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Tag Archives: drug trade
The seizure of 1.5 tonnes of cocaine in a rice shipment that originated in Guyana in August 2020 in Hamburg, Germany was contained in my 2020 e-book on the on the illicit trades in the Dominican Republic, Suriname , Venezuela, French Guiana, Martinique and Guadeloupe. Then came news out of Antwerp, Brussels of the seizure in November 2020 of containers of scrap metal from Guyana containing 11.5 tonnes of cocaine. These are the lessons of this event: As I pointed out in my 2020 e-book the Guinanas have all been switched on as a tag team export point for cocaine to Europe. The November 2020 operation from Guyana using scrap metal was not of the trafficking standard demanded by the MTTOs for its trafficking arm. The load was too large and unprofessionally packed for export in types of scrap metal that did not afford cover for the product. In one container they loaded the product into a metal chest which was nearly the length of the shipping container, they then placed the metal chest into the shipping container and closed the container doors. In the other container loads of kilo bricks were placed in brightly colored plastic bags and simply covered with scrap metal that did not immerse the product in metal as they did not expend the effort to acquire specific types of scrap metal and then insert the kilo bricks into the scrap metal as pipes, cylinders etc. A trafficking operation that was sloppy, unprofessional and substandard which indicated it was the product of a Colombian paramilitary group seeking to break the monopoly of the European market policed by the MTTOs and their partners in transnational Italian organized crime. The MTTOs and the Ndrangheta simply gave them up. The potent lesson is how easily this substandard trafficking group purchased impunity from Guyanese State agents as the containers were scanned before export, passed as fit for export with the scans deleted from the scanning machine. In the Caribbean the State is captured by the traffickers and the annual interdiction made of illicit drugs in no way reflects the actual volume of product moving through these States, interdiction is a political game where the level of interdiction today is not even 5% of the volume of product moving through the State. The war on drugs is lost, just a fake war and an exercise in social control over poor people. Covid-19 and its use by the politicians of the Caribbean as an instrument of social control where the police are now enforcers of good behavior meant that the already inadequate policing of the trade has collapsed as the volume of product flowing through these Caribbean States has increased dramatically. The best example of this is the collapse of the ganja wars in T&T as supply has flooded the market under the policing of not good Covid behavior. Covid has allowed an increase in drug production in the cocaine and ganja production centers and production has expanded to non traditional production centers, the drive for offshore production. Whenever the politicians of the Caribbean grudgingly give up their Covid derived power to police bad Covid behavior they will then face a transnational illicit trade at its most potent in the history of the Caribbean from Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Federation to the MTTOs. Pax Mexicana!
In my latest book on transnational organized crime and the illicit trades in the Caribbean I pointed out that the colonial legacy in the Caribbean of the French, the Dutch and the British through their overseas territories in the Caribbean in the 21st Century are all connected to the neo-colonial metropole via illicit trafficking pipelines to Europe. The largest cocaine seizure in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) in the history of the BVI, some 2.3 tonnes of cocaine or 2,300 kilo bricks were seized on November 13, 2020 at a building under construction owned by a BVI policeman with 20 years service. The cocaine load was not packaged in the industry standard bales to facilitate trafficking by boat up the ECTP. Each bale was wrapped in translucent packaging with each kilo wrapped to insulate it from the ingress of water. The load was then collected from the mother ship by the coastal transporter where it was handed over for secured storage until its departure for the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico or for export to Britain and Europe. Given that we are now in the hurricane season which is coming to an end, a pleasure craft crossing the Atlantic will stick out but there are a range of choices available. Since the 1980s there is a functioning trafficking pipeline from T&T to the BVI and cash smuggling from the BVI to T&T. The failure to interdict in no way means that the trafficking pipelines don't exist, what it means is the failure of policing and the lack of political will. There is another potent reason for transnational organized crime to be active in the BVI, which is their thriving offshore sector where illicit money enters the offshore sector, is washed clean and returned to transnational organized crime groups. The 2.3 tonnes of cocaine seized in BVI is simply a potent indicator of the MTTOs strategy to maximize the opportunities offered by the geographical location of the Caribbean married to weak, underdeveloped, complicit States, especially the national security apparatus, where impunity is for sale, towards the generation of wealth. The value given for the 2.3 tonnes of cocaine seized in the BVI is equivalent to 75% of its national budget. This is the reality of the power relation of the Caribbean between Caribbean States and the MTTOs which the hegemonic oligarchies of the Caribbean relentlessly must silence, that transnational organized crime can in the 21st Century purchase the national security apparatus of any Caribbean State it targets! Pax Mexicana!
This entry was posted in drug trade analysis and tagged drug trade on November 20, 2020 by dauriusfigueira.
"This work is an analysis of the power relations between Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) and the apex trafficking States of the Dominican Republic, Suriname, Venezuela, French Guiana, Martinique and Guadeloupe in the second decade of the 21st Century. This analysis focuses on the business models of TOC groups involved in these apex trafficking states of the Caribbean Basin, their trafficking methodology and the response of the State in their war on drugs to the operational presence of these TOC groups. What is apparent is the inability, the complicity and the unwillingness of the ruling elites and the agents of the State to grapple with the threat posed by TOC to these apex trafficking States. The war on drugs is then a lie, an instrument of power to effect social control in favour of the ruling oligarchs and a geopolitical instrument which indicates your subservience to the USA and the rest of the North Atlantic. The war on drugs is then an instrument to effect white power/hegemony over the neo-colonial world, the South. In these States studied the reality of the North Atlantic's war on drugs being joined at the head with TOC, hence inseparable, is affirmed with evidence, for as you beget the war on drugs TOC exploits your geographic position to transship drugs to the North Atlantic, but you are unable to resist materially and at the level of the idea, given your state of economic and mental subservience arsing from white supremacist colonial/neo-colonial imperial domination. Transnational Organized Crime then in these States have already or are aggressively moving to capture the State. The wages of embracing the white supremacist war on drugs is TOC exerting hegemony over our social order."
Covid-19 in 2020 has proven to be a boon to Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) and drug trafficking in the Caribbean basin. As the police of the region are now enforcing social control to supposedly diminish the impact of the pandemic TOC is thriving and even further changing the terrain of the Game in the region. In T&T on June 30, 2020 the new order presented itself and since then no matter even though there have been 5 attempts to restart the tit for tat killings in Gangland there is no response. What we now have are focused eliminations deepening the hegemony of the new order and the mainstream conventional logic of Gangland is daily falsified and in response mainstream logic becomes even more divorced from reality on the ground in the GAME. A reputed gang leader died, there was the expected prediction of war to fill the void created but where is the war? There is succession not war. A T&T medical ganja entrepreneur stated in the Daily Express that some T&T$ 1 billion in ganja was illegally imported into T&T each year, remember you pay for this ganja in US$. Under Covid-19 the ganja wars ceased, supply ramped up and the new order is in control. Pax Mexicana! Now the latest horse to ride is ponzi scheme. Nobody in the Game who intends to stay alive in the Game uses a ponzi scheme to wash the proceeds of the Game. A ponzi scheme is designed to collapse and those running the hustle disappear with the money. How can you wash your dirty money sustainably in a scheme that cannot funnel your money into the financial system? How can you hand over your money that you expect to get back washed, less commission 10-20% on the TT Dollar, by handing it to an organization that has it in garbage bags, desk draws, on the floor, under the bed, all over the place? In the GAME you hand it to legal financial institutions who funnel it into the legal financial system, to hand it to the decent and respectable outstanding citizens. Read the FINCEN files. As per usual the security apparatus and the media continue to peddle a discourse of the dumb criminals when those in the GAME are perpetually ahead of all those who love to hear and see themselves in the media with grandiose dreams of being the Bolsonaro of T&T. Under the Covid-19 game of social control and the usual propaganda of the security apparatus of the State TOC is thriving and even more powerful.
This entry was posted in drug trade analysis and tagged drug trade on October 6, 2020 by dauriusfigueira.
" This is a deconstruction of the published books of poetry of Derek Walcott from 1961 to 1981 to unearth, expose and analyze the discourse and worldview of Walcott of miscegenated being, the Caribbean dystopia and the existential condition of the African and Indian Diasporas in the Caribbean dystopia. Walcott segregates himself from the Caribbean dystopia as he excoriates the African and Indian Diasporas blaming them for constructing the dystopia, they are trapped in. Walcott exempts white supremacist colonial and neo-colonial imperial power relations which condemns us to dependency and underdevelopment at the level of the idea. Which he must do for Walcott insists that what separates him from the Dystopia and enables his freedom from the dystopia, his flight to the North Atlantic is his white grandfather's legacy bequeathed to him by his miscegenated father. At the level of his genome Walcott is special, exceptional in the realm of the Dystopia compelled to prove and affirm this state of being in the North Atlantic. Walcott then frames his poetry on the foundation of the binary, Manichean duality of white North Atlantic discourse. I had a white grandfather and father which makes this deconstruction a personal conversation between two conflicting discourses of miscegenated being and our place in the world." This was on my list of must do books as it is a personal reading of one who embraces his white grandfather's legacy whilst dumping on all of us in the Caribbean. I had a white grandfather but I only have the memory of being the object of hate etched on my memory which I refuse to embrace for its legacy is to be plagued with hallucinatory whiteness, relentlessly engaged in self-immolation. Walcott and I are then worldviews apart as I relentlessly resist the world framed according to the discourse of white supremacy whilst he embraced it in his desire for the Nobel prize, for white affirmation.
This entry was posted in drug trade analysis and tagged drug trade on August 2, 2020 by dauriusfigueira.
The word from the Game is that the super spreader responsible for cases 142 to 147 is extensively, intensely and intimately involved with the business of border jumpers and with border jumpers. Apparently those who push the victims of human trafficking discourse who also push the regime change in Venezuela discourse have no problem with the manner in which these new arrivals have sexualized communities across T&T by creating spaces devoted to the sex trade of kinds, types and kinks where before it existed in hushed terms. First they overran the s red light districts of Port of Spain, moved into Maraval, Diego Martin, the western peninsula, La Canoa, Santa Cruz, Mt Lambert. Changed and expanded the trade in Curepe for straight and Queer, exploded the trade in Arima then moved southwards down Cocorite Road, Sangre Grande and up the Toco main road. In Penal and Debe they run things and along the Naparima-Mayaro Road to Mayaro and Guaya. Tobago is now theirs. All the while displacing our T&T sex workers.This is what they pay their US$ to enter T&T illegally for and then their board and lodge they are not victims they are victimizing T&T. The latest report from Venezuela shows that Sucre state is not a national hot spot for Covid-19 infections which means that the two export point for these illegal migrants are plagued with Covid-19 infections. In Venezuela where gasoline and diesel are perpetually in short supply ever wonder where the fuel is coming from to fuel these people smuggling boats to T&T and back? A load of people in and fuel from T&T out. This is Transnational Organized Crime. Trump is deporting them from the USA whilst we welcome those with the same immigration status that Trump is dumping and he is the King of regime change in Venezuela. Do the Dragon dance!
This entry was posted in drug trade analysis and tagged drug trade on July 29, 2020 by dauriusfigueira.
T&T Covid-19 Case# 139 and Border Jumpers
Covid-19 patient NO. 139 is the first in 80 days in T&T who was not a returning resident who tested positive in quarantine nor a border jumper who turned positive in T&T. Patient # 139 was infected in T&T by an infected person who was most likely a border jumper or who caught it from a border jumper. Then we have patient # 142 now who did not travel and has no connection to patient # 139 which is pointing to a source of infection that is arsing from border jumpers. The gravest threat posed presently are those from Sucre and Delta Amacuro states in Venezuela. The first wave of Covid-19 infections in Venezuela came with those who traveled to Europe and returned to Venezuela and this wave was handled with aggressive application of the measures recommended to flatten the curve. But in the midst of this the wave of Venezuelans who walked out of Venezuela dragging their fake Gucci luggage on their way to Cucuta, Colombia began returning in a tsunami which destroyed all measures applied to control this influx towards identifying and quarantining the infected. Those returning found that they were waiting too long to enter as they wanted an entry as fast they left. They then turned to the trocheros and very old and new illegal trails over the border with Colombia flooded Zulia state especially where you had the disaster of the Las Pulgas market in Maracaibo. It is estimated that 90,000 persons with some 6% of them infected with Covid-19 flooded Venezuela precipitating the situation today. T&T is faced with grave danger as the human smugglers of Sucre and Delta Amacuro states have cranked up their operations as demand for their services to land them in T&T has exploded. The price out of Guiria is US$ 300 per head, infant, child, adult with family and friends in T&T paying the cost to travel. There is then a beachhead in T&T operating to import illicit Venezuelans utilizing resources they are earning in T&T to pose a danger to the well being of citizens of T&T. In Tucupita in Delta Amacuro they are collecting them on farms awaiting their turn for transport to T&T. This has alarmed the population of these areas to such an extent in these times of Covid-19 that they are informing on them, protesting publicly against their presence in their community which forced the PNB to act. This is Tucupita drug capital of the Delta where no dog barked to the police such is the fear of the Covid-19 in Tucupita. Tucupita municipality in Delta Amacuro state is one of the national hot spots for increasing Covid-19 infections in Venezuela today constituting a pool of infection that human smuggling is contributing to that is in turn threatening T&T. Every single client who purchases sexual favors, who purchases a bride, who employs, who associates with, who is on a maxi with is now faced with infection from the border jumpers.
This entry was posted in drug trade analysis, Uncategorized and tagged drug trade on July 23, 2020 by dauriusfigueira.
30 June 2020 Message from Gangland T&T
The public protest of 30 June 2020 that was focused on Port- of Spain and its suburbs of East and North Port of Spain exhibited signs of central planning, coordination and the use of all resources possessed including illicit force to attain a specific end. This end was the provocation of the police utilizing a range of measures to precipitate the use of deadly force on protesters taking lives thereby precipitating a political crisis that envelops the police in an election year. The overarching intent was the political message sent in an election year of the power a non State actor wields over the spaces of protest in the suburbs surrounding Port of Spain, the seat of government. In these spaces the government reigns but does not rule which is the product of a colossal failure of policing from the 1970s to the present.
The police commissioner continues to insist that the strategy unleashed on the 30 June 2020 was the product of gangland in these spaces as supposedly warring, factionalized gangland according to mainstream discourse suddenly combined, formulated the strategy and launched and managed the operation on 30 June purely out of hate for an effective police in a quest for space. Snake oil with a political flavor as per usual since August 2017. It is revealed by the police that they had no idea of the scale of the operation that was unleashed on 30 June but they knew something was coming. This is an admission that the group that created, launched and managed the operation is not penetrated by, there are no assets in this group. Hence you had no idea that militias armed with assault rifles will be used from the high ground to create operating conditions of deadly fire in order to precipitate opening fire on demonstrators. Then the word cartel was used. This new found order of gangland has it now constituted a gangland cartel?
Multiple gangland spaces under the control of gangs supposedly at war with each other were combined to create an open, flowing field of engagement with the police. Quarry Street and Observatory Street flowed in unison, the plannings of east Port of Spain flowed in unison, Sea Lots flowed with east Port of Spain whilst Beetham Gardens and north of the Eastern Main Road became one. This is the most potent public expression given by gangland T&T to-date that the mainstream discourse is just ole talk. The message is that there exists a new order on the ground rooted in the hegemony of Transnational Organized Crime that controls supply and affords the means to generate wealth through the illicit trades that before was denied to gangland. This is about wealth, business and earning. After four capos were removed from 2018 to the present the order is talking from the ground to the powers that be and the message is Pax Mexicana!
This entry was posted in drug trade analysis and tagged drug trade on July 4, 2020 by dauriusfigueira.
Prohibition's Instrument of War: Its Discourse of Ganja and Madness
This is the second article in the series dealing with Prohibition's junk, snake oil science utilized in its War on Ganja.
Prohibition and its Discourse of Ganja and Madness
The medical discourse of ganja use, the brain, madness and cannabis use disorder will be deconstructed by focusing on the article titled: "Heavy cannabis use, dependence and the brain: a clinical perspective" by Emese Kroon, Lauren Kuhns, Eva Hoch, Janna Couisjin, first published 13 August 2019. The authors of the article (Kroon et al) define the aims of the article as follows: "To summarize and evaluate our knowledge of the relationship between heavy cannabis use, cannabis use disorder (CUD) and the brain." The methods utilized by the study is as follows: "Narrative review of relevant literature identified through existing systematic reviews, meta-analysis and a PubMed search." The authors are then reviewing literature on ganja and the brain towards the creation of a discourse of ganja and brain rooted in evidence, this then is the summation of the evidence base of the discourse of ganja, the brain and madness. Kroon et al presents a review of the evidence base of the discourse of ganja and the brain in all its aspects driven by the hegemonic discourse of prohibition. Kroon et al never questions the accuracy of the position of prohibition that ganja is a dangerous drug seen in its tenuous clinging to the position of insisting that chronic CUD amounts to a watered down addiction but you don't use the "A" word as they are yet to prove that with CUD the brain is addicted to ganja, but that does not stop you from repeatedly alleging it. What is revealing in Kroon et al is the research instrument used in the literature reviewed to drive the discourse of ganja use and madness proclaiming it as fact that ganja use sends you mad, with no causal evidence that proves this as fact. The article states in the section Results as follows: "Although causality is unclear, heavy and dependent cannabis use is consistently associated with a high prevalence of comorbid psychiatric disorders and learning and memory impairment that seems to recover after a period of abstinence. Evidence regarding other cognitive domains and neurological consequences, including cerebrovascular events, is limited and inconsistent. Abstinence after treatment is only achieved in a minority of cases; treatment targeted at reduction in use appears to have some success. Potential moderators of the impact of CUD on the brain include age of onset, heaviness of use, CUD severity, the ratio of THCannabinol to cannabidiol and severity of comorbid disorders." From the outset Kroon et al admits that there is no causal evidence that ganja in fact triggers mental health issues in the human brain. The prohibition discourse of ganja and madness is based on associational evidence of that, which is only circumstantial at best in the absence of studies to prove that ganja does induce comorbid psychiatric disorders in the human brain. Why base a discourse that assaults ganja as a dangerous drug only on circumstantial correlation when we all know correlation is not necessarily causality? This is a war prosecuted by discourse where no evidence is needed, where association is enough to insist ganja is a dangerous drug and in the propagation of the discourse to the masses association becomes causality, fact backed up by the power of the war on drugs. If association points to, hints at causality why then no research to finally prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that ganja sends you mad? Why hasn't the powerful forces of prohibition especially in the North Atlantic invested the funds to gather this proof once and for all? This is a discourse of power, it doesn't care about truth, what it desires is social control, exerting hegemony, power refuses to be limited by law. There is at this present time no causal proof that ganja induces madness. The lack of causal proof drives an assault on ganja that demands criminalisation and more so of the policing of ganja use by minors and adults in the presence of children and of placing harsher punishment on the use of high potency ganja especially by minors. This medical discourse insists that heavy ganja use triggers cannabis use disorder and one result of heavy use is comorbid psychiatric disorders and learning and memory impairments. In Addictionology comorbidity is a condition where mental illness and addiction simultaneously present in the patient, impact each other and the strategy of the addiction intervention. Without any causal proof that ganja use results in an addicted brain, in psychiatric disorders and learning and memory impairment this discourse of power has now arrived at comorbidity which is rooted in the fact of an addicted brain. Kroon et al admits that when ganja use is stopped the comorbidity ends which means that it was in the first place not a true comorbidity premised on the interaction of an addicted brain with mental illness. This is why the discourse speaks of disorders and impairments rather than mental illness, mental disease and arrested development for it is all premised on the use of high amounts especially of high potency ganja and when you stop it simply goes away. Just another discourse of reefer madness. The fact that you can just give up on ganja points to the non-addicted brain, which they must counter by insisting that the success rate of giving up ganja is not high, therefore the brain is addicted and this addiction is so potent that the conventional addiction intervention strategy for ganja is not effective. Kroon et al without a sliver of causal evidence has now torched the edifice of addictions intervention technology by insisting that high potency ganja when used heavily is as addictive as opiates. This they must do as they are yet to present evidence that the mental illness induced by ganja use is organic as the brain becomes diseased, hence it can only be a disorder. More importantly the discourse of ganja and madness is frantically attempting to stem the tide of the acceptance of ganja as a necessary input to human wellness especially in the USA.
The conclusions of the Kroon et al article reveals the nature of the discourse of the assault on ganja when it states: "Current evidence of long-term effects of daily cannabis use and cannabis use disorder on brain-related outcomes is suggestive rather than conclusive, but use is associated with psychiatric morbidity and with cognitive impairments that recover after a period of abstinence." The evidence that ganja induces mental illness is then suggestive rather than conclusive willingly embraced by prohibition intent on assaulting ganja by any means necessary, An instrument unleashed to justify the failure to legalize marijuana in T&T is predicated on suggestive evidence rather than conclusive evidence but suggestive evidence is the basis of a lynching, of the State executing an innocent man and so it is with ganja and ganja users who are never given the benefit of the doubt. Kroon et al continues to insist that associational evidence is good enough which demands that this analysis presents what is the research instrument of association and its inherent flaws.
Kroon et al now presents a summary of the current evidence for the effects of cannabis on the brain. With reference to brain structure: short term effects; there is no evidence to support or refute effects. For long-term effects: With heavy cannabis use there is limited evidence for reduction hippocampal and pre-frontal cortex volume. With CUD there is limited evidence of structural alterations. There is then no causal proof of the ganja addicted brain that has been changed, altered by its addiction to ganja. How ganja impacts the brain, and the mind is still not fully explored by causal science. I suggest Kroon et al and all the others use the herb and write about their personal experiences as Freud with cocaine. Kroon et al now deals with cognition/learning and memory: short term effects, where there is sufficient evidence that THC/cannabis impairs (non)-verbal learning and episodic memory, but there is limited evidence of impairment of other types of learning and memory. It impairs non-verbal learning and episodic memory but no other type of learning and memory as verbal learning and long-term memory. Why? Sorry no answer lack of research to find the causal reality which can also debunk, falsify this statement. For heavy cannabis use there is sufficient evidence for impairment but insufficient evidence for lasting impairment after abstinence with evidence for partial recovery. Why does daily ganja use result in impairment but with abstinence the impairment disappears if the brain is addicted to ganja, if ganja has changed the chemistry of the brain and its functions? Sorry no research to uncover the causal dynamic yet you can make these statements of fact which inform legislation to police ganja use. In the case of CUD there is limited evidence of impairment and lasting effects after abstinence which means that the discourse insists that it is persons who consume ganja on a daily basis and especially high potency ganja who are most prone to madness. Kroon et al now deals with craving which is a key indicator of an addicted brain which indicates the intent to support the designation of ganja as a dangerous drug. The article states that there is sufficient evidence that one of the short term effects is the reduction of craving by ganja. For the heavy ganja user one of the long term effects there is sufficient evidence for is increased craving but there is limited evidence for increased brain activity in reward related areas after ganja use. This is a position entirely at odds with the discourse of addictionology. Craving implies an addicted brain which is the product of the dopamine production mechanism of the brain cells as the two are intractably linked. How then can you crave with ganja use but there is no activation of the dopamine production mechanism of the brain cells? Can you have a craving brain without activation of the dopamine mechanism? No! Then Kroon et al must present their definition of terms for it is only through unconventional definition of terms can they conjure up a craving brain with a dormant dopamine production mechanism. Another is their definition of evidence. For CUD there is sufficient evidence for increased craving but limited evidence for increased brain activity in reward related areas. The discourse of ganja and madness states with a straight face that a brain exposed to ganja craves ganja but this craving is in no way rooted in the brain utilizing its resources to reward its craving. Heightened craving of an addicted brain arises when it has exhausted its dopamine production resource which triggers the craving for the drug in an attempt to kick start dopamine production once again. The human is the captive of the addicted brain and does anything to acquire the drug to ease the pain as the addicted brain is literally torturing the human captive for a rush. How then can you have a ganja induced craving and your brain is not demanding its rush? In my life I am yet to observe a heavy ganja user in the same condition as a crack head, a meth head and an opiate shooter.
Kroon et al now deals with the evidence on cognitive biases but cognitive biases is a discourse of power as it brands human behavior that deviates from what power dictates as the norm, as normal behavior as cognitive biases, deviance and seeks to give a causal explanation for them. This discourse of power wants then to police behavior rooted in a typology of normal and abnormal, it wants then a science of behavior modification to ensure the hegemony of the norm, of normalization. Using ganja is abnormal behavior and it must be normalized and one way to do this is to create the typology of cognitive biases that especially heavy ganja users exercise in their deviation from the norm. With this typology the process of normalization can now assault the ganja users to normalize them. Kroon et al states that for short term effects there is very limited evidence for cannabis related approach bias and attentional bias. Under long term effects with heavy cannabis use there is sufficient evidence for attentional bias, insufficient evidence for approach bias and no evidence to support or refute lasting effects after abstinence. For CUD there is limited evidence for attentional bias and no evidence to support or refute approach bias. There is no evidence to support or refute lasting effects after abstinence. The cognitive biases of attention and approach have no evidence to prove that they in fact plague ganja users hence ganja users who are all deviants from the norm are doing this for reasons that don't fall under cognitive bias, which points to the power relations of prohibition and the individual and the use of science to assault abnormal behavior.
Kroon et al now moves to another instrument of power framed to abnormalize the ganja user namely emotional processing which is the theory of the ability of humans to deal with stress, loss and drastic change in life without developing mental health issues. This is the instrument that sets up the play which states that ganja use impacts the brain that results in mental illness through the ganja users inability to process emotion. Kroon et al states that for short term effects there is consistent but limited evidence that THC impairs emotion recognition particularly negative emotions whilst for long term effects of heavy cannabis use there is limited evidence for impaired emotion identification/recognition and reduced activity in CB1 rich brain areas during emotional processing in current users. No evidence to support or refute lasting effects after abstinence. For CUD there is limited evidence for impaired emotion identification/recognition in CB1 rich brain areas during emotional processing in current CUD. There is then no causal proof, no statement of why the ganja user suffers with an inadequate emotional processing mechanism. What has been shown is that in areas of the brain inundated with THC the brain continues to function normally engaged with the task of emotion processing. Which means that the limited evidence can be the product of a false positive where in your quest to nail ganja as a dangerous drug you blame ganja when it is not the agent of impaired emotion identification/recognition for trauma is and the person is self-medicating with ganja in response to that trauma. The play to then brands ganja users as being impaired emotion identification/recognition actors with a proclivity to mental illness is then just another three card hustle, snake oil pushed by the snake oil hustler, prohibition.
Kroon et al now presents the evidence on attentional control, the theory of which focuses on what the individual fixes her/his attention on and what she/he does not, which wraps deviance in the soul of human agency impacted by drug use on the brain. Ganja then impacts the brain to choose what is good for the addicted brain not for the good of the individual and the social order. To justify prohibition of ganja and its policing the studies must show attentional failure under the influence of THC on the brain. Kroon et al states that with short term effects there is sufficient evidence that THC impairs attentional control and with long term effects with heavy cannabis use there is sufficient evidence for impairments sustained and divided attention in current heavy users. There is insufficient evidence for lasting effects after abstinence with evidence for a partial recovery and for CUD there is no evidence for lasting effects. THC impairs attentional control only when ganja is used and with the cessation of use attentional control changes, recovers which means that ganja does not change the brain and its functioning creating the addicted brain. Just another instrument of power to abnormalize us thereby justifying the policing of the abnormal, or normalization and power is amoral, it lies as its default mode.
Kroon et al now moves on to working memory another instrument of power vital to insisting that ganja is a dangerous drug as ganja users are incapable of making rational decisions and exhibiting normal behavior. For short term effects Kroon et al states that there is inconclusive evidence that ganja impairs working memory, whilst for the long term effects on heavy ganja users there is inconsistent evidence for long term working memory deficits and limited evidence for recovery in heavy users. For CUD there is no evidence to support or refute lasting effects. This attempt has failed miserably seen in the inconsistent evidence which speaks to grave methodological issues or a dire lack of research or both.
Kroon et al next deals with motor inhibition which involves the theory of how a motion in action is aborted by the brain, the spinal column and the nervous system, which is another instrument of power assaulting ganja and ganja users where ganja use impairs the ability of the body to inhibit its motion in action. Kroon et al reports that for short term effects there is sufficient evidence that THC/cannabis impairs inhibition ongoing responses (stop signal tasks) but there are inconsistent results with other inhibition tasks. But with long term effects with heavy cannabis users there is limited and inconsistent evidence for impairment as for CUD. How can you have sufficient evidence for motor impairment in the short term but not so for long term effects on heavy users or with CUD? There is then something fundamentally wrong with the research instrument used in these studies which is magnified by the insignificant evidence for impairment of other inhibition tasks. Another instrument of power assaulting ganja that has failed in its intent buttressed by lies.
Kroon et al now deals with decision making which reveals the intent to insist that ganja users have impaired decision making processes which results in reckless choices that place the user, their dependents, their property and the social order at risk which demands State intervention. Ganja users are then in a condition of dependency worse than minors which demands State tutelage based on the abrogation of their rights. Kroon et al reports that for short term effects there was insufficient evidence that THC/cannabis impairs decision making. For long term use by heavy cannabis users there is insufficient and inconsistent evidence for impairment and for CUD limited and inconsistent evidence for impairment. The attempt to validate the assault on ganja through decision making impairment has then failed as the research instruments used have produced insufficient and inconsistent evidence as the studies have failed to prove their position and there is no homogeneous discourse produced by the evidence, but this does not defeat the assault of prohibition.
The final cognitive function of the research reviewed by Kroon et al is intelligence and its impairment by ganja use, again another assault on ganja and the user as impaired intelligence renders the ganja user a less than competent individual endowed with rights demanding State tutelage. Kroon et al reports that for short term effects there was no evidence to support or refute effects, whilst for long term effects for heavy cannabis users there is insufficient and limited evidence for reduced intelligence and for CUD there is limited and insufficient evidence for reduced intelligence. The research into ganja use and cognition is then eminently political seeking to produce evidence to enhance the power of the State over the ganja using individual, by reducing them to an abnormal human in need of State tutelage which ultimately involves the usurpation of their human rights, their self-determination. The research activity has failed but that does not stop the assault of prohibition and the encroach of the State on the human rights of ganja users in its ever present quest for normalization.
Kroon et al now presents the most crucial aspect of their article: the evidence of the link between ganja use and the occurrence of specific types of mental illness, this then is the evidence that proves or refutes the discourse of ganja use and madness. Kroon et al names this section as psychiatric comorbidity which is simply an addicted brain presenting with mental illness after having failed to prove that the brain of the ganja user is in fact an addicted brain. Kroon et al reports for depression and the short term effects of ganja use that there is no evidence to support or refute effects, whilst for the long term effects of heavy cannabis use there is sufficient statistical association but causality is unclear and for CUD there is sufficient statistical association but causality is unclear. Statistical association is not causality and the nature of the research instrument that conjures up statistical association will be critiqued in this study. Kroon et al now reports for bipolar disorder and short term effects of ganja use that there is no evidence to support or refute effects, whilst for long term effects of heavy cannabis users there is sufficient evidence of statistical association but causality is unclear and for CUD there is sufficient evidence of statistical association with causality unclear. Again for bipolar disorder there is no causal link proven only statistical association and this is accepted as causality because it is ganja use under assault.
Kroon et al now deals with ganja users and anxiety disorders and panic attacks by reporting that with short term effects of ganja use there is sufficient evidence that ganja increases risk anxiety and panic attacks, whilst for long term effects of heavy cannabis use there is sufficient evidence of statistical association but causality is unclear and for CUD the same applies. The evidence for ganja use and anxiety disorders and panic attacks is again statistical association not hard core causal proof which shows the paucity of the research undertaken. The research is then dominated by the utilization of the research instrument of statistical association as a final end point research method when this should inform causal research not replace it. But with the assault on ganja anything is permitted to constitute accepted, normal truth.
Kroon et al now deals with ganja and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) insisting that ganja induces PTSD which openly contradicts the word of veterans of war who use ganja to relieve their symptoms of PTSD. Kroon et al reports on short term effects as having no evidence to support or refute effects, whilst the long term effects of heavy cannabis use has sufficient evidence of statistical association but causality is unclear and for CUD the same applies.
Kroon et al now reports on Psychosis and Schizophrenia and ganja use which is the primary weapon used in the assault on ganja use in the discourse of ganja and madness. This is prohibition's Holy Grail and when it is falsified the assault is unmasked revealing raw, naked, amoral power with impunity, no limits at work. Kroon et al reports that for short term effects there is sufficient evidence that ganja increases the risk of transient positive symptoms, whilst there is limited evidence for an increased risk for negative symptoms. The long term effects of heavy cannabis use has sufficient evidence for association psychosis but causality is unclear and for CUD there is sufficient evidence of statistical association but causality is unclear. The link between ganja use and psychosis is then premised on statistical association not causal evidence which is acceptable evidence for the position that ganja use generates the mental illness of psychosis/schizophrenia in users. The manner in which this evidence based on statistical association was generated is very instructive.
The final area in this section is "other substance abuse disorders" where there is no report under short term effects, whilst under long term effects with heavy use there is sufficient evidence of statistical association but causality is unclear which also applies to CUD. With reference to long term effects of heavy ganja use Kroon et al reports that there is limited and inconsistent evidence that ganja is a gateway drug. The studies were then unable to prove even with statistical association that ganja use led to the use of cocaine, heroin meth, opiates etc, alcohol and tobacco. Those who still use the gateway drug discourse are then stuck in a time warp a la reefer madness.
Kroon et al ends their summary of current evidence of ganja and the brain by reporting on neurological disorders as cerebrovascular accidents and brain tumors. On cerebrovascular accidents Kroon et al reports that for short term effects there is limited evidence that ganja use increases the risk of this accident, whilst for long term effects of heavy ganja use there is no evidence to support or to refute effects and the same applies to CUD. Again another area that demands causal research sacrificed on prohibition's altar of expediency. For brain tumors there is no evidence for short term effects, whilst for long term effects of heavy ganja use and for CUD there is no evidence to support or refute effects.
The abiding lesson of Kroon et al is the paucity of the evidence presented in support of ganja as being dangerous to the mental health of the user. This assault on ganja is rooted on the insistence on the link between ganja use and psychosis as fact, as truth when the only evidence offered in support is derived from statistical association not causal research and experimentation. The final nail in the coffin of the discourse of ganja and madness is an analysis of how statistical association is manufactured and passed off as evidence.
Prohibition and its discourse of ganja and madness is not interested in settling the issue of ganja and madness, once and for all, with the funding of research into the existence of a causal link between ganja use and madness. The discourse of the scientific validity of the statistical association of ganja use and madness serves the strategic aim of prohibition to assault ganja users and there is no systematic rebuttal of this false scientific discourse by those who are defenders of ganja use. In addition the new ganja oligarchs created by prohibition are not willing to invest in the research needed to settle this issue once and for all, for they must also protect their market and the windfall profits afforded them by prohibition especially with medical marijuana. What is apparent today is that statistical association is the hegemonic norm driven by an unproven truism that ganja use results in mental illness. Any research that questions this discourse will receive no funding from prohibition and the academic careers of the researchers will be mortally wounded. The scientific and medical community is then policed by prohibition to ensure its hegemony which results in so called medical experts peddling fantasy for facts and snake oil for science, science is then a discourse of power. The article titled "The contribution of cannabis use to variation in the incidence of psychotic disorder across Europe (EU-GEI): a multicentre case-control study" by Marta Di Forti et al March 19, 2019 accepts from the outset as scientifically verified fact that ganja use does result in psychosis, this is a certainty, never questioned, an article of faith, a linchpin of dogma. Di Forti et al states: "Cannabis use is associated with increased risk of later psychotic disorder but whether it affects incidence of the disorder remains unclear." For the authors an association between ganja use and psychotic disorder is adequate and effective for further research into an association. Research founded on a causal link in the case of ganja use is not necessary as one can continue to use a statistical association as causal fact to drive further research towards confirming the association as truth. This is self into self, utter and total delusion. Di Forti et al states "We aimed to identify patterns of cannabis use with the strongest effect on odds of psychotic disorder across Europe and explore whether differences in such patterns contribute to variations in the incidence rates of psychotic disorder." Statistical association is then a self-fulfilling prophecy which drives an edifice of research to confirm the accuracy of the prophecy whilst expanding its ambit. This is indicated potently by the methodology of the research which sampled patients of psychiatric services who presented with first episode psychosis who self-reported ganja use and non-users. This study accepts as truth ganja use and psychosis hence it is not seeking causality as association is enough. What it is looking at is the pattern of use and the type of ganja used and available and its impact on psychotic disorder in the sample rooted in the fact of ganja use and psychosis, this is dogma. But the methodology is the same where you sample those with psychotic disorder ask them if they are ganja users then do the statistical analysis of the sample and come up with the correlation between ganja use and psychosis. If coffee consumption was prohibited you can do the same with cancer victims, ask them if they consume coffee then come up with the statistical association between coffee consumption and cancer. This is not causal evidence just inference which has to be put under the gaze of research, experimentation. Di Forti et al now goes one step further by presenting further statistical association proving the association between high potency ganja use and psychotic disorder whilst the causal link between ganja and madness remains unproven, which is accepted as evidence by prohibition as it must for it serves power. This is the second dangerous discourse of prohibition that drives an instrument of power in the war against ganja that is rooted in bogus, snake oil science. What is noteworthy is the failure of the counter discourse for ganja use to engage with these discourses of prohibition. There can be no liberation when you are dominated at the level of the idea.
This entry was posted in drug trade analysis and tagged drug trade on April 13, 2020 by dauriusfigueira.
COVI-19/SARS-CoV-2 the Politics of Death
There are signal realities of the Covid-19/SARS-CoV-2 virus that must be understood in order to inform effective countermeasure that ensure the minimum disruption of an infected human population. The manner in which the virus assaults the human body and the response of the human immune system are central to this knowledge base, Sadly the response to this virus is driven by politics and geo-politics rather than fact, the war being waged by an empire in decline and of politicians seeking to ensure re-election by any means necessary. There is then the politics of testing as mass testing will create a population of positive persons that is politically unacceptable, so low testing follows the maxim what the eye doh see the heart doh grieve, whilst pools of infection attain critical mass. Then there is the case of infection with asymptomatic response where those persons are not tested as their symptoms are not the symptoms the official discourse says are symptoms of infection. Official discourse wants then to create normality for the power relation between the virus and the human immune system, again politics. These infected people slip through the cracks and infect others as typhoid Mary. The origin of the virus is of grave importance for its unique specialized manner of attacking the human organism indicates an evolutionary period in a pool of human hosts, where this pool of hosts enabled this evolution, where is this ground zero is most important, It happened once with a corona virus, it can happen again and again and with other viruses. Click the links below and experience alternate knowledge.
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_87343.shtml
https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco-visionaries/484225-epidemiologist-coronavirus-lockdown-future/
April 12, 2020 The asymptomatic remain political hot potatoes as politicians faced with re-election are gambling with our lives as they want the positive cases count remain politically manageable. They are the out there spreading the virus hopefully contained with lockdown. Then there is the case of South Korea where persons under the hegemonic protocol attempting to normalize a virus tested positive, recovered, passed their all clear tests, were released and have since returned positive for SARS-CoV -2. In this case experience the position of the immunologist interviewed on Sophie & Co.
https://www.aporrea.org/internacionales/n354118.html
https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco-visionaries/485444-healthcare-vaccine-race-coronavirus/
The non-elected politicians of the State medical apparatus have a common playbook which prescribes four weeks of lockdown followed by at minimum a further two weeks. this prescription is dogma as it is devoid of evidentiary support as there is no extensive testing of the population to find the possible wellsprings of infection, it refuses to deal with the singularities of the virus that falsifies their discourse of normal disease and it refuses to bend in the face of the facts that they put out to people in lockdown on a daily basis. These bureaucrats care little about wrecking lives and destroying the economy to save the patient as their career prospects are paramount hence they dispense fear mongering on a daily basis feeding on the fear of dying. Politicians in the Caribbean especially those faced with re-election have broadly adopted two responses to this medical dogma with its snake oil science: adopt the strategy of the medical bureaucrats without criticism as they are mortally afraid of a collapse of the health system on their watch convinced that this will sink their victory at the polls. This is the fear of political defeat merged with the fear of death which has shown its willingness to strangle an economy in need of life support. This is the case of T&T as the realities of the energy market should have silenced the medical bureaucrats long ago by insisting on expansive testing be done to allow proper assessment of the threat scenario and the way forward, which was not done. Now we have strangled a sick economy driving thousands of marginal people into full blown indigence and fear mongering cannot fill empty bellies. The politicians and the non-elected politicians simply do not have a clue what daily survival entails for the marginal in T&T hence their inability to address this manufactured social crisis. The other political response is to allow sections of the economy to function in a bid to soften the blow of the economic collapse as in Jamaica which has now backfired as there is no testing to support this decision hence the outbreak in the call centers. This refusal to test with the volume required to expose the risks involved with this decision has plunged the DR into the pandemic flash point of the Caribbean island chain. Other politicians of the Caribbean island chain have indicated their willingness to throw the medical playbook out of the window as they are not seeking re-election and there is the willingness to be even more extreme than the medical playbook when faced with re-election. In Suriname presidential elections due shortly trumps the medical playbook and the virus.
It is now revealed that the virus has now falsified the discourse of immunology and there are questions of the efficacy of human antibody Covid 19 tests on the market as instances of persons who were infected and recovered presenting a low antibody load. Are they then immune? In the Caribbean we have no antibody research reported nor genetic screening of our infections reported. We are then locking down populations and destroying lives and economies blindly selling snake oil to our people. Click on the links that follow to experience the realities of Covid 19 the virus in all its potency. The present snake oil is a quick and effective vaccine.
https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco-visionaries/486705-viruses-cause-covid-pandemic/
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9241
https://www.rt.com/news/486489-covid19-antibody-millions-people-infected/
Long term immunity remains the grave uncertainty as the talking heads with whirlwind tongues peddle the hope of a vaccine by the end of 2020. The lessons of the paper by B Korber et al is compulsory reading as they discovered the 14 mutations of the Spike protein of the virus with mutation D614G being of specific and urgent concern given its drive for hegemony when it enters fresh populations. Then there is the ability of strains to recombine posing multiple strains infections. Then there is the discovery that Covid 19 was active in France as at December 27 2019. How did it move from Wuhan to France so rapidly? What is most obvious in this pandemic is the political position that the poor and marginalized pose the gravest threat to social order. these groups then have to be policed, socially controlled as their lifestyle is the grave threat. In T&T the privileged continue to have their hair styled, their mani and pedi, their domestic workers, their landscapers, re[pairs and n maintenance to their [properties. Whilst when we seek to avoid the lunacy of our cramped living conditions filled with humanity by going for a sea bath in deadly polluted sea water we are arrested and fined TT$ 1,000 per person. This is not law enforcement but social control of a profiled socio-economic group of a specific race in a specific space by members of this race group for the benefit of the oligarchs who flout the law openly. This why we of this group couldn't go and buy from street vendors because we are all lawless threatening to spread the virus. But we didn't fly to Miami and NY city and Europe bringing it back. The reality of infection is deliberately submerged with fear as an instrument of social control. Yet they have us scrambling in long lines to buy food, pay our bills and collect the little change from foreign that we need to make ends meet. You starve us to save us and expose us to Covid 19 whilst we scramble to access essential services. This is a bad memory I will never forget. Massa day ain't done.
https://www.bfmtv.com/sante/coronavirus-le-professeur-cohen-affirme-qu-il-y-avait-un-cas-de-covid-19-en-france-des-le-27-decembre-1906757.html
Click to access 2020.04.24.059576v1.full.pdf
The fall out from the blow to the local economy is now being made manifest as the reopening is ongoing. Workers are being sent home for three months without pay whilst others are only working ten days with pay for the month. The research shows that the Covid-19 virus is vastly different from that of SARS as it has a mechanism to disarm the operation of our immune system very much like the HIV virus. Research in Hong kong has raised the issue of the 80-20 ratio with 20 percent being super spreaders responsible for aggressively infecting the 80% which questions the methodology of flattening the curve after you have failed to arrest the access the 20% has to large crowds. The issue especially for small islands where the virus has to be imported is then early action to prevent importation of the virus which allows the population to continue with their economic lives with minimum disruption.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.24.111823v1.full
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-29548/v1
This entry was posted in drug trade analysis and tagged drug trade on March 29, 2020 by dauriusfigueira.
Prohibition and its War on Ganja and Ganja Users
Myths and Reality of Ganja
T&T is a signatory to the international agreement that insists that Ganja is a dangerous drug in spite of the decriminalization of 30 grams and less of ganja in your personal possession in 2019. This article deals with the issue of what is a dangerous drug under the law and the current discourse of ganja in the North Atlantic. After millions of dollars of taxpayers' money have been spent on ganja research by the state in the North Atlantic, no scientific evidence is forthcoming, that ganja changes the chemistry of the brain by stimulating the production of dopamine by the brain, to the point where the brain becomes addicted to the tsunami of dopamine. To maintain this tsunami, dopamine utilizes its impact on reward and reinforcement, by having the human repeat the action of ingesting the product that stimulates the brain to produce the flood of dopamine. Cocaine, heroin, nicotine, meth are potent examples of chemicals that trigger the brain to produce tsunamis of dopamine and dopamine rewards and reinforces the ingestion of these chemicals by the human, to ensure the brain gets its high. The addicted brain creates the addicted human and both go into crisis when dopamine production collapses in the brain, pushing the brain and the human into bouts of craving and the sickness of withdrawal where addicted brain and the human are now de-socialized, asocial capable of doing anything for a fix.
Ganja does not stimulate the production of dopamine to the point where the brain is addicted to it, as a result and demands more and more of ganja creating and addicted brain and an addicted human. Why then is ganja banned as a dangerous drug when it does not impact the brain as cocaine, heroin, meth which are all illegal and nicotine which is perfectly legal? The white supremacist history of the USA provides the answer where with the end of African enslavement in 1865 there was a need for race/social control of the now freed Africans. The politicians of the South invested in an assault on ganja then cocaine, as drugs particularly favored by African men who when intoxicated were raping white women, and posed grave threats to the white social order as ganja then cocaine made them violent, uncontrollable, potent threats to white society. In the US House of Representatives the southern politicians forced the issue by invoking the white peril at the hands of the free African which then became law. The war on drugs in the US is then premised on race/social control and in the geo-political context on imperial power.
The failure of research to prove that ganja is a dangerous drug, heightened the drive to create a science of the dangerous nature of ganja to humans by any means necessary. The basis of this science remains in the 21st century the moral panic evoked by ganja use. This science has created the scientific concept of: "ganja use disorder" where ganja use especially chronic ganja use results in a disorder of the body, but what is chronic use remains diverse as the research to define it only generates a diversity of opinion. Using ganja for twelve months consecutively now constitutes chronic use in the official addiction intervention literature and ganja users in this category are supposed to show evidence of the disorder. The grave problem of this concept shows the game that created it, for if ganja use creates a disorder in the human body where then is the disease that drives the disorder? Using ganja is then a disease, a moral disease, indicative of moral decay and this is the only reason why it is a dangerous drug! The science of ganja as a dangerous drug has never dropped the moral panic of reefer madness as the prime justification for insisting that ganja is a dangerous drug. The white supremacist reason for banning ganja in the USA is still operative in the 21st century and applied in countries where the population is predominantly non-white by non-white politicians to indicate that they are good servants of massa, yessum massa sah, no sah massa sah!
The science of ganja use disorder states that chronic use results in a human devoid of reinforcement and reward, a human de-socialized, lacking in motivation, social skills and the wherewithal to conform with hegemonic norms, mores and values. Ganja use then contributes significantly to the erosion of the social order and the generation of deviance and criminality making ganja users criminogenic, bringing us right back to the white supremacist discourse of the freed African and ganja in the southern US states. A new definition and concept of addiction is invented to fit into the concept of ganja use disorder which insists that ganja users are in fact addicts. Ganja addiction is then defined as psychological dependence which is as broad as it is wide granting huge swaths of space for the state to intervene into the daily life of ganja users as taking their children from them and making them wards of the state. The sick irony of this process is revealed when you study the protocols for intervention into cocaine, meth, opioid intervention and the ganja intervention protocol. Since there is no addiction of the brain with ganja, the intervention is in fact is not an intervention but an attempt at social control, of state power applied to a deviant as defined by power. The most disturbing development is the willingness of the state even when they have decriminalized small amounts of ganja possession to now target ganja users through their interaction with their children. Using ganja in the presence of their children, being a ganja addict, planting ganja plants in the presence of their children is enough to lose their children to the state, even though they are within the limits of the decriminalization clauses of the law. Decriminalization is an instrument of power which deepens social control over the ganja user especially when they are parents raising their children in a family structure.
A publication of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the US federal government titled: "Preventing the Use of Marijuana: Focus on Women and Pregnancy" reveals the inherent contradictions of the discourse of ganja as a dangerous drug. In this case the document is insisting on the risks posed to the unborn child by the pregnant mother using ganja during pregnancy as verified fact, but instances of the discourse of harm to the unborn present copious use of the word "may". The document states: "Socioeconomic conditions and other risk factors such as those listed below may contribute to the same pregnancy outcomes otherwise attributed to marijuana. As a result, it is difficult to assess how much of an effect is specifically due to marijuana exposure." (Page 5). In spite of the uncertainty expressed, the document follows with the presentation of "facts," the prime fact being the birth outcomes of babies born to ganja using mothers during pregnancy. The document states on birth outcomes: "Women who frequently or regularly use marijuana during their pregnancy may be more likely to experience worse birth outcomes, including low birth weight and preterm delivery compared to a pregnant woman who do not use marijuana." (Page 8). This statement hinged on uncertainty is then enough to intervene into the life of a marijuana using mother and her child by the state taking custody of the child. The document then emphatically states that studies have proven as fact that marijuana use during pregnancy results in low birth weight and preterm birth. Following this statement of fact the document states as follows: "Not all studies, however, have found this association between marijuana use and preterm birth, due to other confounding factors as tobacco or other substance use. This is also likely the result of differing methodologies, including poor quantification of marijuana exposure and a lack of documentation for preterm birth in many studies." (Page 8). There are then serious methodological issues with the studies that link marijuana use during pregnancy to preterm births, which amounts to junk science, where a discourse of power determines the outcome of the research. This is the underlying reality of all state sponsored and accepted studies on ganja which makes all of them suspect as the discourse of prohibition has shown its unhesitating willingness to insist that myth is fact and intervene in persons lives, changing its nature drastically, based on myth. The issue is power.
The article titled: "Marijuana use during pregnancy and breastfeeding: implications for neonatal and childhood outcomes by Ryan et al is listed in the references of the Samhsa study. In Ryan et al the two systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the research literature that are the foundation of the assault on ganja and its use during pregnancy are presented, but the words of the researchers in both studies are signal lessons in the use of lies to trump fact. On the Gunn et al study, Ryan et al points out: "The authors pointed out, however, that a major limitation of their study was their inability to determine the independent effect of marijuana, given that most of the studies assessed did not exclude individuals with polysubstance use, including tobacco or alcohol, or measure use of those substances. The authors also cited additional limitations, such as how the use of marijuana was identified mainly by self-report, and few of the outcomes were standardized across studies." (Page 4). The conclusions of this systematic review is then premised on junk science which presented evidence that marijuana posed a risk to the unborn readily accepted and utilized by the discourse of science of ganja prohibition for its political agenda to this day. Junk science used as an instrument of power in the war on ganja. The next study Conner et al is even more revealing as follows: "women who smoked marijuana only were not at risk for preterm delivery, but those who smoked both tobacco and marijuana did experience higher rates of preterm delivery compared with those not using either marijuana or tobacco." "They concluded that maternal marijuana use during pregnancy was not an independent risk factor for several outcomes, given the confounding effect with factors such as tobacco use." (Page 4). Conner et al insisted that maternal marijuana use pregnancy was more likely to deliver underweight and still born children, but what is alluded to as fact is rooted in limitations of the study as follows: "but these results were unadjusted, because the authors were limited in their analytic ability to provide adjusted relative risk rates for these outcomes." (Page 4). In light of this chronic limitation on a meta-analysis why then make such a definitive statement? To advance your career by dancing in the prohibition conga line.
Ryan et al reveals that the position of fact that ganja use by the mother during pregnancy negatively impacts the long term development of the child is based on two studies. Ryan et al states: "Two longitudinal studies have been used to observe cohorts of prenatally exposed individuals from infancy to adolescence and early adulthood, and these provide most of the limited evidence on the long-term advanced neurodevelopmental effects resulting from prenatal exposure to marijuana." (Page 5). These two studies are: the Ottawa Prenatal Prospective Study (OPPS) and the Maternal Health Practices and Child Development Study (MHPCD) provide the limited evidence now available justifying the removal of children by the state from parents or a parent who expose/s their children to ganja, have used ganja during pregnancy thereby blighting the child with arrested development and give ganja to their children. Both studies were done by prohibitionist institutions funded by prohibitionist money with their findings yet to be replicated by independent research. It is then the mantra of prohibition to write into all child protection laws of all signatories of the treaty prohibiting ganja, the discourse of ganja and the arrested development of fetuses and children exposed to it. Power defines truth not science. The grave lesson then is that what is deemed fact to justify the prohibition of ganja and its use, amounts to the product of highly questionable research, very limited research used as the platform of truth to justify prohibition and as an instrument of power by which to police the population, this is social control. Prohibition refuses to enable all research on ganja with the necessary volume and diversity that has the potential to falsify its discourse of ganja. Ganja prohibition then has something to hide!
Ganja is then a potent, credible pain reducer without the grave risk of addiction as opioids, which is a threat to the multi billion dollar opioid industry of the North Atlantic, until such time that the billionaire oligarchs move into ganja pain relief, when suddenly federal law will change on ganja. Until such time the new line of attack is ganja is causing disease in the human body especially to children and unborn babies. The move now is to classify ganja as a disease with a series of disorders presenting from its use, with an intense predilection to use questionable science which is sensationally repeated uncritically over the North Atlantic media as scientific fact. The US and EU continue to refuse to pump money into research that proves the medical potency of ganja for this erodes their position that ganja has no medical use. Money is coming from ganja entrepreneurs for research, but the regulatory agencies of the North Atlantic all push the prohibition discourse as a result signal research for the benefit of mankind on ganja is starved as the politics of ganja is hegemonic.
Signal research in the following areas are suffering under the domination of prohibition: ganja and the alleviation of PTSD, ganja and its rejuvenating effects on damaged neurons, which will throw light on the position that exposure to ganja in the womb results in arrested neuron development in childrem, ganja and the alleviation of chronic pain without risk of addiction, ganja and seizures, ganja and auto-immune diseases, ganja and interventions into addiction. This is a short list of pressing research issues all being squeezed by the politics of prohibition married to the politics of oligarchic hegemony which worsens the quality of human life on this planet. There is an agenda to suppress as far as possible all research on ganja and the human body through myth, lies and innuendo. Why? The answer lies in the reality that it is a plant available for all of us to grow, reap and partake of, unlike cocaine, heroin, meth, molly etc, it is liberationary!
I wrote this article as someone trained in addictionology and addiction intervention by the New England Addiction Technology Transfer Center and Brown University, not as an "expert" based on a google search!
Caribbean Basin/Caricom Murder Rates 2019
The Murder Rate of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) 2019 in Caribbean context
The sum of murders for any year is not the murder rate of a country, that is the murder toll or sum of murders for one year. The murder rate for one year is the number of murders per 100,000 persons of the population of the said country which affords a comparative analysis of countries with varying population sizes. This post is then a listing of the murder rates in 2019 for countries of the Caribbean basin where their murder toll 2019 is stated in current online news stories. The initial group of countries for this post ordered on the highest murder rates in descending order for 2019 is as follows:
per 100,000 persons
Honduras: 46.266
Jamaica: 44.8783
Trinidad and Tobago: 38.1335
US Virgin Islands: 37.6789
Belize: 32.80
St Lucia: 26.8067
The Bahamas: 24.6481
St Vincent and the Grenadines: 21.7019 (January to October 2019).
Venezuela: 21
St Kitts & Nevis: 20.8452
Barbados: 17.0458
Guyana: 14.5638 (January to October 2019).
Grenada: 14.2602
Curacao: 11.875
French Guiana: 10.7849
Puerto Rico: 9.9330
Martinique: 7.749
Dominican Republic: 6.909 (January-September 2019).
Suriname: 5.1680
Antigua & Barbuda: 3.1206
What is now apparent is the existence of apex trafficking countries in the Caribbean basin/Caricom whose 2019 murder rate was below 10 per 100,000, namely: the Dominican Republic, Suriname and Puerto Rico. The structure and order of transnational drug trafficking for these countries will partially explain why such a low murder rate but this must be combined with an analysis of the history of the political economy of these States. Then there is the case of the premier terminal for drug distribution combined with illicit drug production that is showing a decline in the homicide rate reaching 21 per 100,000 in 2019: Venezuela. A clear illustration of the hegemony on the ground of the new order of the MTTOs in Venezuela today, where trafficking across and out of Venezuela to the region has now a clear, discernible order noted for its diversity and iron discipline on the ground illustrated by the haves and the have nots on the supply side of the illicit trades. Venezuela is now in a group of table which consists of St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines and St Lucia. Some impacted by past structures and orders as St Kitts and Nevis by the order of Lil Nut that is now in tatters as the new order brought by the MTTOs and the ECTP. St Lucia by the drug trade to/from Martinique and the changes wrought by the ECTP and the order of the MTTOs creating the hierarchy of the naves and have nots. St Vincent and the Grenadines continue to be impacted by the fallout from the St Lucia/Martinique trade, the frantic search for supply as ganja demand explodes especially in Barbados and T&T and the impact of the ECTP and the order of the MTTOs on the drug market. The Bahamas is potently impacted by intensified drug trafficking and human smuggling to the USA, the increasing demand for ganja in The Bahamas and its export to the US and the drive for hegemony of the new order of the MTTOs. The Bahamas sits in a region of multiple pipelines to the US linking the archipelago to Haiti, the DR, Jamaica and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The salient question remains why transit points in this category have murder rates that way outstrip those of the command and control trafficking centers as the DR and Suriname? St Lucia's murder rate reflects a reality that is now impacting Martinique seen in its murder rate of 7.749 which was the fourth highest in France and its overseas departments for 2019, setting off the alarm bells. But this murder rate in Martinique is also the product of the new order of the MTTOs as the Suriname command and control center has targeted Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana and St Martin to traffick product into France and the EU. The 30 to 39 per 100,000 group follows with T&T having the highest murder rate in this group but its strategic importance to illicit trafficking in the Caribbean pales in comparison to the US Virgin Islands and Belize, T&T is then boxing way above its weight class in the murder rate hierarchy of the Caribbean. The Us Virgin islands is besieged by drug trafficking and human smuggling using it as an entry point to enter the US mainland via domestic routes. In the US Virgin islands, the right to bear arms exists which feeds into the gun violence but there is also the trafficking of illicit arms from the US mainland and illicit opioids trafficking and ganja from the US. Belize borders Mexico and is now a hot landing zone for drug flights moving product into Mexico via Belizean landing strips. T&T has no such strategic value to illicit trafficking but its murder rate places it at the apex of this category largely the result of the ganja wars where the largest market for ganja nearly solely dependent on imports in the Caribbean exists which experiences constant shortfalls in supply. This T&T reality is now reflected in the escalating murder rate in Barbados with 2019 being its highest rate ever recorded as the ganja wars escalate in Barbados as they are the third largest market for ganja in the Caribbean almost wholly dependent on imports, where demand constantly chases supply. The apex category consists of Honduras and Jamaica but they occupy opposite realities in the illicit trades but share similar histories of political economy but Jamaica presents a unique reality. Jamaica and Honduras are linked via trafficking pipeline that flow both ways as is the case with Costa Rica and Panama. Jamaican transnational crime, Shower, is the premier affiliate of the MTTOs of the Caribbean, operational throughout the Caribbean and the North Atlantic. Jamaican political economy has then produced the most powerful Caribbean transnational organised crime group in the illicit trades of the world and the premier Caribbean affiliate of the MTTOs. An organization built on the production and export of Jamaican premier ganja to the North Atlantic exploiting to their advantage their organic links to the Jamaican political order founded on the garrison constituencies of Jamaican electoral politics in post-colonial Jamaica. Jamaica's murder rate is the legacy bequeathed to it by the Jamaican political order, its political economy not solely its illicit trades and Jamaica's strategic value to these trades. T&T's political economy and the ganja wars not its strategic value to Caribbean illicit trafficking are the prime reasons for the 2019 murder rate that is threatening to enter the realm of Jamaica and Honduras. T&T in 2019 is the third ranked murder capital of the Caribbean basin and Caricom, a position in no way the product of its strategic value to trafficking rather the result of a systematic failure of governance borne out of the politics of race and voter mobilization rooted in a discourse of racist hegemony.


Easter bakes with lots of the chocolate stuff!
My children just love sweets; I remember when my first son was born, I attempted to convince him that raisins were sweets; it worked for a little while anyway. Now I have four older children they certainly know what they like.
Recently I saw an idea circulating about Facebook – someone had made crème egg muffins, which looked superb. In our house we prefer brownies; all the children go mad for them as they are lovely and moist. We used our normal chocolate brownie recipe (listed below) and then part way through the cooking dropped the halved frozen mini crème eggs into each section of the mix.
Preheat the oven to 160C and grease a brownie baking tin (if you have one) or a normal tin if you haven't.
Melt the butter and dark chocolate together in the microwave.
Break the eggs into a bowl and tip in 275g sugar. Beat until the mix has become thick and creamy.
Pour the chocolate mixture over the eggy mixture, then fold together.
Sieve the cocoa and flour mixture over the combined mixtures. Gently fold in and pour into the baking tin.
Bake the mixture for 15 minutes then press the Cadbury's Crème egg halves into the mix. Put back in the over for another 5-10 minutes.


This entry was posted on Sunday, August 30th, 2009 at 1:19 pm	and is filed under Careers in Music, Music Education, Performing, Practicing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


PORTLAND, Ore. & COLUMBIA, S.C. —Aug. 17, 2017— Travel Oregon and Discover South Carolina, two destination marketing organizations which promote travel and tourism to their respective states, are over the moon to announce they will be hosting a joint social media challenge next Monday, August 21, the day of the total solar eclipse.
The transcontinental eclipse will begin in Oregon and end in South Carolina, allowing individuals in Oregon the first opportunity in the nation to experience the celestial phenomenon, and those in South Carolina the last.
To celebrate, recognize and forever remember the beginning and the end of this once-in-a-lifetime event, the two organizations want viewers to share their experiences before, during and after the eclipse.
Want to participate? Both Travel Oregon and Discover South Carolina encourage individuals to tag their Instagram posts (original images or videos) @TravelOregon and @Discover_SC, describe their location within Oregon or South Carolina, comment on what the experience meant to them and then include the hashtag, #coast2coasteclipse.
The challenge will close Tuesday, August 22 at 11:59 p.m., after which two lucky winners will be selected by each state's governor — Governor Kate Brown of Oregon and Governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina — to win swag from their respective states. No purchase necessary.
To learn more about Travel Oregon, visit www.traveloregon.com. To learn more about Discover South Carolina, visit www.discoversouthcarolina.com.
Discover South Carolina, the marketing brand used by The South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism, aims to promote leisure travel and tourism to the state of South Carolina. For more information on the Palmetto state's 47 state parks, bustling cities, charming small towns, festivals and events, authentic cuisine and beautiful coastline, please visit DiscoverSouthCarolina.com. South Carolina…it's Just Right.
The Oregon Tourism Commission, dba Travel Oregon, works to enhance visitors' experiences by providing information, resources and trip planning tools that inspire travel and consistently convey the exceptional quality of Oregon. The commission aims to improve Oregonians' quality of life by strengthening the economic impacts of the state's $11.3 billion tourism industry that employs more than 109,000 Oregonians. Visit TravelOregon.com to learn more.


"Before I Die" by Jenny Downham | Mel Reads YA!
I get a lot of books to review, so I pile them up and let my 12 year old have at 'em. It wasn't until after she read it I figured it had some stuff for older teens. She did seem to enjoy it. I kind of felt like a bad mommy. Just a little.
I myself, at her age or younger, followed Heinlein and Silverburg from the kids' section to the adult section (no real YA back then). It was eye-opening, to say the least, to go from boys in space with slide rules to threesomes!


text:
Q: Why grid becomes inappropriate in 3D projection after assigning x and yticks? Using the following code grid doesn't appear properly as it can be seen in the figure that the squares in the xy plane have large size as compared to z axis. how can I get the grid of equal boxes? I have observed the grid squares are equal when I don't apply x and yticks. Can I fix this error?
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
x= np.linspace(-math.pi,math.pi,30)
y= np.linspace(-math.pi,math.pi,30)
xx,yy = np.meshgrid(x,y)

X_grid, Y_grid = np.meshgrid(x,y)
print("X_grid shape: ",X_grid.shape)
zz =-2*(np.cos(xx) + np.cos(yy))

ax = plt.axes(projection='3d')

ax.plot_surface(xx,yy,zz)

plt.xticks([x[0],x[int(len(s)/2)], x[-1]], [r'$-\pi$',  r'$0$', r'$-\pi$' ])
plt.yticks([y[0],y[int(len(s)/2)], y[-1]], [r'$-\pi$',  r'$0$', r'$-\pi$' ])
plt.xlabel("kx")
plt.ylabel("ky")

A: Referring to the documentation I found this:

Note: Prior to version 1.0.0, the method of creating a 3D axes was different. For those using older versions of matplotlib, change ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d') to ax = Axes3D(fig).

See this for .set_zticks. Note that since this is 3D plot so this documentation is found in mplot3d
So modified the code accordingly.
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import math
import os
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
x= np.linspace(-math.pi,math.pi,30)
y= np.linspace(-math.pi,math.pi,30)
z= np.linspace(-math.pi,math.pi,30)

xx,yy = np.meshgrid(x,y)

X_grid, Y_grid = np.meshgrid(x,y)
print("X_grid shape: ",X_grid.shape)
zz =-2*(np.cos(X_grid) + np.cos(Y_grid))

Z = zz.reshape(X_grid.shape)

ax = Axes3D(fig)

#updated lines
ax.set_zticks([z[0],z[int(len(z)/2)], z[-1]])
ax.set_zticklabels([r'$-\pi$',  r'$0$', r'$-\pi$' ])

plt.xticks([x[0],x[int(len(x)/2)], x[-1]], [r'$-\pi$',  r'$0$', r'$-\pi$' ])
plt.yticks([y[0],y[int(len(y)/2)], y[-1]], [r'$-\pi$',  r'$0$', r'$-\pi$' ])

plt.xlabel("kx")
plt.ylabel("ky")
ax.plot_surface(X_grid,Y_grid,Z)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Pom Pom Party Pouf & Garland Tutorial!
It's time to craft!!! Join Jennifer as she walks you through the Pom Pom Party Pouf & Garland tutorial from Happy Home.
It's a GREAT project for the Summer — think of all those special moments you can decorate… from BBQ's, birthday parties and beach parties to weddings, kiddo parties, and well, even a special room in your home!
These are fabulous projects to do with kids, as there are kid-friendly options. The Plastic poms you will see come wrapped up in a twisty tie. It's a safe alternative to the hot glue gun, and still achieves the same, beautiful result.
As always, we like to remind folks that the glue gun should ONLY be used with parental supervision. It can get very hot and can be dangerous.
Adore is a great word that comes to mind when we look at this beautiful woman in a classic chunky zebra (Lauralee) from Super fly.
The zebra will live on forever, in its playful simplicity. We LOVE how this darling sewer of blog, Goodbye Valentine used Lauralee in brown to create such a classic dress. Clearly, with some shades, a sun hat, and turquoise chunky jewelry the look is complete. BEAUTIFUL!
Dear Australia. Thank you for all that you do.
Today we are taking a special moment to share our LOVE and APPRECIATION for dear friends and supporters in Australia. These friends support Sis Boom wholeheartedly, and consistently provide us with mesmerizing eye candy that we are able to enjoy from afar! We're so happy that the land of Oz loves what we do!!
We recently requested that fabric shops in Australia provide us with their links, so that all of you Aussies have the opportunity to snag up some Circa!
Sis Boom is so blessed to have worldwide support. We love each and every one of you so very much!
This summer we will be doing a series of CRAFTING VIDEOS! Your host will be… Boomer. (he's lovely, really).
You have 2 weeks to gather your supplies, which are all listed in the Resources section of Happy Home. Get your signed copy HERE.


text:
Royal Portrait Roils Viewers Before Unveiling
Eileen Kinsella, July 2, 2014
A new royal portrait of Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, will be presented at 4 p.m. in London today at the Wales Office in Whitehall. The artwork is titled Fatherhood.
It was created by Welsh artist Dan Llewelyn Hall, who depicts the Prince with a pensive look on his face, wearing a dark suit and a red tie, and a poppy in his lapel. His ruddy complexion and the painting's fleshy tones are reminiscent of British painter Jenny Saville, a favorite of Charles Saatchi.
It hasn't taken long for audiences to begin commenting on the royal portrait, many with a less-than-positive view of it. The same artist's portrait of the Queen last year was blasted. Comments left on the Daily Mail website included "Where do they get these artists from? First Kate now this. Terrible!" and "The painting is horrible, let's get a real artist to do a makeover. William is too handsome to display this."
Others took to Twitter to share their views with one tweeter deeming it "bloody awful" and another asking the Mail: "Whatcha mean a bit rubbish? … It's total rubbish!"
The artist, who is 33, graduated from art school in 2003 before being awarded the Sunday Times "Young Artist of the Year." His portraits of First World War veterans Henry Allingham and Harry Patch are now a permanent feature in the Royal Collection and the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath, according to the Mail. Hall is the youngest person ever to paint the Queen, the report notes.
Asked to respond to the criticism surrounding his work, Hall told the Mail, somewhat cryptically: "Well I'm with Oscar Wilde on this. I would say it's the role of the artist to educate the critic and the role of the critic to educate the public."
The portrait will be put up for auction at Bonhams centenrary WWI sale on October 1, with all proceeds going to the Victoria Cross Trust and War Memorials Trust.
Kate Middleton has also been the subject of more than one portrait. Is it possible some interested buyer will snap up both and display them as a pair?
Eileen Kinsella
Senior Market Editor
The Experience of Katrín Sigurdardóttir's Imaginary Palazzo
By , Jul 2, 2014
President of France's National Antique Dealers Federation Ousted

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: the first run firebase transaction after deploy - error, otherwise ok When I deploy application on server (WildFly 8 - I tried my local and also Openshift). The first time firebase transaction fail (MutableData currentData is null). But next time (all time after that) it runs perfect. Even if I disconnect from firebase and connect again. Problem is really only the first time after deployment.
So where can be problem? Or is it some firebase bug?
Thanks for reply

A: This is currently expected behavior.  If Firebase doesn't already have data cached, it may run your transaction on null, and then re-run it with the right data if it turns out null wasn't the up-to-date value of the location.
We'll likely look into changing this behavior in the future, as it often causes confusion.  The workaround is to check for and handle null explicitly.  Sorry for the inconvenience!


Do you wish that you could actually afford certain items, but you don't bother because of the cost? Well, you have the help you need in the form of using coupons. Most people know about them, but few are using them effectively. Keep reading to learn some valuable coupon tips.
If you are going to make the most out of your coupons, make sure you are well aware of what policy is in place at the store you wish to redeem them at. Some stores, for example, have a limit on the number of coupons or which ones they will accept.
Coupons can be found all over. In your Sunday paper, you all would get at least one flyer with money in pit. Also, find them in grocery store circulars, magazines and coupon mailings. There are even sites online that are solely dedicated to coupons.
Think before you click the submit button! Always do protexting coupons for coupon codes before making an online purchase. There are even whole websites dedicated to keeping databases of coupon codes. Visit retailmenot.com or couponcabin.com before making a purchase. It only takes a second and could save you a lot of money.
Bring all of your coupons along for the shopping trip, even if you have no plans to use them. Specials and sales might catch you by surprise and make your coupons worth using.
Before shopping, make sure your coupons have not expired. There are some coupons which have a very limited time to use. Some are good for a month. Look at them on a weekly basis and see when they are no longer useable. Make sure you look to see what is going to expire soon. That will maximize the savings from each coupon.
Check coupons online to see if there are any coupons available for items you need. If you find a coupon for an item, you need, look at the store's flyer and see if there are any sales on the item. If there aren't, check the price when you go to the store.
A good tip if you like to use coupons is not to get carried away with simply clipping out coupons. Only keep coupons that you intend to use. If something is on sale that you're unlikely to buy, then you should just leave it. Time is also money so you don't want to waste more than you have to.
Use your shopping list to browse the ads as you clip coupons for your shopping trip. You may be able to save a lot by going to a few stores instead of visiting numerous places.
Ask your family and friends to help you save coupons from the newspapers and magazines. This will give you a better chance of acquiring the best set of coupons for saving money. You can work out a trade with them in exchange for them providing the coupons.
Don't buy an item just because you have a coupon for it. The purpose of using coupons is to save you money. You don't save any money if you ate buying items you don't normally buy. If you do use a coupon for a new item, only buy one to make sure you like it.
To have a basic filing system for your coupons, it's a good idea to put them in a shoe box stacked in chronological order or just arrange them by an expiration date. In doing this, you do not have to waste a ton of time organizing. However, you always know which coupons are about to go out of date and become useless.
Target the smaller sizes on the grocery shelf to maximize your coupon. The reduction in size also carries a reduction in initial price. When you reduce your unit cost, you save more in the long run. This will let you control your usage of products better overall as well.
It's easy to make use of coupons. You'll be well on your way if you make use of this article's suggestions. All you have to do is keep this advice in your mind. You may want to print a copy of this piece and reference it while clipping coupons. With the money you are saving, make your back account bigger.


I loved the editorial article "Free Manuel Duran." Typical Democrat/liberal drivel. Here we have an illegal alien troublemaker working up and promoting dissension within neighborhoods that don't need it, and likely causing cost to the city. But instead, he is put forth as a "job-holding taxpayer receiving no just benefits," none of which is verified. Don't say it if you can't back it up.
We continue to read in The Commercial Appeal how unfair the juvenile justice system is and how it needs to be reformed, which may or may not be true. In the meantime, why don't we read about and address the basic problem, lack of parenting? Where are the fathers? If the juveniles would stop breaking the law they wouldn't have a problem with the juvenile justice system.