doesn't help their decisionmaking. You create a market where people all along the process try to gain control, much like they do in Africa even with donated food stuffs. Thus you need controls and laws in place, and then more law enforcement to implement the huge number of laws to control trade practices, business activities and public health impacts. In addition drug addiction impacts productivity effecting the entire society and is a major contributor in increasing health risks. Also, if you consider it in the perspective of major food stuffs as a comparitor you can, if rational, see the impact it would cause to a country and those farmer in chile if a major market like the US stopped importation, and how it could impact the market also if the supply was cut short. Apricots are on negligible impact, and represent very little revenue, cocaine for instance represents a huge source of revenue in Bolivia and Columbia, way out competing any other revenue sources in the places they are grown (to the point the US has to prop up the friendly governments from over throw by rebels/terrorists supported by these drug funds). Making strongly addictive drugs legal would not drive the market value down as the demand would increase with the reduced risk in usage. Note that this would not include Marijauna as it does not present these same issues you have with opiates and methamphetamines. Though it should at least fall under the protective regulations incurred on tobacco smoking, as it presents many of the same health risks from tar exposure and such.

In the US, we spend huge amounts of money attempting to stop illegal drugs using interdiction,eradication,prosecution & encarceration & not rehabilitating anyone after the fact & we have failed miserably. We have spent huge amounts of money making this problem worse & our government is still attempting to proceed in the same manner. Freud would call this crazy, trying to solve a problem in the same manner that failed before. When half of the citizens are behind security gates or protected by alarms/weapons & the other half cannot be employable because of a drug conviction like marihuana will we finally decide to change the manner that this so called drug war is conducted. When the hundred year anniversary is celebrated maybe then we will be able to look back & find the solution to this drug problem in education & rehabilitation, out of the control of the police state who only abuse everyone they touch. Imagine where the trillions of dollars could have been better spent & the really great nation that this money could have produced,but no let us waste lives & destroy the economy first. As we borrow 3 billion dollars a day to promote our way of life on earth, the day will fast arrive when we will be forced to face this problem in a constructive manner & maybe the world will follow us & of course we will say we were right all the time. Gotta love this homeland for better or worse.

gwaynehild

Just a friendly suggestion: Why don't you start a thread here on CR4 concerning these matters. I just don't have the time but would participate in a modest way. Nothing much to do with engineering but relevant for many. Maybe under education. If there is space for animal science..............................

Have a great day, Ky.

Wow two halves make a whole. So what you said was the entire US population is either unemployed or in prison. Our GNP must be worse then Sudan. Oh wait... maybe what you mean is half are working but have to stay behind security gates and armed to defend themselves against the other half that are smoking marijuana and are incarcerated. Though i find this hard to believe, since marijuana doesn't usually make people particularly violent or degrade their rational thought processes to the point where they commit violent acts out of drug driven needs, unlike heroine or methamphetamines. Though if this was true, it would be more productive to get the unemployable half separated securely from the armed half so they can work. The fact that employers don't want to hire people convicted of marijuana use is on the employers and convictions don't impact that necessarily, employers choice. The employers test for marijauna use and could continue to test for drug use, even if we changed it to a misdemeanor, and they could still refuse to employ people on the basis of that use if they so desired. Some employer dont really care, general construction is an example, and they hire such. On the other hand, chemical or environmental engineers working with hazardous materials or waste tend to get tested for most everything once a year (at least, depending on exposures), and will be fired for use on the job (though any use would likely lead to some reason to terminate).

BTW education and rehabilitation can not be mandated, drug addicts do not learn or change until they have some epiphany that drives them to want that knowledge and change. So wasting money educating and rehabilitating is just as unproductive, unless you can do something to shake them up and force them to desire to change their condition. You can not force someone to change their behavior or learn, unless they are motivated to do such. Plus as an employer maybe it is a good sign that someone can not make good decisions enough to get themselves convicted of felony use of marijauna, you would have to be a pretty heavy user (read dealer) to get sent to prison for most any drug offense. The few people i know who got sent to prison dramatically changed their behaviors on release, because they did not want to risk going back. While the many other users i know, who do not deal to support their habit, continue to let the use degrade their lives, are not as productive as they might be, and just happy to get home to their habit. No one can convince them to change, and since they don't get arrested all the time, they aren't motivated to change, with one exception a few i have known as they have gotten older have responded to the threat of impending death when they have had organ failures or near death incidents that the doctors inform them are related to heavy long term chronic abuse of drugs (you know much like smokers when they really discovered smoking was going to kill them).

"BTW education and rehabilitation can not be mandated, drug addicts do not learn or change until they have some epiphany that drives them to want that knowledge and change. So wasting money educating and rehabilitating is just as unproductive, "

The education comes BEFORE the addiction. Its the old "an ounce of prevention" thingie.

Even before the addiction, they just do not listen until they have some experience that is directly relevant to them that causes some realization and desire to learn. Most addicts don't start off as addicts, and most people think that learning about drug addiction and drugs is irrelevant to them and a waste of time, even as children. No one thinks they will become a drug addict, even many well past the point of addiction don't believe they are. Education is like giving some one a prescription for antibiotics, when they do not believe they have a problem or need the antibiotics, they won't listen, likely forget about the prescription the moment they leave and likely won't use it (unless they have some underlieng experience that informs them they should take it seriously). The best way to get people to listen is to have some consequences that they understand could realistically impact them.

Oh come on now. If your reasoning were true would not every person become a drug, alcohol and nicotine addict? And only after becoming addicted would they reform. I don't think the statistics back you up but I can't search for any right now. Isn't the rate of young people who start to smoke dropping in countries with vigorous anti-tobacco advertising? Maybe not as fast as some would like and you will never erradicate them all but if I knew then what the kids know now about cigarettes I would have never started. Historically alcohol consumption dropped when prohibition ended suggesting there is a noticable part of the population drank only because it was illegal. Remove the forbidden allure and you remove one of the reasons some people induldge.

Anybody have any reliable studies or stats on these topics?

Anybody have any reliable studies or stats on these topics?

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

If what these earnest people have published is not enough, I don't know what is. After I had a closer look, not a fly over, all of my questions were answered. Well, not all, but it was enough for me to recognize that the enemy is within.

It will hurt, Ky.

A couple of things, one addiction doesn't correlate to the lack of knowledge or experience. A person must have a personality that lends itself to addiction and to taking risks. As far as the prohibition removal, the change it rates is more likely top corrplate to the fact that the economy took a huge dive immediately prior to the repeal of prohibition, and during the late 1920's people had a lot amount of available capital to expend on luxuries like alcohol and partying. Since their are still dry counties in the nation you can easily compare the rates of alcohol consumption between two diferent counties at the same time, to account for the variable impact of economic means on the purchase of luxuries. Though there is a some correlation between telling young people what not to do, and they rebeling to do the opposite. However, advertising telling them not to do something because it is dangerous to their health is no more productive, as you are still telling them what not to do except with no short term obvious consequences. Try telling a teenager not to do something because it may be bad for their health in 10 year, or some other impact on that time scale, and with no punishment or negative reinforcements. There is still the forbidden allure as presented in the large amount of advertising, just no consequences in the immediate future.

Now that we are off topic a bit let me introduce this link. I became a member after reading through it. No doubt this is the way to look at it.

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

Apologies to the OP but it is all the same thing really, Ky.