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Europe, Legislation
Russia faces imported alcohol shortage
Russia faces a huge shortage of imported wine & liquor, and many alcohol distributors face financial ruin, after legislation calling for a new excise stamp to be displayed on imported bottles came into force Sunday. The problem is that the issuing of government-issued stamps has been delayed through bureaucratic bungling and so many importers, who must put the stamps on themselves, have not actually been able to conform to the new regulations. Calls for the delaying of the legislation’s implementation have been rejected. In addition, importers are required to purchase thousands of dollars of new equipment and software to carry out the stamping job. The equipment must then be installed and certified by a company with links to the FSS - the new KGB - in a special room with a certain temperature, a prescribed amount of space and the right size of dust particles in the air.
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Legislation, North America, People, Studies
It’s only a matter of time smokers
For smokers it’s starting to look more and more like that. This past June was a bad month for many smokers and an early Christmas holiday for many anti smokers and the folks who lobby on behalf of limiting smoking rights and freedoms.
A few of the more news worthy and important smoking items (At least to me) were:
Philadelphia Pennsylvania’s city counsel after wrangling for almost two years finally passed a bill to ban smoking in almost all public spaces. Following the lead of the states of Delaware, and more recently New Jersey (Statewide bans) Philly has decided that it needs to protect people from themselves whether they like it or not. Business owners be damned. At first it got very little support from the council and was voted down at least once and then tabled. But like everything else in Philly the real game was played on the sly and just when it was thought to be dead for at least a good long time it amazingly, out of nowhere came back to life. Councilman Michael Nutter (Who is annoying to the extreme, in Philly that takes some doing) was behind the scenes tweaking the bill and cajoling folks to support the new version and finally got the votes needed. I know the majority of you could care less about Philly politics, but the point I’d like to make here was and is the insidious nature of how this bill was tweaked and passed if only to show that some folks will do anything no matter how deceptive to forward their agenda. Those were small items like not making the bill an all-encompassing ban. For instance, small neighborhood bars would be exempt if they could show that less than 10% of their income came from the sale of food, and outdoor cafes would allow you to light up also, allowing establishments lots of wiggle room to bend and twist and find loopholes. Like one other member of city council said “It’s like allowing smoking in economy class on a plane and not first class.” Typically Philly, and yet a reason the mayor still may not sign it into law. And of course Nutter wants to be our next mayor…blech!
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Europe, Legislation, The Media
The Times can’t get beyond its own rhetoric on Crystal Meth
The UK government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recently recommended that Crystal Meth be upgraded from a Class B to a Class A drug in the UK, with jail sentences up to seven years for possession and life for dealing. This inspired The Times of London to posit the following:
Meth might not yet be a household name in the UK, but it has wreaked havoc in America, and senior police officers caution that it may be mainstream here within two years. British newspapers are already describing it as a “creeping menace” that is “more deadly than crack”. Beyond the fear and media rhetoric, how worried should we be?
Unfortunately, despite its stated intentions, The Times decided it was not going to go very far beyond the rhetoric, distorting the extent of the meth problem in the United States.
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Legislation, North America, War on Drugs
“Raiding Reality: Congress and the rest of us”
Radley Balko comments in the National Review about the recent hypocrisy of members of the U.S. Congress as they reacted to the raiding of the office of Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-LA) Capitol Hill office by F.B.I. officers. The congressman, under investigation for bribery, had his office searched on the 20th of May with a properly […]
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Europe, Legislation, War on Drugs
Ben Elton calls for the legalisation of drugs
English comedian, writer and director Ben Elton, in a speech a few days ago before selected members of the Scottish Parliament, called for the legalisation of drugs. He cited current laws as contributing to the “criminalisation of the community” and the increased power of organised crime. Just as the era of Prohibition in the U.S. had failed society in general but not its criminal element in particular, the law - “a contemptible ass” - had created a ghettoised society. Elton, the author of the 2002 novel “High Society” that explored the widespread influence of drugs and, according to its publisher, “the ways in which the criminalisation of drugs criminalises us all”, said that doing nothing wasn’t an option. -
Asia, Legislation
North Korean government lectures its students on the good life
06.01.06 | Permalink | 2 Comments
Out of all the governments of the world, that of North Korea would seem to be the one of the least qualified to lecture its citizens on matters relating to health and general well being. Yet it is doing so, according to its official news agency, apparently by withholding lectures from wannabe university students. The measure, which would deprive students who smoked of a place at university, was announced on Wednesday’s World No Tobacco Day. As the Guardian newspaper noted in its coverage of the story, Kim Jong-il, who quit smoking in 2003, once said smokers were one of the “three main fools of the 21st century”, the others being those ignorant of music and computers. A rare piece of self-criticism.
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