Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[Karabiner]

...Meanwhile, subtly changing tack, so impercetibly you may not even notice......

Tonight's guests on Sky Poker include Luther Blissett, a footballer-chappie. I think he may be an ex-footballer. Send in your e-Mails about him - or PM me with them, & we'll ask him what's what.

The Presenter is Michelle Orpe, who's a girlie, if I'm not mistaken. She's just arrived, & looks like a walking jumble-sale, wearing desert boots for goodness sake. Girls fashions these days, eh?

Tonight, as I'm back here tomorrow, I stay over at Heathrow, Jurys Hotel, right by the runway. Don't get better than that. The 'planes take off - that's go UP, & land - come DOWN.

It is called 'Fashion' TK and my desert boots are very practical actually, they don't let the rain in, they are extemely comfortable and they are the perfect size for booting you up your rather large...yet strangely pert....rear end.
I also notice how you give everyone your hotel details, TK's desperate to get himself a personal stalker you see, but unfortunately no-ones taken him up on the offer yet. One day his dream will come true and a slightly overweight, bearded gentlemen will be camped outside his hotel room door with a billboard saying 'look no further, I am here and waiting' hahaha

Ps, TK is on my team for the pub quiz - 'The Orpsterjetmeister generals'

The beard is coming off in the morning ......

[boldie]

. I'm certainly not convinced that cannabis necessarily leads to more harmful drugs

Resident Dutch guy to the rescue. It has actually been proven that in a normal situation the use of soft-drugs (Like cannabis) does NOT lead to the use of hard-drugs. However, when cannabis is illegal it puts you in touch with some people that you probably don't want to be in touch with..and THAT makes the use of hard drugs more likely.

I used to frequent a coffeeshop regularly and EVERYONE there knew not to mess with hard drugs..and you'd never consider it simply because you're not put in that sort of environment.
The hard drugs problem in the UK is massive compared to what it is in Holland..Cannabis being illegal is definitely one of the reasons for this.

You fly around posting on the forum all day...WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG HERE?!?!   

lol...I'm at work all day=on the forum all day. In the evening I spend time with the mrs and give you guys a break from the madness

[kinboshi]

...Meanwhile, subtly changing tack, so impercetibly you may not even notice......

Tonight's guests on Sky Poker include Luther Blissett, a footballer-chappie. I think he may be an ex-footballer. Send in your e-Mails about him - or PM me with them, & we'll ask him what's what.

The Presenter is Michelle Orpe, who's a girlie, if I'm not mistaken. She's just arrived, & looks like a walking jumble-sale, wearing desert boots for goodness sake. Girls fashions these days, eh?

Tonight, as I'm back here tomorrow, I stay over at Heathrow, Jurys Hotel, right by the runway. Don't get better than that. The 'planes take off - that's go UP, & land - come DOWN.

It is called 'Fashion' TK and my desert boots are very practical actually, they don't let the rain in, they are extemely comfortable and they are the perfect size for booting you up your rather large...yet strangely pert....rear end.
I also notice how you give everyone your hotel details, TK's desperate to get himself a personal stalker you see, but unfortunately no-ones taken him up on the offer yet. One day his dream will come true and a slightly overweight, bearded gentlemen will be camped outside his hotel room door with a billboard saying 'look no further, I am here and waiting' hahaha

Ps, TK is on my team for the pub quiz - 'The Orpsterjetmeister generals'

The beard is coming off in the morning ......

You're not overweight Ralph!

(but you should stop loitering round hotel corridors in the early hours of the morning)

[tikay]

Message to the Norkage brigade.

Orpey looks HOT tonight.

Sky Poker Channel 846, 9pm.

Norkage & Spam, seamless stuff. Like her top.

[Jon MW]

. I'm certainly not convinced that cannabis necessarily leads to more harmful drugs

Resident Dutch guy to the rescue. It has actually been proven that in a normal situation the use of soft-drugs (Like cannabis) does NOT lead to the use of hard-drugs. However, when cannabis is illegal it puts you in touch with some people that you probably don't want to be in touch with..and THAT makes the use of hard drugs more likely.

I used to frequent a coffeeshop regularly and EVERYONE there knew not to mess with hard drugs..and you'd never consider it simply because you're not put in that sort of environment.
The hard drugs problem in the UK is massive compared to what it is in Holland..Cannabis being illegal is definitely one of the reasons for this.

There is a certain amount of interpretation required of the statistics for reports on whether cannabis is a gateway drug to harder drugs.

This interpretation is actually the harsher side of the interpretation, the same kind of results can and have also been interpreted in a way that suggests that their is no link between cannabis use and harder drug use.

Putting it simply the argument that it is a gateway drug is based on the fact that most hard drug users started by using cannabis
The argument against, is based on the fact that most cannabis users won't go on to try harder drugs.

To my mind the latter is a more convincing argument.

[danafish]

Hello! I'm here to put my two cents in on the Drugs Debate...

1)

He got 14 weeks inside, which, hopefully, will help him clean up. It'll do him a huge favour, he's on his way to an early death.

Personally, I detest him, but that's partly the Medias fault, as they lionise him, because he's a celeb who does drugs. Some of us - many of us - abhor such waste of life & lives that drug abuse causes.

I too am not a Doherty fan and therefore am not in the slightest bit bothered that he has been locked up, but that is because he is a talentless, attention-seeking chancer. That has nothing to do with his drug use. Mr Doherty has been in and out of prison for years, for assortedly various counts of drug use, violating court orders, several counts of burglary, etc. I believe this is something like his sixth or seventh jail term - given his track record, I reckon that at this stage we can safely say that prison is not going to help clean him up.

2)

The Government has told the Judiciary to send less people to Prison, to alleviate prison overcrowding. That's how our Government tackles crime. Did you ever hear anything so daft as that? Talk about starting at the wrong end of the problem!

Is incarcerating criminals intended to be punitive or preventative? One might argue that it's meant to be a bit of both, but the fact is that our prisons are hugely overcrowded, and given this, surely jail should be reserved for those people who pose a significant threat to others, not to themselves? Sending people to prison is not only massively expensive for the taxpayer but also profoundly unlikely to help reform people whose main problems seem to be drugs and hanging out with the wrong crowd, filled as prisons are with drugs and the wrong crowd...

3)

I'm afraid we'll never agree on this. I think cannabis use, leading so often as it does to full-on drug use, is a bad thing. Show me someone (except when used medicinally) whose body benefits from drug use?

Nobody's arguing that it benefits you, but to say that smoking marijuana leads to, say, heroin addiction, is like saying that a pint after work with friends leads to drinking meths out of a paper bag on a park bench. Or, indeed, like saying that playing a bit of poker on a Saturday night leads to losing everything on the roulette. For some people, it might. But the vast majority of people have a bit of fun and then go merrily on their way. Thus most people who smoke marijuana do so moderately and responsibly, without affecting anyone else in any way. There is of course the well-known argument that by buying marijuana (an illegal substance) you are putting money in the hands of criminals (the drug dealers) and that that is a bad thing. But I think that the problem here is our draconian drug laws, not the drug itself. For example, fully legalizing and taxing marijuana - ie taking the drugs trade out of the hands of the criminals and putting its regulation in the hands of the government, the way we do with alcohol and tobacco - completely solves that problem.

I feel quite passionately that prohibition is not the right way for a government to deal with narcotics. When the Americans tried it with alcohol, the actual amount of alcohol consumed in the country roughly tripled (including a few bottles they kept back at the White House, incidentally). I think sometimes telling people they can't have something in itself makes them want to try it. And the amount and variety of drugs so easily available in this country, despite there being a bunch of laws prohibiting them, must surely say to us that the war on drugs is not being won. The history of Western drug laws is actually quite interesting, they weren't banned for the reasons you might think they were, very often there have been political motivations for governments telling us what we can and can't put into what are after all our own bodies. There's quite a good article concerning marijuana laws in the US here if you're interested:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

Rant over. Sorry.

[RED-DOG]

Hello! I'm here to put my two cents in on the Drugs Debate...

1)

He got 14 weeks inside, which, hopefully, will help him clean up. It'll do him a huge favour, he's on his way to an early death.

Personally, I detest him, but that's partly the Medias fault, as they lionise him, because he's a celeb who does drugs. Some of us - many of us - abhor such waste of life & lives that drug abuse causes.

I too am not a Doherty fan and therefore am not in the slightest bit bothered that he has been locked up, but that is because he is a talentless, attention-seeking chancer. That has nothing to do with his drug use. Mr Doherty has been in and out of prison for years, for assortedly various counts of drug use, violating court orders, several counts of burglary, etc. I believe this is something like his sixth or seventh jail term - given his track record, I reckon that at this stage we can safely say that prison is not going to help clean him up.

2)

The Government has told the Judiciary to send less people to Prison, to alleviate prison overcrowding. That's how our Government tackles crime. Did you ever hear anything so daft as that? Talk about starting at the wrong end of the problem!

Is incarcerating criminals intended to be punitive or preventative? One might argue that it's meant to be a bit of both, but the fact is that our prisons are hugely overcrowded, and given this, surely jail should be reserved for those people who pose a significant threat to others, not to themselves? Sending people to prison is not only massively expensive for the taxpayer but also profoundly unlikely to help reform people whose main problems seem to be drugs and hanging out with the wrong crowd, filled as prisons are with drugs and the wrong crowd...

3)

I'm afraid we'll never agree on this. I think cannabis use, leading so often as it does to full-on drug use, is a bad thing. Show me someone (except when used medicinally) whose body benefits from drug use?

Nobody's arguing that it benefits you, but to say that smoking marijuana leads to, say, heroin addiction, is like saying that a pint after work with friends leads to drinking meths out of a paper bag on a park bench. Or, indeed, like saying that playing a bit of poker on a Saturday night leads to losing everything on the roulette. For some people, it might. But the vast majority of people have a bit of fun and then go merrily on their way. Thus most people who smoke marijuana do so moderately and responsibly, without affecting anyone else in any way. There is of course the well-known argument that by buying marijuana (an illegal substance) you are putting money in the hands of criminals (the drug dealers) and that that is a bad thing. But I think that the problem here is our draconian drug laws, not the drug itself. For example, fully legalizing and taxing marijuana - ie taking the drugs trade out of the hands of the criminals and putting its regulation in the hands of the government, the way we do with alcohol and tobacco - completely solves that problem.

I feel quite passionately that prohibition is not the right way for a government to deal with narcotics. When the Americans tried it with alcohol, the actual amount of alcohol consumed in the country roughly tripled (including a few bottles they kept back at the White House, incidentally). I think sometimes telling people they can't have something in itself makes them want to try it. And the amount and variety of drugs so easily available in this country, despite there being a bunch of laws prohibiting them, must surely say to us that the war on drugs is not being won. The history of Western drug laws is actually quite interesting, they weren't banned for the reasons you might think they were, very often there have been political motivations for governments telling us what we can and can't put into what are after all our own bodies. There's quite a good article concerning marijuana laws in the US here if you're interested:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

Rant over. Sorry.

You know when you've been banjoed! 

Nice post Dana.

[booder]

Dana for Mod

[gatso]

very well put Dana. I'll have a read through that article later

[ifm]

I too am not a Doherty fan and therefore am not in the slightest bit bothered that he has been locked up, but that is because he is a talentless, attention-seeking chancer.

Nice post, not entirely ruined by this.
Doherty is many things, talentless is certainly not one of them.

[snoopy1239]

Hello! I'm here to put my two cents in on the Drugs Debate...

1)

He got 14 weeks inside, which, hopefully, will help him clean up. It'll do him a huge favour, he's on his way to an early death.

Personally, I detest him, but that's partly the Medias fault, as they lionise him, because he's a celeb who does drugs. Some of us - many of us - abhor such waste of life & lives that drug abuse causes.

I too am not a Doherty fan and therefore am not in the slightest bit bothered that he has been locked up, but that is because he is a talentless, attention-seeking chancer. That has nothing to do with his drug use. Mr Doherty has been in and out of prison for years, for assortedly various counts of drug use, violating court orders, several counts of burglary, etc. I believe this is something like his sixth or seventh jail term - given his track record, I reckon that at this stage we can safely say that prison is not going to help clean him up.

2)

The Government has told the Judiciary to send less people to Prison, to alleviate prison overcrowding. That's how our Government tackles crime. Did you ever hear anything so daft as that? Talk about starting at the wrong end of the problem!

Is incarcerating criminals intended to be punitive or preventative? One might argue that it's meant to be a bit of both, but the fact is that our prisons are hugely overcrowded, and given this, surely jail should be reserved for those people who pose a significant threat to others, not to themselves? Sending people to prison is not only massively expensive for the taxpayer but also profoundly unlikely to help reform people whose main problems seem to be drugs and hanging out with the wrong crowd, filled as prisons are with drugs and the wrong crowd...

3)

I'm afraid we'll never agree on this. I think cannabis use, leading so often as it does to full-on drug use, is a bad thing. Show me someone (except when used medicinally) whose body benefits from drug use?

Nobody's arguing that it benefits you, but to say that smoking marijuana leads to, say, heroin addiction, is like saying that a pint after work with friends leads to drinking meths out of a paper bag on a park bench. Or, indeed, like saying that playing a bit of poker on a Saturday night leads to losing everything on the roulette. For some people, it might. But the vast majority of people have a bit of fun and then go merrily on their way. Thus most people who smoke marijuana do so moderately and responsibly, without affecting anyone else in any way. There is of course the well-known argument that by buying marijuana (an illegal substance) you are putting money in the hands of criminals (the drug dealers) and that that is a bad thing. But I think that the problem here is our draconian drug laws, not the drug itself. For example, fully legalizing and taxing marijuana - ie taking the drugs trade out of the hands of the criminals and putting its regulation in the hands of the government, the way we do with alcohol and tobacco - completely solves that problem.

I feel quite passionately that prohibition is not the right way for a government to deal with narcotics. When the Americans tried it with alcohol, the actual amount of alcohol consumed in the country roughly tripled (including a few bottles they kept back at the White House, incidentally). I think sometimes telling people they can't have something in itself makes them want to try it. And the amount and variety of drugs so easily available in this country, despite there being a bunch of laws prohibiting them, must surely say to us that the war on drugs is not being won. The history of Western drug laws is actually quite interesting, they weren't banned for the reasons you might think they were, very often there have been political motivations for governments telling us what we can and can't put into what are after all our own bodies. There's quite a good article concerning marijuana laws in the US here if you're interested:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

Rant over. Sorry.

Hey. I've been misquoted by my own girlfriend... as in I never even said what I've been quoted as saying. I run so bad. 

[snoopy1239]

I too am not a Doherty fan and therefore am not in the slightest bit bothered that he has been locked up, but that is because he is a talentless, attention-seeking chancer.

Nice post, not entirely ruined by this.
Doherty is many things, talentless is certainly not one of them.

Yeah, I agree, Ian, I think he's got bags of talent.

[danafish]

I too am not a Doherty fan and therefore am not in the slightest bit bothered that he has been locked up, but that is because he is a talentless, attention-seeking chancer.

Nice post, not entirely ruined by this.
Doherty is many things, talentless is certainly not one of them.

Yeah, I agree, Ian, I think he's got bags of talent.

Well, that's debatable, but I think my point still stands...

[danafish]

Hey. I've been misquoted by my own girlfriend... as in I never even said what I've been quoted as saying. I run so bad. 

Sorry, I must have deleted the wrong brackets somewhere. I got a little carried away...

[cambo]

. I'm certainly not convinced that cannabis necessarily leads to more harmful drugs

Resident Dutch guy to the rescue. It has actually been proven that in a normal situation the use of soft-drugs (Like cannabis) does NOT lead to the use of hard-drugs. However, when cannabis is illegal it puts you in touch with some people that you probably don't want to be in touch with..and THAT makes the use of hard drugs more likely.

I used to frequent a coffeeshop regularly and EVERYONE there knew not to mess with hard drugs..and you'd never consider it simply because you're not put in that sort of environment.
The hard drugs problem in the UK is massive compared to what it is in Holland..Cannabis being illegal is definitely one of the reasons for this.

all of the obove is true but is there a junkie on the planet who hasnt smoked a joint before? if youve never smoked a joint theres no chance of you ever taking smack or coke etc....as for the drugs prob in holland compared to the uk id say the reason theres not so much of a problem there is all the stuff is gettin shipped over here for us to take! lol