Slashdot Mirror
Terahertz Scanners See Inside Sealed Packages
opticsorg writes "Japanese scientists have demonstrated a system that detects the presence of illicit drugs that are concealed within an envelope. Tests to date have shown that the imaging system can successfully detect and identify a range of substances including ecstasy (MDMA) and methamphetamine. The researchers are now working with companies to develop a mail screening system that could suit use in post offices and airports."
Bad scientist, bad, bad scientist! Go cure cancer or something useful!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
As stupid as the war on drugs is, attempting to gain the upper hand through technology is even stupider.
For instance, thanks to the innumerable advances in creating genetically-engineered plants, we will soon see the day where the characteristics of interest in plants such as cannabis, coca, psilocybin, and opium are capable of being integrated within such ordinary plants as grass, seaweed, ferns, etc. So even if we are able to use technology to prevent drugs from coming into this country from the outside, the obvious solution for organized crime will be to make it so that the drugs can be more easily manufactured from within.
We've already seen this with methamphetimines. By working to reduce the supply and thereby increase the cost of the more traditional drugs, the market responds with a drug like meth, that is easy and cheap to produce domestically. Look at the consequences of the meth epidemic in America. It's a total disaster.
Changing the technology isn't the answer. Changing the policy is. Legalize drugs now.
Who would you rather see selling drugs? Law-abiding citizens in a legalized environment who won't sell to kids? Or criminals in a black-market environment who will?
That's the question nobody on the prohibition side seems to be able to answer. They admit that they will never be able to rid the world of illegal drugs, yet cannot come to grips with this simple question. If our drug policy is based on what is best for the children, then why haven't we legalized already? Why not start letting communities actually control these controlled substances for a change? When do we learn the lesson of alcohol prohibition? When do we recognize that there is no constitutional basis for the continuation of this goddamn policy?
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
does that mean no more mail order drugs?
Like any self respecting dealer would ship product through the USPS.
Well, what about undergarments and a host of other things I could imagine me not wanting government employees to be peeping at?
Can I bum a sig?
... because you know that every drug dealer makes his/her shipments for $0.37 through the United States Postal Service, saving thousands and thousands of dollars a year on trunk repair and gasoline charges ...
topreacher@signature.slashdot.org 1% rm -rf sig
Soon, thousands of unemployed software engineers moonlighting as "couriers" will be forced to find other means of supplementing that "Mervyn's" income.
Mom says my
Someone figures out how to reflect these waves to give off false or misleading information... And since the intent seems to be to keep peoples rights intact, you cant just open the package. This will only last as a viable anti drug solution until three MIT stoners get bored.
I have a Cig, but do you have a light?
I really like the way this is going, as I'm against all illegal drugs. I hope that it will get a major breakthrough... Maybe it can also help to categorise different objects, so that the airport can have statistics of what their passengers brings... It could be usefull, don't know for what yet ;)
Coool... Thats all I have to say actually, I just wanted to post something... And I tried to be the first one.. I failed.. Unfortuante. (See the slashdot tradition of illiteracy?) ah well, It's my first post anyways, I cant always be at the top!
The researchers are now working with companies to develop a mail screening system that could suit use in post offices and airports.
I was just thinking that it was about time we cracked down on those methed-out mailmen and pilots.
Oh, for mail...
How well would this system do if you put the drugs in one of those metallic bags that electronics come in?
I mean, when did a tab of X ever crash a plane into a building? What a waste...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Ok I admit it - I'm very worried about not getting my next shipment of E coming in the mail from Tokyo ;-)
I love it when they develop new technologies and say that this will be for used drug enforcement first. That makes everyone feel safe. No one likes drugs. But don't you wonder what other spectrum signatures they already have researched? Is it safe on humans? What did you have for lunch this morning?
Just make sure you wrap all your drugs in aluminum foil. Not only should it reflect those nasty little scans. Should cause quite the ill effects on their scanner.
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
Damn, I hope they won't be able to detect a letter immersed in LSD solution:)
if with more and better abilities to actually catch every little minor drug offense, it's only going to inadvertantly give momentum to the movement to legalize some or all of the "illegal" drugs.
Right now, it's relatively easy, I think, to stay under the radar for most casual users, based on what I've read of other's experiences. Something like this could actually be a good thing if it exposed just how much drug trafficing actually goes on, especially between average, upstanding citizens. It might not be good at first, per se, but could finally motivate the average citizen to realize how idiotic these drug laws are to begin with... at least that's how I see it.
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
Lead lined envelopes: You can put your WEED in it!
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
...from getting to or from Darl McBride, Chris Sontag, Blake Stowell, or SCO in general.
what about people with prescriptions such as Ritalin or Adderol?
These are essentially medical meth. Does everyone expect patients to carry their prescriptions (or their prescription bottles) with them at all times? No one I know with ADHD carries their full script bottles - just a couple of pills in a case.
1. Picture yourself having ADHD, a script for Ritalin, a couple of pills in a pillcase in your luggage.
2.Picture yourself being pulled from the plane by the Feds for having prescription drugs.
3. ??
4. Profit.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
The researchers are now working with companies to develop a mail screening system that could suit use in post offices and airports.
...Man walks through Airport security checkpoint
First of all, I'd never thought the the US Postal Service might be one of the most egregious trafficers in illicit drugs. But now that I think about it, it's sort of funny.
I an can also see us walking through crack scanners at the airport.
I'm sorry sir, you're going to have to step aside.
> Why?
When you walked through the detector you were cleared for bombs, guns, and knives... but the little crack light came on.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Tommy Chong better watch out. Oh wait...
because what hunting rifle has a bayonet lug
As if there isn't a problem with the signal-to-noise around here.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Why are you mailing your underwear, instead of wearing it like everyone else?
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
I feel safer already. Thank you War on Drugs(tm).
no text...
I wonder how this system would work on detecting a complex biological powder, such as Anthrax spores.
Actually, shipping small amounts of valuable things (illegal drugs and diamonds come to mind) through domestic post is pretty foolproof.
As long as your package doesn't leak white powder and start an anthrax scare, it's very likely to get to its destination.
Where are the "free traders" when you need 'em ?
Nobody!!
So what if people deliberately start to write messages in a way/using a material that shows up under the scanner (of course, they don't tell the postal service that it's deliberate)?
They could then claim that the scanner violates their privacy rights.
Or will they be forced to write with only the types of ink that WON'T show up in a scan?
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
If it can't detect LSD what's the use? We already have cheap detectors to alert to the presense of cocaine, meth, etc. without opening packages.. they're called dogs.
The scheme works by spectral fingerprinting -- illuminating a target envelope with tunable terahertz radiation and analyzing the absorption spectra of the resulting image. The results are cross-referenced with a database of spectra to check for the chemicals of interest.
So meth absorbs terahertz... who knew.
I'm sorry officer. I didn't know meth was illegal. You see, there's a terahertz signal emitted from the city that interferes with my wireless internet. So I filled this warehouse with drugs to block the noise.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
The price of a first-class stamp goes from 37 cents to $56.28.
"At the heart of the Japanese system is a compact and tunable optical parametric oscillator (OPO) that emits terahertz waves. The OPO is made from a nonlinear crystal (MgO:LiNbO3) that is pumped by a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser. It emits terahertz radiation that is tunable between 1 and 2.5 THz.
Terahertz waves of several different frequencies are scanned over the envelope and the transmitted radiation is picked up by a pyroelectric bolometer and analyzed by a computer."
Someone seems to have messed up and posted a garbled version of the page. Can someone please post the English version?
~ "When I'm of that age I'm just going to live up a tree."
a lot of drugs are shipped by postal and/or courier services.
there isnt enough manpower and drug-K9's to screen 100% of all parcels all the time, so what does get detected is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
of greater worry are the actual crooked postal workers who open up your parcels and keep the contents, legal or not, for themselves.
i've had so many legitimate parcels "lost" that i no longer trust postal services. i always use a private company like UPS, FedEx, or Purolator, so that if they do lose my stuff, i'm more likely to get compensated. realistically though, sending stuff to someone else via a shipping service is always a gamble.
Wouldn't a couple of layers of aluminum foil interfere with these absorption spectra?
Of course, the skyrocketing costs of metal foil would probably push many marginal smugglers out of the business.
...stop all of the postal terrorists and their mail room shootings. Just smoke whatever comes through the mail and let the gun slip away...
Woa this is important. This is the first steps toward Star Drek like medical scanning. If you can scan for drugs then in future you can certainly scan for more complex bio substances. If the scanning is non destructive to cell structure then it will be a quantum leap in medical imaging, diagnostics and drug therapy monitoring. Good for the Japanese techs! I am sure they are aware of the implications of this tech. On the flip side it will be invaluable tech for sensing hidden harmful radio actives not just drugs. Only way to get it past customs would be with lead shielding, which in itself gives away the show.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
It was rather easy to predict that /.ers would immediately declare this an "evil technology". The rabid libertarianism trumps any love of cool new technology.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Mod parent up
Mom says my
...that slashdotters will put their drugs inside their tinfoil hats?! Nothing can pentrate those things!
C:\>
The inner package holds the contraband; the outer package contains something to completly absorb and/or redirect the T-waves, and to broadcast a predetermined T-wave form designed to make the contents of the package innocuous looking to even the most paranoid security guard. The real question is would this be a DMCA violation?
blah blah terrorism blah blah 9/11 blah blah al quaeda blah blah
Should have posted as an AC. I meant to say that the /. drug-dealing crowd will simply line their packages with tinfoil.
I'd have been here sooner, but your soapbox set off all kinds of alarms when it went through our new Terahertz scanner.
When using your Q switched Nd:YAG laser at the campgrounds, always practice safety.
Surround your laser with rocks to keep the fire from spreading. Be sure when
you're done with your Q switched Nd:YAG laser to put it out with a bucket of water and make
sure it has stopped smoking before you leave the area.
Remember what Smokey the Bear says. Only you can prevent your Q switched Nd:YAG laser from starting a forest fire.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
anywho I chose MIT because they tend to invent things for the sake of inventing things.
I have a Cig, but do you have a light?
And they claim they should be able to speed it up to 1 minute per scan..
Think about that, even at one minute per scan... Compared to the billions of pieces of mail that go through the system on any given day, or the thousands of travellers at an airport, and their luggage..
Just doesn't seem practical. Looks like the dogs will remain the drug detection instrument of choice for some time.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Shouldn't that be, like, "ecstasy (MDMA, hopefully, among other things)" these days?
Then again, I suppose the 'tards will pop anything that has a smiley face on it.
More of my tax dollars spent on projects designed to help my government go on 'fishing expiditions' to see whether or not I need to be jailed. I truly don't understand why the youth of this nation is so untrusting of government. After all, the true purpose of all governments is to vet society for undesirables, yes?
We already put more people in jail than any other country on Earth, proportionately; this apparently isn't enough for some people. When your government starts hunting for reasons to jail you, you know it's gone too far. I once read a very interesting thought on why something like this is done. The author expressed the idea that since governments cannot control totally law-abiding persons (as in moral laws), it must create enough sufficiently complex laws such that no person can possibly go through life without breaking one.
Ask a lawyer how many laws they've broken by lunchtime, if they wanted to get really technical, and I think you'll find the results extremely interesting.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
1) Remove tin foil hat.
2) Wrap around drugs and mail.
3) Profit!!
i need to place an order to the netherlands first. usps, hold off for at least 3 weeks. that'd be groovy ... man ... totally. huh huh
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Yeah thats the stand that law enforcement takes, and look how well that is working.
Lets compare alchohol and weed here for a moment.
Drink to much alchohol... Die
Smoke to much weed....... Fall Asleep
Alchohol is much more inhibiting than weed(at any level), so the argument cant be made on those grounds alone to ban weed.
Why not legalize and control weed? You could tax the fuck out of it and people would still buy it. There would be less fights/murder becuase people wouldn't have to go through such shady sources to purchase weed. Since people who distrubute weed(to everyone regardless of age) would be put out of buisness, less children would have access to it.
The ban on weed is very simaler in my mind to prohabition. I dont smoke, I never have, weed or anything else. I think its absurd how much money we are spending on law enforcement of a substense that is less harmfull then alchohol and that we could be profitting off of.
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
Forget the drugs. What I want is a scanner that tells me which squares to scratch on my lotto ticket.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Could such tech be used to detect amphetamines on athletes? I see it as something like airport metal scanners and it could even be broadcasted live to the whole planet right after the competition.
:)
Hmm... or even before competition! Talk about intimidation.
Look! Everyone loves my package.
To clarify: I assume you regard alcohol as significantly more harmful than marijuana, not the other way around.
I don't even see anything in the article about this being implemented in the US. I'm sure the Japanese would like to have something like this to stop some of the flow of Opiates from China. Most of which are brought in by "mules." And if it is used in the US...so what? Don't try importing a coupla kilos of cocaine. The easiest way to not be bothered by this technology is not to traffic in drugs. Pretty simple eh?
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
(Besides: sober or intoxicated, heavy drug users are seldom fun to be around. They're @ssholes or buddy-buddy scheming @ssholes.)
While marijuana is a fairly mild drug and it may be OK to legalize it. That said, just because one drug might be a candidate for legalization does not mean that all are. There are some nasty ones out there and a scanning device that can find them is something I very much welcome.
Who knows; maybe if the supply dries up (ha!), people will vote for drug reform and allow a moderate response instead of the current all-or-nothing one?
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Now I'm going to have to find somewhere else to hide my stash.
:)
Don't worry, you can always hollow out a baby and stash your drugs there.
...I voted for Kodo.
The reason they want to keep pot illegal is that nobody owns a patent on it and it does not serve anyone's power interests to have it legal.
They would much, much rather you take THEIR mind-altering drugs instead -- anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, wakeup drugs, sleeping drugs. These drugs enable them to keep you in line and productive, in addition to the nice, patent-pending profit margins they provide the drug industry.
We've got a good start on it -- kids these days hit the ritalin in elementary school, switch to paxil or prozac in high school, and move on to ativan and others in college and adulthood. It's only a matter of time until you're considered fucked if you're NOT on drugs.
This is an excellent attempt at extending current technology to detect illegal materials in closed containers. However this method still suffers from being able to be blocked by interfering materials. Others have suggested Aluminum foil, which might thwarts this effort. At the least though, thicker covering materials will prevent the waveforms from reaching the material (and then exiting again so their interference patterns can be read). Even though a 1 THz wave sounds impressive it is an extremely low power solution, and it is still an indirect detection method. Analyzing interference patterns is not much further along than the current density analyses performed on luggage at airports. A much higher power waveforms is needed to penetrate and escape the mail/cargo/etc. Think gamma rays - and think about direct detection of narcotics through analysis of photonuclear reactions. Its in development if you can google.
um wouldnt it be conservative to not want the government searching your parcels? even perhaps libertarian?
maybe if you conservatives smoked more herb then you would realize that you shouldnt be conservative (it happened to me).. of course we do want to stop the supply of crack going to SCO, riaa/mpaa, and never forget GWB who actually dogged the draft so that he could get out of a drug test.
Add to this a neat comparison between cigarettes and weed...
Smoke cigarettes regularly: become hopelessly addicted
Smoke joints regularly: stop when you want
Ciggies are much more addictive than weed (though weed is very mildly addictive, but the withdrawal simptoms for weed are very minor and only last for a couple of days or so, and after smoking truly VAST amounts of weed regularly for a long time).
Daniel
Carpe Diem
What happens when they get a false positive? And it (1) is something very valuable and/or (2) needs to be delivered in pristine condition on time. Will they just attach a note saying "Sorry, we thought you had drugs..."?
Marijuana Does Not Cause Reckless Driving
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 08:04:40 -0700
Subject: Marijuana Does Not Cause Reckless Driving
Pubdate: Fri, 26 Sep 2003
Source: DrugSense Weekly
Section: Feature Article
Website: http://www.drugsense.org/current.htm
Author: Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D.
Note: Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D., is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Southern California and author of "Understanding Marijuana" (Oxford University Press, 2002).
MARIJUANA DOES NOT CAUSE RECKLESS DRIVING
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and certain Wisconsin legislators have launched a new crusade against "drugged driving," with a heavy emphasis on marijuana. This crusade is largely based on scientific misinformation, and it could lead to the enactment of bad laws.
ONDCP has several slick television commercials on the subject. One shows dramatic auto accidents and two crash test dummies passing a joint while a serious voice says, "In a recent study, one in three reckless drivers tested positive for marijuana." Note the careful phrasing. The idea is to make viewers think that marijuana caused the reckless driving, without really saying that it did.
Why would ONDCP be so coy? The answer lies in the actual data regarding marijuana's effects on driving,
I study the effects of drugs and teach classes in the science of illicit substances, so I know this field. The plain fact is that marijuana does not cause reckless driving. Large studies of accidents show that drivers who test positive for marijuana (and ONLY marijuana -- i.e., people who haven't also been drinking or taking other intoxicating drugs) cause fewer crashes than people who haven't had any drugs at all.
That's right, people "high" on marijuana cause fewer crashes than those who are completely sober. The findings seemed impossible to explain. It was a puzzle that made no sense.
A bright and talented researcher in the Netherlands named Robbe recently solved that puzzle. He got experienced marijuana users stoned and had them drive around the streets of Holland. But these guys were no dummies. They drove slower, increased the distance between their cars and the cars in front of them, and never tried to pass other cars. Folks who smoked a placebo (a non-intoxicating substance made to look and smell like marijuana) drove as they usually did. Alcohol, alone or in combination with marijuana, wrecked driving completely.
Robbe's results helped explain the accident studies. People who used marijuana and only marijuana were compensating for the drug's effects by driving more carefully. Nobody should drive high, but we can all take a lesson from these people who did: slow down, leave space between your car and the next, and don't try to pass. Unlike alcohol, which makes people behave recklessly, marijuana users tend to be aware that they are impaired and compensate with some success.
But what about the ONDCP's claim that one in three reckless drivers tested positive for marijuana?
It's not quite a lie, but it's deliberately misleading. The Drug Czar's no dummy. He wants to scare people, and he knows the complete facts won't do it. Instead he throws out scary but incomplete and misleading statistics - -- and hopes people won't question them. Yes, one in three reckless drivers tested positive for marijuana in a urine screen, but we don't know how many of them had alcohol, antihistamines, cocaine, or any number of other drugs in their systems.
Legislators need to ask for the complete facts behind the scare stories before they start passing new laws based on misinformation.
There are cheaper, easier ways to get impaired drivers off the road. Roadside sobriety tests are reliable, inexpensive, and valid indicators of impaired driving. Law-enforcement officers can learn to administer these tests quickly and easily. Unlike expensive blood tests, which can only identify a few drugs, roadside sobriety tests can detect any kind of drug im
That this device is part of a vast right wing conspiracy to devise a machine to detect the presence of pr0n in your mail?
or wait...maybe it's a vast left wing conspiracy to detect the presence of the Rush Limbaugh newsletter.....
Once one knows how much power the device is putting out, one can tell just how deep it will scan right?
... if this works, then basically they've just made things easier for the drug smugglers... Now they don't have to fuck around with envelopes... They can ship large containers again :!
Just fill a package with a "legal" substance, to a depth just greater than the scanner will read...
Put the illegal substance within...
Cost for foil wrapper -- which COMPLETELY BLOCKS radiation at terahertz wavelengths: $.01
Don't tell me that nobody ever drove after smoking a joint, and that among those, nobody ever got into a deadly accident because of this! A small (but non-zero) number of death (less than 100) might have been credible, but a nice round 0 is straining the reader's credulity a leetle bit too much!
As stupid as the war on drugs is, attempting to gain the upper hand through technology is even stupider.
You are out of the loop. The scientists are not interested in the war on drugs, they are interested in the funding. When the cold war ended a bit of military research was retasked for law enforcement. Military research and law enforcement research pays the bills.
Secondly there is also dual use. Developing a technology to recognize complex chemicals has other applications as well. Screening for toxins in the mail, baggage screening at airports, cargo container screening at ports. Even if it works only with powders and such it has medical applications. Medics responding to overdoses and poisoning incidents, knowing what the victim ingested can be critical info.
the second link proves more people died due to tabacco then due to heroin.
Zo WTF is that supposed to mean?
In my direct cirkel of family and friends I have some smokers, some alcoholists and even some pot-smokers, but nobody I know uses heroin.
(OK I know some people who do, but they aren'treally in my close cirkel of friends and family).
Have you ever read about how hard it is to get of a heroin addiction once somebody starts injecting?
At a certain point most rehad workers give up and say it's impossible for the addict to recover.
the pain you go thru is TRUE HELL from what I've read.
And I know many people that have stopped smoking cold turkey.
And based on your first link I'd say heroin is worse then nicotine.
The original comment didn't say anything about what is easier to get. The fact of the matter is that making drugs legal will not make it so those underage can not get them. All it will take is a person that is of age to go and buy it and resell it like people do now. There are countless reasons getting pot might be easier than get beer. One is that the markup on alcohol when selling illegally is not high, in college the minor would only pay the price of the beer and maybe a buck or two to go and get it, that's because if the over21 tried to charge more they would go to someone else. I think that is the reason you don't see gangs of alcohol sellers. You can't make a business off of it because the profit is so small.
I believe this is what will happen if and when pot gets legalized. The numbers of minors doing drugs won't go down I think it will just become cheaper for them.
While I do have a degree in criminology most of this is opinion. This doesn't mean I think that pot shouldn't be legalized; making it legal will save the US a boatload of money in the long run.
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
It isn't the technology the libertarians dislike, it is the assanine "war on drugs."
...it might be the first comoponent of a Tricorder. I wonder when the other two components will be invented?
-- My hovercraft is full of eels.
Teraview, a UK spinoff of Toshiba, is developing terahertz imaging technology to diagnose cancer, among other medical applications.
Now I can't send weed to my girlfriend in Japan.
Fact 1 => War on DrUGs (bad, Evil Drugs) almost always fail
Fact 2 => As with ANY administration, they need more money next year to do about less than this year.
The pessimist in le has always said it would be better to legalize (=> Economy, no more budget for drug fighting, just quality enforcement), take an additional, federal or whatever, on it (income 8p) and use that small additional taxe to get serious, well funded junkies care facilities, and prevent more crime.
All in all, you spend a lot less, got a fabulous income, give a kick to farm industries 8p, and have less drug caused illness because of low quality...
Seems provocative for the intellectually conservative mob, but actually a smart, elegant and CHEAP solution.
Patent pending, please send 1/1000 of all the doobies that get liberated my way, or, better, give me a puff when you see me
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Danish law doesn't exclude "hallucinating" drugs. They've even outlawed Salvia Divinorum.
Just because they sell somtehing on pusherstreet in Christiania doesn't mean it's legal.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Also check out http://www.lp.org/issues/relegalize.html
My first thought was to wonder what kind of drug dealer would rely on the USPS to deliver? (Unless he wanted confirmation of delivery?).
Then it occurred to me that the kind of illegal drugs might be those sent from (cheaper) Canadian pharmacies to retired communities in Florida.
Perhaps I'm paranoid or maybe I'm just in need of adjusting my medication.
...the lucky soda bottle. Can it do that?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
However, drug prohibition is much, much worse. This about this: For what it costs to imprison a single drug offender, we could be paying a teacher to teach 25-30 kids. Builds schools, not jails. Help people with addiction problems. Prison is very expensive and it only goes after the symptoms of the problem. For many people, they think they are protecting their children. Yet, if their child fell from the straight and narrow, would they want them imprisoned and have their lives ruined with a criminal record, or would they want to get them help? Drug prohibition has terrible social costs. Much more so than the dangerous drugs themselves. http://www.teachersagainstprohibition.org/ http://www.leap.cc http://www.perdl.com
I'm against all illegal drugs
So don't use them, as I don't. However, why do you feel the need to prevent others from using them? Why spend billions of dollars creating more crime and deaths (due in part to the use of unpure drugs)?
http://optics.org/articles/ole/7/9/5/1 " For example, terahertz waves can pass through fog, fabrics, plastic, wood, ceramics and even a few centimetres of brick - although they can be blocked by a metal object or a thin layer of water. The way in which terahertz waves interact with living matter has potential for highlighting the early signs of tooth decay and skin or breast cancer, or understanding cell dynamics. "
Seriously, why can't we _try_ legalization for an experimental period, and see how it works? Right now we have nothing but a lot of hot air and moralizing and wishing and speculation, none of which is worth a hoot.
In my own opinion, I think there are too many interests which require drugs to be illegal, particularly the State, which really scores (hah!).
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
(though weed is very mildly addictive, but the withdrawal simptoms for weed are very minor and only last for a couple of days or so, and after smoking truly VAST amounts of weed regularly for a long time)
And even these results aren't consistent. Some people can smoke it daily for 20 years and stop without noticing a single after effect. Others do the same and can't sleep properly for a week or so, etc.
Everyone seems to react a little (or a lot) differently with different substances, but one thing is clear: Cannabinoids are among the safest psychoactive substances known to man.
This is sounding more like Star Trek with thier scanners that can detect almost everything from a distance.
good post
reference
full article
link
+Personnal opinion assumed...
Good post man 8)
Also, I've also driven high, and, when not mixed with Alcohol, I personnaly confirm gearing down from a red light 500 yeards away, never (EVER) going too fast and, yes, getting astonished at how fast people dare go on the highway.
Just don't mix.
Even alcohols shouldn't be mixed (coktails are exceptions, I mean having 2 beers and a few bourbons)
French people say even white and red wine shouldn't be mixed during an evening. (the saying goes explaining that red wine after white is fine, but you play your guts dinking white wine after a red.)
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
I can almost guarantee this is decades old technology in the world of espionage.
It takes 10 minutes to get a scan. Let's be generous and assume that when they get the bugs out and the thing tuned up, it will take 0.1 minute/piece. And let's assume they install on in every one of the 38000 or so post offices. Given the 200 billion piece per year volume, that means that my letter to Mom will only take about five weeks to get to the scanner and out. Happy belated Birthday, Mother!
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
If I remember my chem 101 correctly, the reason this tech works is because different types of chemical bonds are susceptible to different frequencies of radiation, depending on their strength, which depends on the type of bond, types of atoms involved and their surrounding atomic environment. You shoot a bunch of wavelengths at a molecule and some will be absorbed, and in varying ratios, producing a relatively unique signature. Congratulations, you've just reinvented spectrography.
From dyerlabs.com/chemistry:
Terahertz may be a good candidate from a privacy standpoint, but it's in between the not-so-useful microwave and okay-for-identifying-things infrared. So basically this is just a crippled, privacy-compliant form of IR spectrography, and they've discovered that the amphetamine-based molecules can be identified with it. This doesn't mean that other organics can be properly identified by it.
Frankly, this seems kind of lame.
I can count the number of Japanese people I know who enjoy the occassional reefer on the fingers of one foot.
Some Japanese like the music, the clothes, the attitude but they don't do the blunts.
A few years ago in a place in northern Tokyo (Omiya), a Japanese friend left a bag of white powder - it was actually flour (don't ask) - in a karaoke place with his rucksack by mistake. We paid a left and found 20 riot police waiting for us outside. 4 hours later and a chat with the head honcho and we all had a (rather nervous) joke and went home. Every year there's a westerner visiting from getting stopped and thrown in jail in Japan. The juryless legal system is a weak defence in most cases. Anxious not to be perceived as unjust, the Japanese legal system looks hard at these "drug mule" defence but it rarely washes with the Japanese police.
It doesn't surprise me that the Japanese developed such a device, although I'm a little surprised they bothered, as drugs is not a *pressing* problem in Japan right now.
In fact, the War on Drugs is no longer the demonized "war" anymore. The War on Terrorism is it's replacement.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
"Honestly Officer, It's for my glaucoma... No sir, I don't know a Mr Big in Miami... A lawyer sir? No sir... I have the right to remain silent?..."
Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed "nucular" accelerator on his back.
Sig changed for readability by G.W.
they fall between microwaves and IR on the EM spectrum. They haven't been used much before because of difficulty producing them cheaply, but I believe some sort of pulsed-laser technology has arrived that takes care of that.
Would any of this technology have caught Rush Limbaugh six months earlier? ...
Not merely being snarky here. Some drug abuse has already been legalized, which is why there's a pharmacutical lobby in the US congress.
Is it just me, or wouldn't make more sense to try to screen out smallpox? Doesn't anyone remember the terrorist threat? I mean, I don't think it would be really cost-effective or even very effective for either purpose- but they might as well pretend to be looking out for our best interests
If a way to scan a package for illegalities w/o compromising privacy has just been developed (and is not yet in use)..... ...then why did the package of souveniers I mailed myself back from Amsterdam last month arrive opened, re-taped, and all accounted for....except for 2grams of marijuana and a Cuban cigar?
Why isn't marijuana legal? Because the beer companies and drug companies want to keep it that way. Therefore they pad the wallets of Congress. Same with hemp except its the cotton industry which pretty much keeps hemp from being legal.
The device should be able to detect other nasties designed to kill people as well, such as neurotoxins, etc. Perhaps if they can speed up the scanning process, they could be used to detect biological weapons travelling in the mail.
So, only the inked part of a mailed package is protected by privacy rights? There are all kinds of things I can imagine mailing that should be worthy of privacy but aren't ink-on-paper. I can think of many justifiable uses of this device (detection of hazardous materials, like bombs or chemicals), even if I think the "War on Drugs" is stupid, but such a narrow scope for privacy of mailed packages is disturbing. I should as much of the same expectation of privacy of my packages in the US mail as in my home (within limits, of course, like the aforementioned bomb example, which poses a clear danger to postal workers). If the US Postal Service wasn't a government-sponsored monopoly, I might feel differently, but it is, and so they should have similar limits on their ability to search my "effects." But then, the article says nothing about the USPS using this. Yet.
You have a choice: tax and spend Democrats, or borrow and spend Republicans. Choose wisely.
"Technology: Bringing you a more efficient police state."
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Do it knowing what you are doing.
http://www.dancesafe.org
Interesting anecdote from a Native American Studies class I took a while back:
My professor lived on a reservation when she was a child. Alcohol was strictly forbidden, but people drank anyway. The way they drank, however, was much different from the two or three beers/glasses of wine I usually have at parties or while hanging out.
Firstly, alcohol was obviously more expensive, and the Native Americans were more poor; therefore, the type of alcohol they drank was the cheapest for the alcohol content: hard liqour, usually tequila or vodka. Secondly, they couldn't drink at home or in an establishment because getting caught would, in addition to the normal penalties, jepordize custody of the kids or the business, so they drank in alleys, and they drank quickly. Quickly, as in drinking straight from the bottle, passing it around until it was gone (can't exactly carry it around). Third, they couldn't go to rehab without jepordizing custody of their kids.
If that doesn't contribute to alcoholism instead of preventing it, I don't know what would.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
Still, it's amazing that terahertz systems work at all.
I'd like to know how accurate, efficient and costly this thing is compared to having a staff of trained dogs and handlers.
One of my professors once said(well, this is a summary): If we knew back in 1781 what we know now about the truly harmful effects alcohol and tobacco have had on the people of our great nation and its far reaching social problems that have arisen from them, alcohol nor tobacco would never have been legalized. The fact is this: people rationalizing the legalization of marijuana by comparing its effects to already legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco is just simply false. It was a mistake that alcohol and tobacco were legalized in the first place. Lets not further that mistake legalizing marijuana and adding to social ills. "would you jump off a bridge just because everyone else is doing it?" is easily modified to: "should you legalize something just because something else is legal thats just about as bad?" its just not right
Eat a Chicken, You know you want to.
I think this guy put it pretty nicely.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It takes 30-50 years for cigarettes to kill you. At a pack a day, that's at least 200,000 cigarettes. If a poison takes 200,000 doses to kill you, it is hardly the 'most deadly'. As for 'most addictive', I think watching someone going through heroin withdrawal would convince one that cigarettes are not anywhere near being 'most addictive'.
"40% of drug abuse happens in the inner city"
implied conclusion "Where is the other 60%?"
Now...whether you believe that statistic or not, a LOT of casual drug use/abuse does not happen 'downtown'.
Funny you should say that, since the chemicals I metioned have all those properties.
They give their intended effects at dosages which are very far from the lethal dose (all of their LD50 values in mice are in the range of hundreds of milligrams per kilogram)
They have no known long term side effects, and they have been in use for thousands of years.
They are not physically adictive. And there is a broad consensus that they have no potential for psychological addiction.
They are all very speedily expunged from the body (and myths about psilocybin accumulating in your spinal fluid are just that, myths).
Additionally, all the chemicals I mentioned comes from plants and fungi that grow literally everywhere.
The only reason these drugs are illegal right now, is that they are "psychoactive". The government, for some reason, don't want us to take psychoactive substances. And the second anybody comes up with a new psychoactive substance, it will be declared illegal, without any serious discussion and without considering any of the factors you mentioned.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
(Spitting on the sidewalk was a real issue when women wore long dresses and more people were into chewing tobacco than today, for example.)
Just so you know...those laws weren't about the annoyance of a messy dress. The spitting laws were important before the advent of penicillin due to nasties like TB. You would get all these dead people clogging the streets and people knew that if the infected just did some simple things like wash their hands after using the urinal, flush toilets after use, and to not spit in public then the infection would only spread to their friends and family and not the whole city. Since no one knew if they were carrying a deadly disease until it was too late, everyone needed to observe these common sense disease prevention measures and laws were passed to get the point across.
(I personally think those caught not washing their hands should be denied antibiotics and sent to island hospitals to recover, or not. Antibiotic resistance is screewing the rest of us over...)
How would it affect my MOHAA FFA scores?
nevermind drugs, this could be a great way to screen cargo and baggage for explosives, chemical and biological weapons/agents
Am I the only one who realizes that this tech can be used with a wider database of substances to scan for things like Anthrax and other biotoxins that are already being sent to people in government offices?
I don't think a one-minute-per-item scan rate (what the article says they should be able to acheieve) is bad if the system is installed in the Senate's mail room, or other places that are likely targets for a bioweapon-laced letter. Of course, the process will have to be greatly sped up if anyone expects to use it on a wide scale (like in post offices.)
The question that I have is whether this will fog photographic film or damage magnetic media? If it does, then it can't be used for scanning mail.
every morning i have to weed out all of the bills, statements and junk mail.
finally i can just pick out the ones that contain precious DRUGS.
huzzah!
I know a couple of ex-junkies who also smoke cigarettes. They both claim that quitting heroin was far easier than quitting nicotine. One even used to use heroin to help with his nicotine cravings when trying to quit smoking.
The only real cultural difference between Japan/China and the "west" is the culture of privacy and shame that ensures the very large problem receives only minimal attention.
Let's not get into the whole state sanction trafficking issue...
Q.
Insert Signature Here
I gotta call BullShit here!
That's not to say that finding drugs isn't more profitab^H^H^H^H^H^H interesting for those using such devices, but I don't believe this for a second.
-dave-
The pig browse. With Google. Sigh is to the chicken. Chicken is fool. Giggle. The DailyWTF giggle.
...scarcasm :-)
it's getting harder and harder to hide my stash.
Patronize your local dealer today!
If your pills look like legitimate pills (i.e. no mitsubishi logos...)
Then what if Mitsubishi Pharma has the patent on the particular med that you're taking?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Since the CIA are the biggest drug dealers in the world ( how do you think they fund things like the support of military coupe's in circumstances where the US population would frown on the 'intervention' ), they will be quite happy to see that the war against drug USERS has heated up.
There is no such thing as a war against drugs, just as there is no such thing as a war against terror. They are simple plays on words to avoid the obvious fact that the CIA is declaring war on US ( and other ) citizens.
I reserve the right to place MDMA, LSD, DMT, or whatever-the-fuck-I-want into my body, and if anyone has a problem with that, then they need to see a psychiatrist to discuss their control issues, which probably stem from their father beating up their mother, or raping them, or some other tragedy that they insist is the fault of the evil drug users.
The war on drugs ( as the war on terror ) is designed to benefit the CIA. In the drug case, it benefits their profits; reduced supply means increased prices.
http://drugpolicy.org
Their email alerts are quite informative and insightful.
I'm opposed to the waste of money and loss of Freedom that has been the hopeless "War on Drugs". If you are too, have a look at the above website.
In my opinon, a political lobbying group like the Drug Policy Alliance are more likely to actually fix the broken Drug prohibtion laws than any other mechanism (hey -- it is the USA, after all, and Lobbyist organizations really do set the rules, kids!)
Part of the Second American Revolution!
my question..can they find someone using the DCMA inappropriately?
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
So, a druggie has some money, he takes it to the store, He buys himself some munchies, The money's in the drawer. YOU buy a little Davenport, You get a little change, You go down to the airport, Now who would think that strange? The man behind the Terahertz, He sees a little light, To me what really, really hurts, You didn't even fight. So off you go to LAX, Or San Francisco Bay, And when they ask you CASH OR CHECK, We know just what you'll say! Okay, okay, not my best, but hey, I'm suffering under the influences of a Solar Flare (excuse of the day #128 comes true!!!).
So, a druggie has some money,
he takes it to the store,
He buys himself some munchies,
The money's in the drawer.
YOU buy a little Davenport,
You get a little change,
You go down to the airport,
Now who would think that strange?
The man behind the Terahertz,
He sees a little light,
To me what really, really hurts,
You didn't even fight.
So off you go to LAX,
Or San Francisco Bay,
And when they ask you CASH OR CHECK,
We know just what you'll say!
Okay, okay, not my best, but hey, I'm suffering under the influences of a Solar Flare (excuse of the day #128 comes true!!!).
And they're still doing it today.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
I've been a junkie, speed freak, and smoker and kicked all at separate times. I think heroin and tobacco are pretty close "addictiveness" both physically and psychologically. I still think about both often. Speed isn't all that addictive imo. That doesn't really change or have anything to do with drug prohibition's ineffectiveness though.
One of the best responses ever to this topic was penned by Senator Jim Inhoffe (R - OK). A constituent sent him a post card with no name, but a return address on it that said, "Legalize drugs." He had a staffer go down to the Senate gift shop and buy a postcard. He simply wrote "No." on it, signed it, and had it sent to the return address
How can anyone claim that "No" can ever be a good ansver on highly debated issue. It doesn't even begin to address the problems at hand and it smells of arrogance and the "Because we are all powerful" attitude.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
the purpose of government IS to protect the citizenry from undesirable elements.
/. We're willing to overlook your faults. Why can't you find it in your heart to have a little tolerance for others?
The purpose of government is to secure the rights of individuals.
We establish laws to punish the criminals.
We establish laws to prevent crimes.
We fight wars to keep the bad guys out.
We guard our borders to keep bad guys out.
We fight wars to expand our borders.
I want my government to serve me...
I'd like my government to serve me also. It's too bad that that's not how governments work. Maybe you should look into a private police force, or talk to a local mobster, because those seem to be the only legitimate ways to get what you are asking for.
Answers to your questions:
A) There are no more 'bad people' in this country than in any other.
B) We also execute more people than any other country (that keeps records).
C) The 'judges' have minimum sentencing guidelines set by the 'legislatures', which are mostly too severe and not suited to the crime.
D) This is a result of many Americans' (including yours) views on children and who should be responsible for raising them. It was established since before Locke wrote his Treatise on Government and our Founding Fathers created a country based upon his ideals.
If you are carrying drugs, I want you busted. This nonsense of drug crimes being prosecuted like jay-walking has to end.
Carrying drugs is no more a crime than your ignorant ranting on
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Finally we will be able to get a 3D map of a tooth and really see tooth decay.
No evil cancer causing X-rays and a poor 2D image.
Of course we'll wrap everything important in aluminium foil to prevent anyone scanning our letters...
So does this mean I can't order my prescription drugs from Brazil and Mexico anymore? I guess I'll have to pay off a doctor...
Never mind. Research shows that I may not have an argument. It depends on what exactly was ruled on in United States v. Atkinson (513 F.2d 38, 39-40 (4th Cir.1975)). Google turns up a whole bunch of citations of that case but does not turn up the actual text of the opinion.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Why not legalize pot? What's the point in just decriminalising it?
I'm all for legalization. The original replier said that most likely, decriminalization will occur and not ful legalization. To which, I said that decriminalization only makes sense for pot. And that the legislature won't consider it for other drugs if they're considering drug reform at all.
I don't know what medical uses alcohol has, but I know its not suggested by any doctors.
Nicotine does have one practical medical use, it really diminishes Tics in people with Tourette's. In fact, its the only drug to do that which doesn't cause major fatigue (like clonodine)
Many people with Tourette's wear patches for this purpose.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1549392.stm
"I drive high regularly and have never had an incident (That's right, never, not a ticket, not an accident, not even backing into a pole or wall or anything)." YET
You've been lucky so far. Your lucky experiences to date do not make a sound basis for intelligent policy.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
where they got the samples? and
does pink floyd have a japanese version?
The way I see it is we're going to get decriminalization which is worse [than legalization]
The distinction between decriminalization and legalization, though often repeated, is entirely bogus. Pot is illegal because, and only because, statutory criminal sanctions have been imposed in regard to its use, cultivation and possession. Should these criminal statutes be repealed, it will be no longer be illegal.
It's a different question of course, whether, once legalized (decriminalized), it should be regulated, of course.
Decriminalization keeps the product illegal, but removes all criminal punishment for possessing and using the substance, with the exception of possession with intent to sell, and other such trafficking charges.
Legalization allows companies to make it into a sellable product.
The government can't regulate decriminalized pot, because it is still illegal.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.