Paraquat was the Reagan administration's chemical. Roundup was Clinton's. They were both defoliants and both probably presented the biggest threat when they were smoked but the roundup f was used against coca which wasn't really smoked. Maybe the "agricultural workers" who got sick were the ones chewing coca leaves. I do remember the controversy with Greenpeace and it did refer to activities in South America.0
Okay, if you say so. If you want a real agency EPA. I think that is the agency that approves all MSDSs.
What sources do I trust and how do I decide? It is more a question of deciding which ones I don't trust. That includes any source orginating from places associated with AR, Greenpiece, ELF, Vegetarians. That last one is sorta open as Vegetarians run the gamet from sane to kook - most of the vegetarians in these forums are on the kook end of the scale.
An additional criteria is 'what are they saying?' If it doesn't pass the smell test (the OPs doesn't) I don't trust it.
Harry K
Paraquat was used long before the Regan administration; Nixon, perhaps.
Whatever we sprayed was killing food crops - small gardens that families used for food, not big corporate affairs. And, all this to compensate for the fact that a lot of parents here and elsewhere are unable to talk honestly to their kids about drugs.
Okay, if you say so. If you want a real agency EPA. I think that is the agency that approves all MSDSs.
What sources do I trust and how do I decide? It is more a question of deciding which ones I don't trust. That includes any source orginating from places associated with AR, Greenpiece, ELF, Vegetarians. That last one is sorta open as Vegetarians run the gamet from sane to kook - most of the vegetarians in these forums are on the kook end of the scale.
An additional criteria is 'what are they saying?' If it doesn't pass the smell test (the OPs doesn't) I don't trust it.
Harry K
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EPA - that's a funny one, Harry. Like the FDA, lots of conflicts of interest there.
According to Charlie Morgan :
Paraquat is a defoliant. Making the people sick who smoked the stuff harvested before Paraquat finished killing it was considered an added bonus.
Why would you consider that to be a bonus?
It certainly shut down the Colmbian pot business but it was replaced by cocaine and with the sudden glut of coke on the market, crack. It also boosted the popularity of US grown pot, a market that still goes on today. The unintended consequences may have outweighed any perceived benefit but why is that a shock with a government program?.
According to JoeSpareBedroom :
I don't: "was considered an...". I was sarcastically referring to the DEA and the government policies that allowed them to do it.
Oh...OK. I thought for a moment that you were one of the morons who thought that using pot was somehow worse than using alcohol, and that prohibition of alcohol was silly, while the same stance twoard pot was right.
According to JoeSpareBedroom :
There is similarly no agreement that Armstrong landed on the moon.
For the most part, animal tests are extremely good, especially when you have tests with multiple species.
So we ignore the chemical companies. Simple. They're not the only people/organizations doing studies on chemicals.
According to JoeSpareBedroom :
Heh. I'm a Canadian. We've decriminalized possession of small amounts of pot, and permit people to use it who have a medical exemption...[+] I fully expect that in the not too distant future it'll become more-or-less fully legal here.
It probably would have by now if it weren't for "war on drugs" pressure from the US. If there was an open vote in parliament where such pressure didn't play a part, and/or a referendum, most of these laws undoubtably would be repealed.
[+] There's a number of ludicrous self-contradictory bits in our current suite of laws. Eg: those with a medical exemption are allowed to have and use it, but nobody's permitted to grow/sell it to them, and the limits for personal cultivation are too low for many. The govt. spent millions on growing their own crop that they'd distribute for this purpose, but someone goofed big time, and they picked a cannabis cultivar that had virtually _no_ THC.Sigh.
I fully expect that to be ironed out reasonably soon. In the meantime, most police forces are turning a blind eye to the few producers they know to be dedicated to people with medical exemptions.
OK then.
The problem is that some of the testing is funded by the manufacturers. And, very often, when there *is* independent research, the only places you hear about it is from organizations which, according to quite a few morons, are staffed by leftover hippies. You really can't win in such an environment. I mean, what if Greenpeace is right about some of this stuff? Just...what if? Is it smart to ignore everything they say because a central brain (Rush Limbaugh, etc) told you to? (And, I don't specifically mean YOU - I mean people who look at the world this way).
Let's see...who else is on the "can't be trusted" list? Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy.....it's endless.
The whole thing's ridiculous anyway. Pot may kill your lungs if you smoke enough. Booze may kill your liver, stomach, esophagus if you drink enough, and doctors think it may affect the pancreas in nasty ways. Both substances mess with your brain.
It remains illegal for reasons which are probably also illegal. Politicians being paid to continually bury the issue.
According to JoeSpareBedroom :
You're assuming that there's only chemical companies and leftover hippy organizations.
Look at the toxnet site again. _Hundreds_ of studies w.r.t. glysophate published in referreed journals, with the studies funded/performed by universities, governments (not necessarily US) and other agencies.
Note the term "referreed journals". It means that the study has been reviewed by the author's scientific peers and found to be not only scientifically sound, but often also _reasonably_ impartial.
_Those_ are the studies to pay attention to.
Not some half-baked advocacy organization who selects/misrepresents/exaggerates the situation based on studies they're reluctant to name.
Greenpeace sez that Glysophate is one of the most toxic herbicides. That's not "spin", that's an outright lie, pure and simple.[+]
Because, in fact, glysophate is one of the most highly tested/retested chemicals in the world, and while it's hardly 100% non-toxic (nothing is), it's vastly less toxic than virtually anything else, "green", "chemical" or otherwise.
In those cases that Greenpeace is right, there'll be _reputable_ agencies agreeing with them.
As such, if Greenpeace says so, _long_ before you believe it, you need to see if anybody else does.
And not the Sea Shepards for example.
Then someone else trustworthy will be saying the same thing.
No it ain't smart to do that. Having Rush Limbaugh tell me not to listen to Greenpeace would have the opposite effect. So I don't listen to Limbaugh.
I trust the Sierra Club enough to report objective facts accurately, but before I take their conclusions at face value, I'll look elsewhere or judge myself based on what Sierra Club publishes. They're honest, mean well, and do good research, but I don't always agree with their conclusions/proposed actions.
In other words, just like any other reputable organization.
I don't know Nature Conservancy enough to comment.
The Sea Shepards on the other hand, are, ..., well, perhaps libel laws suggest I should keep my mouth _firmly_ shut.
SRVS (an environmental group in Southern Ontario) can certainly be trusted. But, that's cheating, my SO and I were on their board of directors ;-)
[+] Unless you're into serious language warping - as in "best" is included in "one of the worst".Apparently in some recent sporting event, an American team was reported as "Placing second! Wahoo! Yah!". Didn't bother mentioning who placed first, didn't bother mentioning that there were only two teams playing, and didn't bother mentioning that the American team was disqualified...
Well, yeah, they were second. Of two. And were DQ'd at that. That's some serious spin.
According to JoeSpareBedroom :
Agreed. But I don't think it's been anywhere established that _moderate_ use of pot is on balance harmful, any more than moderate use of alcohol is. Unlike tobacco, where the "safe dose" (if such actually exists) appears to be _vastly_ lower than most consumers consume.
In fact, most studies show that _moderate_ use of alcohol is beneficial on the whole, and the medical community is aware and takes advantage of that.
A more reasonable approach to drugs would (a) have better impact on dealing with the problems that drugs _really_ cause (eg: crime), and (b) put the DEA and related budgetary sinkholes out of business.
(b) trumps (a).
I'd love to know how much lobbying money comes from private corporations that run some of the prisons in this country, and from police organizations. I haven't bothered to check, but it must be significant in order to convince politicians to keep saying things like "pot leads to heroin", etc.
The drug war as a whole is a huge cash cow for both sides. The bureaucrats have a 3 billion dollar budget to spend and budget is power in the government. Of course the smugglers and dealers are making money hand over fist. There really is no concerned party with any political power who wants to stop it.
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