Well, it didn't actually start as a war, you see. At first, it was more of an "agree to disagree" sort of thing

Where once the authorities were fighting relatively small groups of offenders in a tiny drugs subculture, now they must fight millions of users and powerful international cartels

....why exactly? It serves no foreseeable beneficial purpose to fight the urges of human nature, especially when they're not even your own damn urges. Tax the crap out of it and make it socially unacceptable, is the best thing a government can do. All the other options are worse.

Drug warriors are hypocritical control freak douchebags or fascist anti-freedom types. Who would give people like that the time of day?

F*ck yeah, I'll get in that time machine.

WTF, I have to give my name AND address to buy some Opium? What's next, decongestants?

What's scary is how the days when opium ruled have come to represent such a period of peace and tranquility in the ongoing drug jihad against America. For what is the scourge of century-old opium against the modern-day plague of the green leaf: reefer, pot, herb, marijuana. The truth is that "mary jane" has corrupted more souls and ruined more lives in the past 6 months alone than opium has since its invention. The truth? People reminisce about getting "stoned" in the old days, "toking up" with their "bong," smoking their herb out of an apple and then chasing it with some bong water and then giggling the night away. But that's not how it is now.

No, now it's far more sinister. Back then it was just your friend Hal or your Uncle Ernie or that slightly weird guy in the corner house who grew the reefer and fueled your need. But now...now it's international. The terrorists have taken it over. They know it's our Achilles Heel. Do you know what an Achilles Heel is? It's like a weak spot, like Superman is affected by Kryptonite. Kryptonite is Superman's Achilles Heel. Well, Achilles, he was immortal, he was like the greatest warrior ever. But you know how he was killed? He took an arrow to the heel.

I mean, seriously. Think about that. A farking arrow to the heel? I mean, an arrow to the knee, I can understand that. That happens. It happens a lot, actually. More than you'd think. But to the heel? How the hell do you get hit by an arrow in the heel? Think about your normal walking speed. Step...step...step...step. Now try to imagine aiming an arrow at something that's not much bigger than two quarters and moving at that normal pace. And it's bony, too. That's a piece of farking work, right there. That deserves some farking credit.

But that's not important right now. What's important is that Achilles had this heel problem, and he had because his mother forgot that she was holding him by the heel when she dipped him into the river Styx that bordered the land of the dead. Which, duh, she did to make him immortal. But if she'd only remembered to switch heels while she was dunking him, there wouldn't have been any problems.

You get it? Memory loss. That's a normal side effect of the reefer, and more people don't talk about it because they've smoked too much and forget to bring it up. But I'm bringing it up now, along with something about terrorists. I mentioned terrorists, I know I did. Oh, yeah. Terrorists are controlling pot now, and that means there's terrorists in it. Like, there could be bomb powder in the pot, and when you go to light up you might end up blowing up the dorm and that promising research student down the hall from you. Asshole. Just because he was some high strung loser who never wanted to smoke up with you, now you killed him. You're like Al Queda, you bastard.

So don't do drugs, don't let that happen. I'm serious here.

Pocket Ninja: ....I mean, seriously. Think about that. A farking arrow to the heel? I mean, an arrow to the knee, I can understand that. That happens. It happens a lot, actually. More than you'd think. But to the heel? How the hell do you get hit by an arrow in the heel? Think about your normal walking speed. Step...step...step...step. Now try to imagine aiming an arrow at something that's not much bigger than two quarters and moving at that normal pace. And it's bony, too. That's a piece of farking work, right there. That deserves some farking credit.

But that's not important right now. What's important is that Achilles had this heel problem, and he had because his mother forgot that she was holding him by the heel when she dipped him into the river Styx that bordered the land of the dead. W ...


And THAT is why in my favorites the smart people have one color, the belligerent retards have another, and Pocket Ninja has a third color, just for him.
Thank you, PN


_{/It's Purple 2
//Is it just me, or have the "Smart" and "Funny" buttons suddenly gone missing?}

http://www.jackherer.com/thebook/

that's all you need to know

Riche: //Is it just me, or have the "Smart" and "Funny" buttons suddenly gone missing?

They only show up once the post its the front page.

I read about this, it was quite hilarious, except for the forced opium trade part.

The manned(!) fire boats were the funniest.

Today it seems incredible, but not that long ago a liberal and presumably "progressive" nation forced a weaker one to accept the importation of opium at the point of a sword. Tea grown on Chinese plantations was already a staple of the British diet in the 1830s. Frequently, British merchants paid for the tea with the profits gleaned from massive smuggling of opium into Chinese ports. Opium, first imported into China by Arab traders during the Middle Ages, had cut a devastatingly wide swath through Chinese society, with a large percentage of the army and the bureaucracy addicted. When the Chinese government attempted to prohibit both the use and the smuggling of the drug, Britain launched two wars between 1839 and 1860 to force open Chinese ports. Hanes is a historian and educator who specializes in British imperial history; Sanello is a film critic and author of numerous books on films and history. Their account of the causes, military campaigns, and tragic effects of these wars is absorbing, frequently macabre, and deeply unsettling.

Link (new window)

libranoelrose: I read about this, it was quite hilarious, except for the forced opium trade part.

The manned(!) fire boats were the funniest.

I wish I knew what you were referencing. I just want to hear who was stupid enough to captain a fireboat, and who convinced them to do it. Sounds like a very, very slow Kamikaze attack.

Available until the 1970's over the counter. It's opium in alchohol and we gave it to kids.

The amazing thing is the English never took the rap for killing tens of millions of Chinese with opium.
What they did in China is one of the most terrible, evil things in history, and yet they walked away scott free, because their victims were not white people. And they have not given a shiat about it since.

pedobearapproved: Dr. Bronner's soap label for those that don't know what I'm talking about. (new window)

It's wrapped in crazy but that is the best soap I've ever used.

Opium is still KING of The World.

The opium wars never ended, they merely took a breather between when the UK tagged out and the US stepped in. China, on the other hand, has been in that same ring from the get-go.

Then, as now, there was a problem with the former owing the latter too much money (pounds sterling / dollars) due to the latter providing the former with something they refused to live without (tea / Wal-Mart). So they got the idea "Hey, those Chinese sure like their opium, don't they? Why don't we use that to offset some of this trade imbalance debt we've been running up from buying all their (tea / cheap plastic crap) over the last few decades?"

We've also moved the opium production from a primary focus on southeast Asian (for the UK) to Afghanistan (for the US), but in the end it's still just about two addicts who are also dealers, each trying to outsell their own debts to the other. Although this new angle has started to drag Russia into the picture, as the Russian mob now wants a cut of the USA's action. After all, Afghanistan is like right there, man. Just drive some over. Meanwhile, reactionaries from the USSR days are very unamused about the whole thing, and thus I don't think that this whole thing of having US troops guarding Afghan's opium production/distribution network will end well.

what a dope fiend may look like.