<openw>....sorry I went off on a tangent..the simple answer is no - I don't think its the gateway. Period. In relation to Brenda's post, I have always believed its a case of 'follow the money'. Drop marijuana from the legalization issue and you end all the crap we've made of its production and use over the years. Concentrate on whats really making society ill and what we are doing to our kids and lets fix that so we aren't so reliant on so many drugs to keep everyone happy and calm all the time. A study done somewhere here in the States, reports that almost half of all working people never take holidays. Why? Afraid to. Too much work. Can't afford it. Take a pill and keep going instead of taking a rest to recharge your body. Anyway....I digress..interesting topic. sammieswife.
sammielee24
JoinedPosts by sammielee24
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145
Cannabis vs Alchohol and Other Man Made Pharmacuticals
by OpenFireGlass inwell for starters i do have a prescription for cannabis (insomnia / depression).... why would i want to take pharmacuticals for insomnia/depression?
i mean, what if i get prescribed/addicted to a pill, that one day i might not be able to afford?
(if you/i grow cannabis it's more/less free)... now the moral issue... who is more likely to beat the shit out of their kids?
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145
Cannabis vs Alchohol and Other Man Made Pharmacuticals
by OpenFireGlass inwell for starters i do have a prescription for cannabis (insomnia / depression).... why would i want to take pharmacuticals for insomnia/depression?
i mean, what if i get prescribed/addicted to a pill, that one day i might not be able to afford?
(if you/i grow cannabis it's more/less free)... now the moral issue... who is more likely to beat the shit out of their kids?
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sammielee24
Is Cannabis a gateway drug? Or is Tobbacco and alchohol the real culprits?
Today, there are something like 4 million kids..and I mean young kids - on drugs like ritalin, prozac and a whole host of other anti depressants and mood or mind altering drugs. In fact, it might have been 4 million in the USA a few years ago so no doubt it's well over that figure now. The bottom line is, meth and crack are overtaking weed as a drug of choice and now some in the medical field are linking the prescribed drug use in children to adult drug addiction. It makes perfect sense. When did we become a society that has to drug millions of kids? When did we say it's okay to do that? There are some real cases of ADD and ADHD that require medical intervention, but I would hazard a guess that most of the millions are simply turned off and tuned out for a lot of other reasons we aren't dealing with. In the 50's/60's and even 70's, we turned out good kids in the same numbers we do today, and I can't recall any one of the kids I knew being on prescribed drugs. Suddenly in the 80's and upward, a buzzword came out and a drug to go with it - ADD/ADHD. One of my nephews was tested and drugged for years because of ADD and I recall him having an anxiety attack when he realized he was out of meds at school - he called home in a frenzy - he was all of 11 years old. When I discussed it with him later, he told me (very naturally and casually) that oh yeah - there were about 20 of them in the school that took the same stuff and they lined up for the nurse to give it to them at specific times of the day. Multiply that scene 500 fold and we have a problem.
I think if someone gets relief for pain when smoking weed - then he should do it if he wants. In fact, I think it should be legal to grow a plant or two for your own medicinal use, just as anyone would use dandelion for wine or catnip for tea. Get it out of the legal system and the dealers disappear, you control the cost, unclog the courts. I don't think people should drive under the influence of anything but heck - how many people are driving around taking allergy medicine that makes them drowsy, or prescribed pain killers, or 10 cups of coffee that make them jittery?
I have never understood a society where people in hospitals, in excruciating pain and dying, beg for morphine and the doctors cannot or will not increase the dosage, yet the same society has a death penalty by lethal injection so it's painfree and where we euthanize our pets in the most careful and least painful way. An elderly man who was riddled by cancer and in constant, wearying and tremendous pain lived up the road from me. It was frustrating to hear him moan and broke your heart out when he couldn't walk because of the pain. The drugs he was given did little for him...until he was given some marijuana by a young relative. By that point, regardless on his stance before on the drug, he smoked some and from that minute, until he died 6 months later, that became his primary drug to reduce the pain. During that time he was able to move around more than he had in the entire year before and his quality of life improved to the point that he was able to get out of the house and visit with people and enjoy himself. Had the person supplying him with the stuff been caught, he would have been charged regardless of the motive he had for possessing or buying the drug.
sammieswife.
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Lawsuit info from the Wallersheim case..he won..interesting
by sammielee24 inappellant argues these "fair game" practices are protected.
religious expression.
upholding the constitutional right of the jehovah's witness.
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sammielee24
I should also point out that he originally won 30 million dollars in his case, despite the case being appealed twice - the COS lost and a final order was rendered.
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Lawsuit info from the Wallersheim case..he won..interesting
by sammielee24 inappellant argues these "fair game" practices are protected.
religious expression.
upholding the constitutional right of the jehovah's witness.
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sammielee24
I find it fascinating. The state does not like to pay out money..so in essence, if a person is df'd and driven to commit suicide as a direct result of this extreme act which results in emotional harm, (the case of Paul vs WTS shows emotional harm as a fact) then his surviving family if they have to seek financial aid from the state, would likely be able to sue for the WTS for loss of income/support and mental and emotional distress. Witnesses are told that if you work with a df'd person, then you should do whatever it takes to remove yourself from that situation - therefore, how many are terminated from their job or how many have left jobs in order to satisfy the demands from the top? I think there are more and more of these cases coming up and more and more the individual is winning. There was an article in the paper last week about a woman who was being shunned (might have been mennonite) by a store clerk in her town where she had to shop. She suffered extreme emotional stress and physical hardship, as well as embarassment. She sued and won on the basis of discrimination. The tide is turning....sammieswife.
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5
Lawsuit info from the Wallersheim case..he won..interesting
by sammielee24 inappellant argues these "fair game" practices are protected.
religious expression.
upholding the constitutional right of the jehovah's witness.
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sammielee24
Appellant argues these "fair game" practices are protected
religious expression. They cite to a recent Ninth Circuit case
upholding the constitutional right of the Jehovah's Witness
Church and its members to "shun" heretics from that religion even
though the heretics suffer emotional injury as a result. (Paul
v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc. of New York, supra, 819 F.2d
875.) In this case a former Jehovah's Witness sued the church and
certain church leaders for injuries she claimed to have suffered
when the church ordered all other church members to "shun" her.
In the Jehovah Witness religion, "shunning" means church members
are prohibited from having any contact whatsoever with the former
member. They are not to greet them or conduct any business with
them or socialize with them in any manner. Thus, there was a
clear connection between the religious practice of "shunning" and
Ms. Paul's emotional injuries. Nonetheless, the trial court
dismissed her case. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in an opinion
which expressly held "shunning" is a constitutionally protected
religious practice. "[T]he defendants, . . . possess an
affirmative defense of privilege -- a defense that permits them
to engage in the practice of shunning pursuant to their religious
beliefs without incurring tort liability." (Id. at p. 879.)We first note another appellate court has taken the opposite
view on the constitutionality of "shunning." (Bear v. Reformed
Mennonite Church (1975) 462 Pa. 330 [341 A.2d 105].) In this case
the Pennsylvania Supreme Court confronted a situation similar to
Paul v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc. of New York. The plaintiff
was a former member of the Mennonite Church. He was
excommunicated for criticizing the church. Church leaders
ordered that all members must "shun" the plaintiff. As a result,
both his business and family collapsed. The appellate court
reversed the trial court's dismissal of the action, holding: "In
our opinion, the complaint, . . . raises issues that the
'shunning' practice of appellee church and the conduct of the212 Cal.App.3d at 890:
individuals may be an excessive interference within areas of
'paramount state concern,' i.e., the maintenance of marriage and
family relationship, alienation of affection, and the tortious
interference with a business relationship, which the courts of
this Commonwealth may have authority to regulate, even in light
of the 'Establishment' and 'Free Exercise' clauses of the First
Amendment." (Bear v. Reformed Mennonite Church, supra, 341 A.2d
at p. 107, italics in original.)We observe the California Supreme Court has cited with
apparent approval the viewpoint on "shunning" expressed in Bear
v. Mennonite Church, supra, rather than the one adopted in Paul
v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc. of New York, supra. (See Molko
v. Holy Spirit Assn., supra, 46 Cal.3d 1092, 1114.) But even were
Paul v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc. of New York the law of this
jurisdiction it would not support a constitutional shield for
Scientology's retribution program. In the instant case
Scientology went far beyond the social "shunning" of its heretic,
Wollersheim. Substantial evidence supports the conclusion
Scientology leaders made the deliberate decision to ruin
Wollersheim economically and possibly psychologically. Unlike
the plaintiff in Paul v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc. of New
York, Wollersheim did not suffer his economic harm as an
unintended byproduct of his former religionists' practice of
refusing to socialize with him any more. Instead he was
bankrupted by a campaign his former religionists carefully
designed with the specific intent it bankrupt him. Nor was this
campaign limited to means which are arguably legal such as
refusing to continue working at Wollersheim's business or to
purchase his services or products. Instead the campaign featured
a concerted practice of refusing to honor legal obligations
Scientologists owed Wollersheim for services and products they
already had purchased. -
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Do you have trouble with 'Renters' in the block?
by AK - Jeff ini live in a lake area, out of town.
my neighborhood is mostly single family homes.
but there are two small rentals in the area close by - a duplex and a tri-plex.
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sammielee24
We live in a nice area - no problems with renters - we rent ourselves. On the other hand - the last house I owned was beside a rental. The owner was a slum landlord who had no problem letting the property go. There were holes in the eaves where squirrels nested and boards on the windows downstairs. He conned a disabled man and wife into living upstairs in the house and taking most of their measley monthly payment. A lot of renters are responsible - a lot aren't, but there are also a lot of landlords that take the monthly rent but do little else. sammieswife.
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Mama Bear and 2 Cubs
by Cabin in the woods inour property connects near a national forest and you never know what is going to pop out of the woods and where!.
today, looking through tall grass in a field sat / laid a big fat mama bear peering down the hillside towards the road and beside her were 2 cute little cubs leaping and playing.
they were darling and very, very shiney and healthy.
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sammielee24
I love the animal stories...just this weekend a wild turkey and her 5 little chicklets hung out around the bird bath and that was cool, about 20 quail wander about morning and night, lots of deer, saw a bobcat beside the house last May, possum, racoons and last weekend saw a huge black and white snake sliding along into the brush. Something peaceful about being around a lot of wildlife..sammieswife.
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What nice, interesting thing did you see today?
by Lady Lee inso often we are stuck in the negative part of life and see so much of the bad.
the news is full of it.
i look for the things that are nice.
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sammielee24
Sparkplug...I absolutely love your pictures...they are beautiful. sammieswife.
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Mary Magdalene
by I-follow-the-narrow-path inif it was proven that jesus, in fact, has a bloodline.
what do you think this will do to religions?
and is it at all possible to prove that mary magdalene and jesus had an intimate relationship?
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sammielee24
Where in scripture does it say she was a prostitute?
Apparently that was changed in the 1960's by the Catholic Church. Call it a 'previous error' in translation or call it 'politics and religious' as governor, but either way, it was in the best interest of the Church to further their own cause by eliminating the stature of Mary Magdalene. To portray her as a prostitute was to bring her to the lowest form thereby raising up all of the male apostles. I believe that politics and religion have danced arm in arm forever in changing the face of the world so I have to question how far fetched it really is to believe that the bible collection of stories was decided upon in counsel and advancement was secured by law until the book became so traditionally ingrained that there was never a thought given to it's political origins. sammieswife.
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Mary Magdalene
by I-follow-the-narrow-path inif it was proven that jesus, in fact, has a bloodline.
what do you think this will do to religions?
and is it at all possible to prove that mary magdalene and jesus had an intimate relationship?
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sammielee24
Let's give Opus Dei the opportunity to give their side of the story
They did get this opportunity. There was a documentary not that long ago where ex members and current members and leaders spoke about what Opus Dei is. It also included the history of how and when it started.
There are not all that many members of Opus Dei and although as you like to say - they work and live in the world - so do JW's and they are a sect or a cult - whichever you choose to call it. They also cut off people from their families in order to 'serve'. They also operate huge living residences where it is the job of women to lovingly prepare meals and keep house. Their mission is to bring others into the fold. Members hand over large portions of their pay checks to the organization. They do bible study every day and there are different levels of study up to that of the celibate. They are told what to read, follow their own interpretation of the bible and so on and so on and the pledge to the organization.
The Da Vinci depiction was dramatized to further the story..but Opus Dei was not entirely misrepresented. sammieswife.