From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 07:32:30 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: RE: Tim's friend's mildly retarded son
Message-ID: <ad6f75c41302100402cd@[205.199.118.202]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 6:44 PM 3/15/96, Blanc Weber wrote:

>>The point is that it is not right to prevent, stifle, suffocate, the
>>liberty to use one's own resources, to act at one's own discretion and
>>make one's own choices in regard of one's own particular circumstance,
>>to make independently the judgements necessary to determine the truth
>>or falsehood of a statement, or the efficacy of a drug - i.e., it is
>>not right to have to "give it up" to the State, allowing no one else to
>>engage in the mental exercise and follow-through.
>>
>>   ..
>>Blanc
>>I hope I'm not the only one here who thinks so.

How could you be? Since I was the one who cited the example, I clearly am
opposed to the current monopoly on judgment the FDA enjoys.

As to Asgaard and his claim that the FDA is to be trusted, he is welcome to
trust them. I don't think they are _dishonest_, merely in thrall (*) to
special interests, drug companies, and, above all, to bureaucratic
stodginess.

(* Asgaard should be happy that I am using a word derived from Old Norse,
"thrall," as in "enthralling." A thrall was a slave in Icelandic and Old
Norse.)

His speculation that my friend's mildly retarded son is not helped is
unknowable to him. In fact, the nootropic in question, Piracetam, is sold
in Europe (and Mexico, as I noted), and elsewhere, for the treatment of
Alzheimer's, dementia, and to alleviate mild retardation. My friend thinks
it gives his son an improvement from, say, an IQ of 70 to perhaps an IQ of
75. Apparently this is an important difference, so much so that when his
supply of Piracetam (nicely packaged from Glaxo Pharmaceuticals of England)
ran out, and the FDA had tightened shipping rules and he was unable to
order it through the mail from his usual Canadian source, he felt the
strong need to drive to Tijuana to buy his son a significant supply.

(A few years ago I also bought some nootropics in TJ. I felt no effect. My
friend thinks the effect is greater at the impaired-end of the spectrum,
which actually fits with the prescribed-usage patterns noted above.)

Whether my friend is deluding himself or not, it is not for men with guns
to tell him he may not buy something to consume. The "drug laws" are
nothing more than "dietary laws," and have virtually nothing to do with
public or personal safety. If safety was the issue, then the drug ethanol,
which kills at least 40,000 Americans a year would  be outlawed while
marijuana and narcotics, which kill far fewer (even when police raids,
overdoses, and illegality-related crimes are included) would not be the
focus of drug laws. Tobacco, which kills an estimated 400,000 a year is the
winner. (The statistics I saw a few years ago were easily memorizable:
tobacco: 400,000, alchohol: 40,000, drugs: 4,000.)

Don't think I am advocating illegalization of booze or cigarettes. Free
people are free to consume what they choose. (The issue of driving while
impaired, or operating heavy machinery, or posting to the CP list while
impaired, is a separable issue. We don't illegalize alchohol, we illegalize
drunk driving. And my drug-using acquaintances are drastically less likely
to be "DUI" with marijuana or LSD than drinkers are with alcohol.)

We are not free when someone tells us which foods and herbs are legal to
eat, and which are not.

(I'll spare the usual stuff about how the Founders smoke a pipe of cannabis
now and then, how "canvas" comes from the Dutch word for this herb, how
special interests got hemp and "reefer" outlawed, and how the effects fell
mainly on the poor and inner-city folks.)

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1  | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."