Here's yet another reason why Canada's schools suck.

King said he was threatened with police action by Principal Susan Wilson previously after making the case that marijuana was less harmful than alcohol.

"In my opinion, cannabis is safer than they say, it is not worse than alcohol or tobacco," said King, a 15-year-old Grade 10 student.

A curious student goes home and researches a subject in which he's interested. He then discusses his findings with friends at school.

This is how people learn. When you find something interesting, and you dig up all the information you can on the subject. When you find people with similar interests, you share opinions as a group and learn from each others experiences.

Except in Canada. If your facts aren't contained in an education-board prescribed text book that's fifty years old, your opinion not only carries no weight, it's deemed to be dangerous. Asking questions which are not answered in the prescribed reading is exactly how an individual gains greater knowledge of a subject. Any fool can remember that 1+1=2, but if the pupil doesn't ask "Why?", or "How?", then they really haven't learned a damn thing!

What kind of message does this send to kids in our schools? If you ask too many questions and start to think independantly (ie. not agreeing with the school board), you're sorry ass will get suspended, and you're life will be ruined.

Kieran King is no slacker. He's an honor student with all of his grades in the 80's and 90's. And damn lucky for him. Due to his suspension, he'll be forced to miss his final exams. Due to his excellent academic work he'll still be able to pass. And unfortunately his transcript will reflect his ability to think independently as a negative.

With a school system that penalizes students for "thinking outside the box", it's no surprise that:

Compared with other industrialized countries, Canada is sinking in a pool of mediocrity that threatens to pull down our standard of living, says a new report from the Conference Board of Canada. [...]

The report card's results "tell a story of governments, businesses and people punching below their weight," its authors say. Even though the country is rich in natural resources and its population well educated, "too often we trail the pack. The failure to innovate is a large part of the explanation for our mediocrity -- a mediocrity that is hampering what we can do and what we can be."

Labels: Canadian Justice, drugs, etc, Kieran King

Parti Quebecois Leader Andre Boisclair is just trying to kiss the Quebec election away (link).

Boisclair was speaking to students this week about his studies at Harvard when he referred to students with "slanting eyes." Boisclair was talking about global competition from Asian economies like India and China and the number of young people who leave these countries to pursue studies in the United States.

"The reality is these countries are not just working to create jobs in sweatshops," Boisclair said in Trois-Rivieres, Que.

"When I was in Boston, where I spent a year, I was surprised to see that on campus about one-third of the students doing their bachelor's degrees had slanting eyes."

I guess his admitted cocaine use (while he was in Cabinet) just wasn't damaging enough.

Labels: drugs, politics, Quebec

After years of being completely legal, unregulated, and causing massive fun for potheads everywhere, the government folks who regulate fun are finally finding out about salvia divinorum.

What "The Man" says:

Health Canada has been 'monitoring' the national and international trend of salvia use but say the long-term effects of the hallucinogen are unknown. In the short term, they say, it has been known to cause unconsciousness and short-term memory loss but they are not aware of any dependency.

"If it ever came to the point where there was an influx of use and police and health-care professionals said this substance posed a threat, then we would take appropriate action," says Health Canada spokesman Jason Bouzanis. "For now, we're continuing to collect relevant information specific to this substance."

Salvia has been used for hundreds of years by the Mazatec indigenous people of Mexico for spiritual trips and is usually chewed or smoked. It gives users a short but powerful hallucination, lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 minutes.

Let me enlighten you to the short, and long-term effects of Salvia, I've used salvia before, actually three times. And let me tell you, its the wildest trip you'll find, period. After you've smoked Salvia, drugs like Acid, Exstasy, and Magic Mushrooms seem like Children's Tylenol, a total joke.

The effects are that you leave your body, you "hallucinate". It's not your daddy's hallucination though. While hallucinating on other drugs, you know that what you're seeing is not real, and thats why we enjoy it. Salvia however, you don't know that you're hallucinating. The reality bites you hard in the ass, and thats why its such a disturbing drug, even to the hardest drug users. Time loses all meaning, on a single trip you can feel as though years, even decades have passed. Out of body experiences are also common, though even those are different. People have reported becoming abstract things, like puddles, the paint on the wall, or in my case I became the couch. The real trip for me was spending what felt like 20 years as my couch. At first I didn't like it, it was boring. But as the 20 years progressed, I became content with my position as a couch, and I tried to be the best couch I could be. Sound maniacal? Well, it probably is.

Now you're probably thinking that people on Salvia are dangerous lunatics who have no grasp of reality. And you're right, except for the dangerous part. Saliva completely incapacitates its smoker. The greatest danger you pose to those around you is that you might gather the gumption to stand up, and if you do, you'll promptly be on the ground again. I have never seen someone on Salvia travel more than 3ft, its just not possible.

Scary stuff to the unenlightened, I know! The other things about Salvia that should be known, is that it might be the polar opposite of addictive. Every first-time Salvia smoker will tell you one thing the next day: "glad I did it, but I'll never do it again". It causes long term terror in the mind of the smoker, complete and utter fear of such a mind altering drug. Nobody smokes Salvia and says "Lets do it again!".

Even amongst lovers of the Herb, such as myself, does anybody smoke this stuff more than once a month. Not because its unaffordable or dangerous, just because nobody in their right mind would want to. It's difficult to explain, but ask your local Salvia smoker.

The other great thing about Salvia, is that its a 15-minute high. You are in a different world for 15 minutes, and then you return to This Reality, and hard. Most people need a 5 minute re-assimilation period, but everybody makes it.

The only long term effect of the drug is that the user will ask himself for weeks afterwards "What in the fuck was that?". Which is not dangerous, and some of us go back for more, to try to figure it out (btw - you can't figure it out).

So my question is this: why criminalize it? It causes no longterm harm to the user, it has no addictive properties, it causes zero short-term harm to the community. It's fifteen minutes of fun, nothing more, nothing less.

I would sincerely like to read commentary on why people think this drug should be illegal, other than to support the "War on Drugs".

Labels: drugs, Real Life