Tags for this video have been changed from 'inception, psychonauts, remix, dreams, reality, world, video game, tim schaffer' to 'inception, psychonauts, remix, dreams, reality, world, video game, tim schafer' - edited by thegrimsleeper

Good, but I prefer Schaffer the Darklord's Craigslist song.

^Wrong again, my friend. I never mentioned that I thought you were a marijuana user. I was referring to other comments made by... potheads. I'm sorry if you felt wrongly accused.

Do you need citations? Okay, here:

A 2007 study by the Canadian government found cannabis smoke contained more toxic substances than tobacco smoke. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7150274.stm

Cannabis use has been assessed by several studies to be correlated with the development of anxiety, psychosis and depression.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118739270/abstract?C
RETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Links between long-term use and incidence of heart attacks, strokes, as well as abnormalities in the amygdala and hippocampus regions of the brain.
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/05/13/pot-stroke.html

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews
/story/CTVNews/20080602/marijuana_effects_080602/20080602?hub=Health

It has been estimated by the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention that over 140 million people worldwide use marijuana. Their study has shown that marijuana is the second most common drug found in the bloodstream of those who have suffered fatal injuries.
http://www.ehow.com/about_4688712_harmful-effects-marijuana.html

Medical Marijuana? The National Multiple Sclerosis Society states that there is no convincing evidence that marijuana provides any health benefits for those with MS.
http://www.nationalmssociety.org/index.aspx

Legalization advocates point to marijuana's many claimed health benefits, such as the possible reduction of cancerous tumor growths, decrease in the number of spasms in Parkinson's and epilepsy patients, and that it is useful in the treatment of wasting syndrome caused by AIDS. However, in a study conducted by the Institute of Medicine in 1999, it was concluded that there is no medical value attached to marijuana in the treatment of these conditions. It is the belief of the British Medical Association that due to these widespread misconceptions, the public has been fooled into believing that marijuana is safe to use, when in actuality its effects have been proven harmful to health.
http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3775/5608/14066.aspx

In 1982, the National Academy of Sciences conducted a study on the health effects of marijuana on the body. The study spanned a period of 15 months, and in its closing statement says, "...the scientific evidence published to date indicates that marijuana has a broad range of psychological and biological effects, some of which, at least under certain circumstances, are harmful to a person's health."
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/nas/AMPMenu.htm

...and one of my favorites:
One study that was published in 'Neurology,' conducted by Dr. Lambros Messinis, neurologist for University Hospital of Patras in Greece, concluded that the longer a person used marijuana, the greater the deterioration of their cognitive abilities such as their ability to remember important facts and their ability to learn new things.
http://www.neurology.org/cgi/reprint/67/10/1902
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/426691/marijuana_again_
tied_to_memory_problems/

If you'd like more examples of how boneheaded this debate is, I will gladly throw a few together when I have 10 more minutes.

I c wat Schaffer did thar

Bob Schaffer, Bob Schaffer, Bob Schaffer, Bob Schaffer, Bob Schaffer, Bob Schaffer ...






Bob Schaffer.

Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich’s spokeswoman commented: "While Alaskans can understand why Bob Schaffer would promote our beautiful mountain, I hope he doesn’t expect Alaska to cede North America’s highest peak to the State of Colorado."

This video has me convinced that Paul Schaffer is aging backwards.

Eric,
As officers pursued the car at speeds up to 100 mph, they said Bennett rammed his car into a police cruiser, then hit a tree.
--Didnt see that. Cops looked like they were doing all the ramming.--
Of course you didn't; it was cut from this clip.

But when officers approached on foot near Cooper Road, police said, Bennett drove the car at them again and continued down Reed Hartman as police fired on the car.
--I saw an officer ram the suspects car. Then they cut to an officer who is shooting at the suspect.--
Again, this was cut from the video. Also, of course they cut to an officer firing upon the driver - the video was made to make them look bad.

"The vehicle was being used as a weapon," said police Capt. James Schaffer.
-- The only vehicles I saw used as a weapons were the police cars.--
The incident that they are referring to was cut. The one you are referring to is the one at the end. The LEOs were using their cars as tools - they didn't intend to kill the suspect by ramming him, they intended to box him in and prevent escape. The suspect tried to use his car to cause injury or death to the officer.
Yes, the officer did fire six times. Though I think that the "fired twice" thing may have been a misunderstanding -any one who's seen the video can't argue that. I checked the possibility that someone may have added false gunshots in the making up this clip - I tried counting muzzle flashes but I can't make any conclusive arguments. It does appear that there were indeed six.

Police said an officer tried to pull over a car on Cornell Road near Sycamore High School for driving without lights just before 12:30 a.m.

The officer told dispatchers that he thought the Monte Carlo might be one
stolen from Clermont County last week.
--Never heard him say that

Officers said the driver of the car, Charles Wayne Bennett, tried to run over the officer, then raced away, turning onto Reed Hartman Highway.
--Didnt see that. I assume this is where the officer says the subject tried to ram him, which is clearly BS from the video.


As officers pursued the car at speeds up to 100 mph, they said Bennett rammed his car into a police cruiser, then hit a tree.
--Didnt see that. Cops looked like they were doing all the ramming.--

But when officers approached on foot near Cooper Road, police said, Bennett drove the car at them again and continued down Reed Hartman as police fired on the car.
--I saw an officer ram the suspects car. Then they cut to an officer who is shooting at the suspect.--

"The vehicle was being used as a weapon," said police Capt. James Schaffer.
-- The only vehicles I saw used as a weapons were the police cars.--

After another collision, the car stopped again, and an officer attempted to arrest Bennett. When Bennett tried to hit the officer with the car, the officer ended up on the car's hood and fired twice, hitting Bennett at least once.
--I saw the officer ram the suspect then from another camera the officer steps or jumps onto the hood at which time the suspects car starts to move forward. He then fired not twice but six times as I see it. I dont think what he did could be considered an attempt to arrest.--

The point Im making is the police or police dept. lied to bolster there justification of the shooting. I would call cops that lie, bad cops.

By the way I dont dislike police officers. I do have higher expectations for them, when it comes to, the way they perform there job. Far to often they are excused for what they do because they are one of the good guys.

Police said an officer tried to pull over a car on Cornell Road near Sycamore High School for driving without lights just before 12:30 a.m.

The officer told dispatchers that he thought the Monte Carlo might be one stolen from Clermont County last week.

Officers said the driver of the car, Charles Wayne Bennett, tried to run over the officer, then raced away, turning onto Reed Hartman Highway.

Audio: Radio Transmissions From Blue Ash Chase, Shooting

As officers pursued the car at speeds up to 100 mph, they said Bennett rammed his car into a police cruiser, then hit a tree.

But when officers approached on foot near Cooper Road, police said, Bennett drove the car at them again and continued down Reed Hartman as police fired on the car.

"The vehicle was being used as a weapon," said police Capt. James Schaffer.

After another collision, the car stopped again, and an officer attempted to arrest Bennett. When Bennett tried to hit the officer with the car, the officer ended up on the car's hood and fired twice, hitting Bennett at least once.

Blue Ash police say they shot and killed a man early today after he tried to run over officers following a high-speed chase in the suburban city just northeast of Cincinnati.

Blue Ash police Captain James Schaffer said officers had no choice, because the car was being used as a weapon.

The chase began shortly after midnight when police tried to stop a car being driven erratically near a high school. Police say the car had been reported stolen.

Police say the car collided with a police cruiser, then accelerated when two officers approached on foot. The vehicle then hit another cruiser.

Adults didn't make these laws to protect themselves though, they were lied into it. Politicians and business interests made them to serve themselves. The one doctor from the AMA who testified before committee said they didn't agree, committee lied to the full Congress when asked about it. It's in the records.

Refer madness, addicts in the streets, and so on. Turned out little of it was true, but they were sold the lie. Try offering them honest education and a real choice and you've got a point. Do it based on hysteria and lies and you don't.

We knew it was lies, New York Mayor's Committee on Marihuana established that. Same mayor as the airport is named after, widely seen as a hero of the era. He was against alcohol prohibition then when the Hearst and other newspapers started printing horror stories about pot some included New York. He looks around and can't find what they claim, it seemed invented, so asked for his own study. Years later we got the following. We've always known, we just pretended we didn't.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/lag/lagmenu.htm

I posted this for you once before, I'll post it again and you can read it or not as your wish.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm

That's a history which covers from pre-prohibition until fairly recently, written by a professor of law and delivered to the annual judges conference.

Here's some of the details they used to "convince" us of it since, a collection of some of the junk science which has been tried on us over the years. The playboy one I especially though was amusing, but all were interesting.

http://www.jackherer.com/chapter15.html

A quick example. They forced Rhesus monkeys into gas masks and fed massive quantities of smoke to them in a very short time then did it again, and again, and again, and when they were done they assumed all damage was pot and ignored things like a need for oxygen. It took a freedom of information act request to even get the Government to share the methodology behind their "proof", and when they did the world laughed. Oxygen deprivation and carbon monoxide poisoning, not pot did the damage.

Does that make pot harmless? Nope. Smoke all the time and you do suffer learning impairment, the cancer scare turns out to have had little to it but it can cause bronchitis with abuse and has some other drawbacks too. Some do seem prone to mental problems being aggravated even if not caused due to it, but that's some. Not all. Too many think it's harmless though, and we know why. With all the lies they have been fed about pot they tend to assume any warning is a lie, so much else has been.

That in a nutshell is the problem with the drug war. Use went up here through the 50's-70's in spite of laws that in places could and did could offer a sentence as heavy as life for a joint. Use went up some in the Netherlands with coffee shops. Use went up worldwide in that time period. Now look at who has problems with it, and who doesn't. With them use today is half of what it is here and the kids don't seem hung up on it so much as recognize it as recreation to be had in its place and time rather than all the time. Kind of like that glass of wine, beer, or whatever else we have with meals or in front of a game rather than all the time. It isn't safe either with abuse, but it isn't a problem with casual use at home.

Today we treat all drugs the same, pot is classed with heroin and we try to convince the kids they are somehow similar. So when we manage to convince them of half of it, that they are similar, then they find we've lied about pot, what do we expect them to think about the harder drugs? They don't believe us because of the lies. It's our own damned fault.

Real facts, real regulation that separates dangerous from mild risk. Not because no harm can come from drugs, but because so much can and it's got worse without them. What I expect is not free use, it's regulated and probably as tightly as we can. We need to allow users enough access to get rid of the street dealers, but not an inch more than we have to. Trial study and science, not scare tactics and moral requirements. At this point neither I nor anyone else knows what it'll look like when we're done if we let the results lead the way, we can just guess. We need to do the work and make sure. If it's a bad idea, it never gets out of trial study, small scale use in a limited area. If good, maybe we've got a way out of some of this damage. We'll never know until we look.

Edited to clarify the carbon monoxide poisoning point on pot.

I'll offer you two bits of info here to consider before we go any farther, yaroslavvb. Please take the time to read, they'll help.

First an excerpt from the Lancet medical journal report I'd mentioned above. As I'd said above and as repeated in their findings, unattractive for young people now. It isn't market theory that drives this. The climb in use is in the years before the program started and why they started it, they had one of the worst abuse rates in the area. The fall started shortly after the program did.

Summary

Background Switzerland has been criticised for its liberal drug policy, which could attract new users and lengthen periods of heroin addiction. We sought to estimate incidence trends and prevalence of problem heroin use in Switzerland.

Methods We obtained information about first year of regular heroin use from the case register of substitution treatments in the canton of Zurich for 7256 patients (76% of those treated between 1991 and March, 2005). We estimated the proportion of heroin users not yet in substitution treatment programmes using the conditional lag-time distribution. Cessation rate was the proportion of individuals leaving substitution treatment programmes and not re-entering within the subsequent 10 years. Overall prevalence of problematic heroin use was modelled as a function of incidence and cessation rate.

Findings Every second person began their first substitution treatment within 2 years of starting to use heroin regularly. Incidence of heroin use rose steeply, starting with about 80 people in 1975, culminating in 1990 with 850 new users, and declining substantially to about 150 users in 2002. Two-thirds of those who had left substitution treatment programmes re-entered within the next 10 years. The population of problematic heroin users declined by 4% a year. The cessation rate in Switzerland was low, and therefore, the prevalence rate declined slowly. Our prevalence model accords with data generated by different approaches.

Interpretation The harm reduction policy of Switzerland and its emphasis on the medicalisation of the heroin problem seems to have contributed to the image of heroin as unattractive for young people. Our model could enable the study of incidence trends across different countries and thus urgently needed assessments of the effect of different drug policies.

Introduction

Switzerland has been criticised for its liberal drug policy. Specifically, the implementation of harm reduction measures, such as drug consumption rooms, needle-exchange services, low-threshold methadone programmes, and heroin-assisted treatments, have been thought to make potential users think that harm will not arise from use of illicit drugs. According to this critique, such a policy would lead to a growing number of new users of street drugs and lengthen the period of heroin addiction. Contrary to this belief, stable prevalence of heroin use since 1994 has been reported in Switzerland.

http://www.sharemation.com/Rubin/H/swiss.heroin.summary_lancet.367.1830-4_2006.html

Second we'll deal with the idea that any of this had to do with health or safety to start with. It was more control, politics. The following link is to a speech derived from The Forbidden Fruit and the Tree of Knowledge: An Inquiry into the Legal History of American Marijuana Prohibition by Professor Richard J. Bonnie & Professor Charles H. Whitebread, II, and given by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School.

It is the history of non-medical use of drugs in this nation, how and why the laws developed and when. No, he's not just some activist. He had done some research on his own that impressed the Government enough that he was a part of a team given access to government archives to research the issue. That's what he was there for. It's a bit long and reads odd at times since it was meant to be spoken instead of read, but it's a good bit of history we won't see much elsewhere. It wasn't to keep the kids safe. It was politics.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm

Is any of what we've got so far perfect? Probably not. What we do should be decided by research and trial studies, even when we are doing better than we're doing now we shouldn't stop looking. It should always be pursuit of a better method. Much of what we're considering today seems better than what we've done so far, and where they've been tried the fears of what could happen often turn out to be misplaced. If in some case they aren't we trash that method and try again, that's why we start in trial study instead of widespread use. That's how the Swiss went from needle park, a failure, to the maintenance program, a success. It's a process, not a simple "we do it this way" answer. We do what works, and if we're lucky we do it without politics or special interests getting in the way.

Not harmless, but not all that dangerous. For most people. There are exceptions who should probably avoid it and if you haven't tried there's really no reason to run out and do it, nothing much to worry about with moderate or light use either. Less than with drinking, though abuse is a problem with anything.

DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis Young ruled on a marijuana petition in 1988. The ruling was non-binding so the DEA ignored it but after nearly a year he ruled against the DEA. Among his conclusions were these.

In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity.

In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating ten raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death.

Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care.

You can read the full case notes at the following, conclusions are in part 4. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/YOUNG/young.html

Just in case anyone is concerned about the old cancer scare, look up the name on the papers which made the initial claims. Many were done by or based on the work of Dr Tashkin. He never did prove it but always wanted to so not long ago did his most in depth study yet and disproved his own theory. No cancer link he could show, and a possible negative correlation.

Scientific American reported on it at the following. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0002491F-755F-1473-B55F83414B7F0000

All that said, no it's NOT harmless. Many dangers are overstated but there are real good reasons to not be high all the time and certain people who may be more prone to problems than others. A decent place for the short story, not just medical, on many drugs and angles of the drug war is the following, if you want to read the full medical reports they are listed so you can research it for yourself. http://www.drugwarfacts.org/index2.htm

Sorry for the long note. Seemed a lot to say, and I'd like to have said more actually edited to correct a typo.