Free Republic

Washington DC - William Ford Jr., CEO of the Ford Motor Company testified before Congress about the nationwide problem of ride sharing. Ford cited ride swapping as the number one reason for the the company's declining revenue. "These 'pool pirates are depriving Ford of rightful income. Three sometimes four people are sharing rides. Less wear and tear on the cars means fewer new car purchases. That's revenue that's being robbed from Ford." A recent study by the Gartner Group supports Ford's claims that ride sharing runs rampant across the US. The study showed showed that children under the age of...

<p>Call it Operation Desert Smoke, aka the war to legalize marijuana in Nevada. A war, pardon the cliché, for hearts and minds. A battle of words, concepts and alliances built on common values. A war in which the Internet, as history's most potent vehicle for disseminating "facts" -- true or otherwise -- has become a significant weapon.</p>

The study of the historical themes in chemical prohibition movements can provide a helpful tool in understanding those institutionalized beliefs and myths which pose powerful barriers to any alteration in social policy on "drug abuse." This paper identifies the nature of those themes and presents the author's perceptions of how these inherited belief system have severely limited our options for more enlightened and effective strategies for the social control of chemical intoxication.  Chemical intoxicants have been available to humans in almost all cultures since the beginning of time. Each culture through succeeding generations has assumed the task of defining...

Ald. Judy Olson wants users of medical marijuana to be able to grow their own plants within the city limits. "This gives people a source of marijuana," said Olson, who plans to introduce the proposal to the City Council. "They don't have to interact with the black market to acquire it." Under current city law, it's a crime to obtain - but not use - marijuana in Madison. Olson said she is still working out the details of the proposal with members of the Progressive Dane Drug Policy Task Force, which is presenting the recommendations from its year-and-a-half-long study of...

HACKERS BEG BORING PEOPLE TO STOP ENCRYPTING EMAIL Security Experts Concur Most of You Have Nothing Worth Encrypting Anyway San Jose, Calif. (SatireWire.com) — In an unusual worldwide appeal, the International Brotherhood of Computer Hackers today asked particularly boring people to please stop encrypting their emails. According to IBCH President Björn Haxor, hackers spend thousands of hours intercepting and cracking open encrypted emails — believing it to be "the good stuff" — only to find most contain little more than "Two priests walk into a bar," or "Hi Bob, here's my new email address." "Maybe you think hacking coded messages...

Few teenagers say they've tried marijuana, but teens say it's easier to buy than cigarettes or beer, according to a national survey. More than one-third of teens polled by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse said they could buy marijuana in just a few hours, 27 percent in an hour or less. For the first time since the study began in 1996, marijuana edged out cigarettes and beer as the easiest drug for teenagers to buy -- 34 percent said it's the easiest of the three, compared with 31 percent for cigarettes and 14 percent for beer. Overall,...

This time, reefer rebels not so dazed and confused By Joe Schoenmann (schoenmann@vegas.com) In the fifth grade, one of the best things was the government-issue films on everything from flossing and hygiene to sexuality and interstellar space. Not only were they hilarious, but they were always a welcome reprieve from the monotony of class. I'll always remember the one about human genetic experiments that benefit humanity by giving them plantlike skin that turns sunlight into energy. Then there's the one about drugs. We watched it sitting on the floor in Mr. Bohl's room. The first 15 minutes doted on a...

A fed-up consumer calls it "socialism." A fed-up retailer calls it "state-sponsored gouging." They’re referring to an Ohio law that requires vintners, distributors, and retailers to jack up the price of a bottle of wine a total of 135 percent before it hits the shelf. As a result, wine costs up to 50 percent more in Ohio than in other states, translating into $100 million a year that Buckeye State residents could spend on something else. "I don’t know how this could possibly benefit the public," Tom Jackson, president and chief executive officer of the Ohio Grocers Association, told the...

Legalisation: The First Hundred Years What happened when drugs were legal and why they were prohibited Mike Jay Today, as the notion of legalising drugs is making its way into the mainstream political agenda for the first time in living memory, one of the most common objections to it is that it represents a high-risk experiment whose outcome cannot be accurately modelled or predicted. Yet within the context of history, the opposite is true: it is the prohibition of drugs which is the bold experiment without precedent. A hundred years ago, any of us could have walked into our high...

JERUSALEM, Aug. 6 — A thriving Bronze Age drug trade supplied narcotics to ancient cultures throughout the eastern Mediterranean as balm for the pain of childbirth and disease, proving a sophisticated knowledge of medicines dating back thousands of years, researchers say. ANCIENT CERAMIC pots, most of them nearly identical in shape and about five inches long, have been found in tombs and settlements throughout the Middle East, dating as far back as 1400 B.C., said Joe Zias, an anthropologist at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. The drugs were probably used as medicine, and the finds are helping researchers better understand how ancient...

Even in a city where cross-dressing is a protected right--if not a cherished tradition--San Francisco leaders have turned heads recently by appearing publicly in a new type of trans-political apparel. Members of the ultraliberal San Francisco City Council have suddenly taken on states' rights--normally a conservative stance--as their cause celebre. < snip > Whatever societal risks are presented by terminally ill patients getting stoned, they pale in comparison with the political risks of yielding to federal authority in this area. Of course, it may be too much to hope that there is more than mere opportunism in the recent embrace...

Subject: New Diversity Initiative in Europe To: All CIB Employees From: The European Operating Committee Re: Launch of CitiDifference in Europe Over the past two years we have made great progress on our diversity initiatives in the Corporate and Investment Bank in Europe. In 2001, five task forces, focused on achieving tangible results, were instrumental in launching our diversity strategy. As a result of their work we won the Opportunity Now New Member award 2002 for our work on gender. Although we are immensely proud of that achievement, we are also keenly aware that we still have a great deal...

Suppose you buy a mosquito trap and find, after using it for a few months, that there are just as many mosquitoes in your yard as before, if not more. You complain to the manufacturer, which says it now has a new model that works much better. You try it, but it’s no more effective than the first one. Then you read in Consumer Reports that the company never tested the trap and has no evidence that it works. Livid, you call the manufacturer again, and you’re told the bad reviews apply to products it no longer makes. It is...

NATIONAL REVIEW has attempted during its tenure as, so to speak, keeper of the conservative tablets to analyze public problems and to recommend intelligent thought. The magazine has acknowledged a variety of positions by right-minded thinkers and analysts who sometimes reach conflicting conclusions about public policy. As recently as on the question of troops to Bosnia, there was dissent within the family from our corporate conclusion that we'd be best off staying home. For many years we have published analyses of the drug problem. An important and frequently cited essay by Professor Michael Gazzaniga (Feb. 5, 1990) brought a scientist's...

Rarely do trial balloons burst so quickly. During the recent British campaign, Tory shadow home secretary Ann Widdecombe had no sooner proposed tougher penalties for marijuana possession than a third of her fellow Tory shadow-cabinet ministers admitted to past marijuana use. Widdecome immediately had to back off. The controversy reflected a split in the party, with the confessors attempting to embarrass Widdecombe politically. But something deeper was at work as well: a nascent attempt to reckon honestly with a drug that has been widely used by baby boomers and their generational successors, a tentative step toward a squaring by the...

A D.C. Drug Initiative Would Throw Cocaine Users Into Rehab, Pot Smokers Behind Bars. If it becomes law, Initiative 62 on this fall's ballot- "Treatment Instead of Jail for Certain Non-Violent Drug Offenders"- will offer speed and cocaine offenders in the District the option of going into rehab instead of facing a trial and prison. But pot smokers and ecstasy users will continue to be put behind bars. The disparity is a product of the ongoing battle between D.C. drug-reform advocates and congressional overseers. In the past, Congress has stopped the District from enacting liberal-minded drug-law reforms and, at one...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Summertime commuting in Japan in high heat and humidity and huge crowds can be particularly stressful, but one train company has found a way to help its passengers relax. Customers who book a seat on Fuji Kyuko's Friday night beer run can sit back and spend a two-hour trip being served as much locally brewed beer as they can drink. The beer train plies a route near Mount Fuji, some 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Tokyo, normally used by businesspeople and students. "People are enjoying it so much, it is almost completely booked up throughout August,"...

If Nevadans vote to legalize the possession of 3 ounces or less of marijuana, the federal government will not "strong arm" them by stepping up the enforcement of federal drug possession laws, the nation's drug czar said Wednesday. "That's not our intent," said John Walters, who leads the Office of National Drug Control Policy. "People have the right to make their own decisions." Walters was in Las Vegas to convince Nevadans that legalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana is a bad idea. Voters will consider the initiative Nov. 5. At a morning news conference, Walters was asked whether...

Proponents of a state ballot initiative to legalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana are throwing up a smoke screen when they say the measure is meant to help law enforcement, the White House drug czar said today. "Let's not kid ourselves -- this is about helping the marijuana dealers by making it easier to buy and sell on a wider scale and eventually legalize all drugs," said John Walters, the national drug control policy director and so-called "drug czar." Walters was in Las Vegas today to address an anti-drug law enforcement convention at the Hilton. Prior to a...

<p>San Francisco -- San Francisco could become the first city in the nation to get into the pot-growing business to supply patients with medicinal marijuana, under a measure headed for the November ballot.</p> <p>The measure would urge city officials to explore growing cannabis and distributing it to seriously ill patients who have an OK from their doctors -- in apparent defiance of federal law.</p>