Newsgroup sci.research 12555

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I was hoping it would be the NAS, AAAS or another organization to
take this step but hey a bunch of lawyers finally got up to
defend scientific research against political manipulation:
> The American Civil Liberties Union joined in Monday to criticize what it called the government's hypocrisy about
> medical marijuana. 
> 
> The group's education director, Loren Siegal, contended in a statement that the government "has consistently
> impeded research into medical marijuana" while maintaining that its effectiveness should be subjected to
> scientific scrutiny. 
> 
> "If that were true," Siegal said, "a body of scientific research would exist."
Thank heavens the ACLU is ready to defend science publicly if 
scientific organizations are not dealing with this issue.

Keith R. Phelps wrote:
> 
> Anonymous wrote:
> >
> > Paul Ennin M.D. wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello all I am a new suscriber to your news group.  I am a new engineer
> > > and I am looking for a job.
> > > Can anyone help.
> > > In NY area especially!!!
> >
> > I do not know about the New York area, but in the St. Louis area there
> > are no entry level positions open, and it may be that way in many other
> > places.  I have been sending resumes out for several years, and no
> > permanent position has gotten less than about 40 resumes.  Even
> > temporary 1 or 2 month stints have about 5 or 10 resumes.  Many of the
> > entry level jobs that would have once gone to persons with Bachelor's
> > degrees are now being filled with PhD's with 10 or so years of
> > experience in each field because they are being downsized into the entry
> > level positions.  The reality is that the supply far outstrips the
> > demand.  Maybe if you tried to enter the field 10 or so years ago, you
> > might have been able to enter it, and work continuously and successfully
> > at it.  Nowadays, you might want to consider working as an M.D.  It
> > might be different in other areas of the country, but if not, it seems
> > doubtful that you might find anything at all.
> >
> > Sorry, -X
> 
> I don't believe that. I graduated from UM Rolla in May, and 6/8 people
> in my department had jobs BEFORE graduation. My wife also had a job upon
> graduation from Rolla.
I agree, there are jobs out there.  Check the ASSE jobline, they have a
long list of jobs of various levels.  Also your local chapter will
publish an ad for you in their monthly newsletter.  If you are willing
to relocate west, check the following: 
http://www.best.com:80/~assegsjc/
-- 
MZ

welshwytch  wrote:
>I was hoping it would be the NAS, AAAS or another organization to
>take this step but hey a bunch of lawyers finally got up to
>defend scientific research against political manipulation:
>
>> The American Civil Liberties Union joined in Monday to criticize what it called the government's hypocrisy about
>> medical marijuana. 
>> 
>> The group's education director, Loren Siegal, contended in a statement that the government "has consistently
>> impeded research into medical marijuana" while maintaining that its effectiveness should be subjected to
>> scientific scrutiny. 
>> 
>> "If that were true," Siegal said, "a body of scientific research would exist."
>
>Thank heavens the ACLU is ready to defend science publicly if 
>scientific organizations are not dealing with this issue.
On the news last night on TV, Mother Justice Janet Reno got up on her 
hind legs and said, "MARIJUANA IS A DANGEROUS DRUG!"
36 children have been killed by automotive airbags - protected to death.
To the best of my knowledge, the total number of deaths attributable to 
marijuana use over the past 35 years is *zero*.  A gram is better than a 
 damn.
When I was in college the jocks drank and the nerds smoked dope.  The 
jocks had GPAs around 2.5 and the nerds had GPAs aroud 3.8.  I cannot 
think of a more dangerous drug than marijuana.
More than 550,000,000 doses of Ritalin were administered to school 
children in 1995.  We have pured a foundation of adolescent junkies, now 
ripe to support establishment pharmaecutical manufacturers.  Do you think 
Mother Justice is taking her L-DOPA?
-- 
Alan "Uncle Al" Schwartz
UncleAl0@ix.netcom.com ("zero" before @)
http://www.ultra.net.au/~wisby/uncleal.htm
 (Toxic URL! Unsafe for children, Democrats, and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"  The Net!

As the world grows more electronic/technological every day the
long term need for engineers will grow.
If you have exceptional abilities and intense desire stay in the
field no matter how hard now. You will be rewarded.
May I suggest temp agencies/contracting. You will gain a breadth
of experience unavailable at any one job. This will make you
more valuable in the long run.
If you can't get jobs with your current level of expertise you
can always bid low enough as a contractor to win an assignment.
Good luck.
Simon
------------------------------------------------------------------
Anonymous  wrote:
>Paul Ennin M.D. wrote:
>> 
>> Hello all I am a new suscriber to your news group.  I am a new engineer
>> and I am looking for a job.
>> Can anyone help.
>> In NY area especially!!!
>I do not know about the New York area, but in the St. Louis area there
>are no entry level positions open, and it may be that way in many other
>places.  I have been sending resumes out for several years, and no
>permanent position has gotten less than about 40 resumes.  Even
>temporary 1 or 2 month stints have about 5 or 10 resumes.  Many of the
>entry level jobs that would have once gone to persons with Bachelor's
>degrees are now being filled with PhD's with 10 or so years of
>experience in each field because they are being downsized into the entry
>level positions.  The reality is that the supply far outstrips the
>demand.  Maybe if you tried to enter the field 10 or so years ago, you
>might have been able to enter it, and work continuously and successfully
>at it.  Nowadays, you might want to consider working as an M.D.  It
>might be different in other areas of the country, but if not, it seems
>doubtful that you might find anything at all.
>Sorry, -X
In the end people get the government they deserve.
Read "The Weapon Shops of Isher" by A.E. vanVogt
Simon

Patricia Schwarz  wrote:
>The federal government's position is that marijuana is medically
>useless. They are supporting that position by actively preventing
>any research to be done that could contradict their assertion.
I agree with you and find this McCaffrey fellow to be disingenuous in
the extreme. It is unconscionable interference in the lives of people
with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other chronic disorders that such studies
have been consistently stymied. Lidocaine, cocaine, heroin, LSD and
other drugs have been successfully used for a variety of diseases and
disorders. But the clinical data are limited--because we have this
VASTLY hypocritical administration that speaks only of the failed
policies of interdiction and NOTHING about treatment when ANY
substance is abused. Whether it is nicotince, alcohol, crack or Xanax.
One must ask: why is there this artificial divide? Marinol is GOOOD
and pot is BAAAD (sung to the cadence of Animal Farm). For some I've
known, marinol is a better choice. Others prefer marijuana.
And we are reduced to preferences and risk taking by patients in order
that Clinton may satisfy 3 purely political needs.
1) The patina of moralism that comes from a macho (if impotent) "just
say no" policy to drugs. Scratch the surface of that and what do you
get: the uglier attempt to control people's personal lives and the
decision-making authority of physicians. Worse than the treatment and
diagnosis decisions of the actuaries of HMOs, this is descision-making
by politicians. Perhaps the lowest form of life on earth with a few
notable exceptions. (I am NOT a libertarian.)
2) Continued propagation of the government's role as pimp for the
pharmaceutical industry. A quick review of the efforts by the NIH's
AIDS research shows virtually no studies of nutrition, dietary
supplements or herbs used by many people with HIV/AIDS. Such studies
could go a LONG way toward providing life- and/or resource-saving
information on whether such interventions help, hurt or do nothing but
line the pockets of the alternative industry. We need data, not this
long-standing, bitter and utterly unscientific feud between the
witches of Salem and the elders of surgery.
3) Perhaps the largest moral void that has swept the U.S. Keeping
drugs illegal keeps the profit incentive enormous. This has been shown
time and again to fund CIA-sponsored gun-running from Afghanistan to
Nicaragua and East Timor. (And what do we get? The CIA sticks its nose
in, screws up the local population, install a vicious puppet
government that is overturned and allows psychotic fundamentalists to
take over. Sheesh.)
This is coupled with the urban, suburban and rural nightmare of
continued substance abuse, lack of meaningful employment, and complete
capitulation of the educational system in favor of the only higher
education too many young people get. How to be a better thief/drug
dealer/rapist/murderer at our centers of higher education
euphemistically known as "Correctional Institutes."
This war against prescribing pot merely lifts a stone. And the
critters crawling around there are grisly.
		George M. Carter

Alan \"Uncle Al\" Schwartz  wrote:
>Put an end to First Degree murders.  
>Make it a fine instead of a capital crime.
Make it a crime when a person commits a crime: e.g., drunk driving.
Make it a medical problem when individual functioning is compromised
by abuse/addiction--whether it is heroin, cigarettes, booze or Xanax.
		George M. Carter

Alan "Uncle Al" Schwartz wrote:
...
> 36 children have been killed by automotive airbags - protected to death.
> To the best of my knowledge, the total number of deaths attributable to
> marijuana use over the past 35 years is *zero*.  A gram is better than a
>  damn.
Well let's be a bit more forthright, here. I don't know what the stats
are, but there have been instances of avoidable nasty trainwrecks and
such in which the responsible party was smoking dope. Do you attribute
such tragedies to marijuana? Pot is dangerous mostly in its capacity to
reduce a person's concern and attentiveness about things they really
ought to be attentive to; it can impair judgement. There are lots of
situations where that's totally harmless, but in the wrong situation it
can be tragic. 
But a lot of medically-precribed drugs are like that; there's no reason
pot shouldn't be listed in every doctor's pharmacopoeia, and studied
just like every other drug. 
Jim

In article <5abelm$5a2@sjx-ixn7.ix.netcom.com>, Alan \"Uncle Al\" Schwartz
 wrote:
> When I was in college the jocks drank and the nerds smoked dope.  The 
> jocks had GPAs around 2.5 and the nerds had GPAs aroud 3.8.  I cannot 
> think of a more dangerous drug than marijuana.
Au contraire. I have absolute proof that marijuana is 100% fatal. When I
was in college (early seventies), it was widely stated that 60,000,000
Americans had smoked marijuana. Now, you can't find anyone my age who
admits to having smoked it. Ergo, everyone that smoked it died from it! ;)
Seriously though, I have never in my life seen any issue that could
generate so much hypocrisy among my peer group as this one. A huge
percentage of college students in the seventies smoked marijuana, and 95+
percent of them handled it as pure off-hours recreation that did not
interfere with their work or studies. Now, that same generation of college
graduates sponsors DARE programs and other propaganda that grossly
overstate the dangers of drugs, lumping fairly benign drugs like marijuana
all together with clearly dangerous drugs like PCP. When kids try
marijuana and realize that it's not that debilitating (especially as
compared to that legal drug, alcohol), there is no reason for them to
believe that PCP, barbiturates, and heroin are any worse.
Our prisons are so full of drug users and those who serve them that we
have no room for murderers, rapists, child molesters, and thieves.
Furthermore, the very fact that drugs are illegal engenders a huge amount
of crime in itself.
I don't know why I bother to waste my breath on this issue. It is a total
lost cause. Hypocrisy always wins out, it seems.
Ed
Card-carrying ACLU member
_____________________________________________________
Ed Uthman, MD
               "Nemo liber est qui
   corpore servit."
Pathologist                                    -Seneca
Houston/Richmond, Texas, USA                 

In article , uthman@neosoft.com (Ed Uthman) writes:
>In article <5abelm$5a2@sjx-ixn7.ix.netcom.com>, Alan \"Uncle Al\" Schwartz
> wrote:
>
	... snip ...
>
>Seriously though, I have never in my life seen any issue that could
>generate so much hypocrisy among my peer group as this one. A huge
>percentage of college students in the seventies smoked marijuana, and 95+
>percent of them handled it as pure off-hours recreation that did not
>interfere with their work or studies. Now, that same generation of college
>graduates sponsors DARE programs and other propaganda that grossly
>overstate the dangers of drugs, lumping fairly benign drugs like marijuana
>all together with clearly dangerous drugs like PCP. When kids try
>marijuana and realize that it's not that debilitating (especially as
>compared to that legal drug, alcohol), there is no reason for them to
>believe that PCP, barbiturates, and heroin are any worse.
Exactly.
>
>Our prisons are so full of drug users and those who serve them that we
>have no room for murderers, rapists, child molesters, and thieves.
>Furthermore, the very fact that drugs are illegal engenders a huge amount
>of crime in itself.
Yep.
>
>I don't know why I bother to waste my breath on this issue. 
Because it is important.
>It is a total lost cause. Hypocrisy always wins out, it seems.
Usually.  But it is not a reason to surrender without a fight.
Mati Meron			| "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu		|  chances are he is doing just the same"

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Jim Rogers <"jfr"@fc[RemoveThis/NoJunkMail].hp.com> wrote:
>Alan "Uncle Al" Schwartz wrote:
>...
>> 36 children have been killed by automotive airbags - protected to death.
>> To the best of my knowledge, the total number of deaths attributable to
>> marijuana use over the past 35 years is *zero*.  A gram is better than a
>>  damn.
>
>Well let's be a bit more forthright, here. I don't know what the stats
>are, but there have been instances of avoidable nasty trainwrecks and
>such in which the responsible party was smoking dope. Do you attribute
>such tragedies to marijuana? Pot is dangerous mostly in its capacity to
>reduce a person's concern and attentiveness about things they really
>ought to be attentive to; it can impair judgement. There are lots of
>situations where that's totally harmless, but in the wrong situation it
>can be tragic. 
>
>But a lot of medically-precribed drugs are like that; there's no reason
>pot shouldn't be listed in every doctor's pharmacopoeia, and studied
>just like every other drug. 
So stipulated!   I agree with you without dissent or amendment.  We 
should immediately apply to the full prosecutorial extent of the law the 
same benevolent protection currently afforded marijuana to 
ethanol-containing beverages.
-- 
Alan "Uncle Al" Schwartz
UncleAl0@ix.netcom.com ("zero" before @)
http://www.ultra.net.au/~wisby/uncleal.htm
 (Toxic URL! Unsafe for children, Democrats, and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"  The Net!

Patricia Schwarz  wrote:
>Marijuana works through a system of neuroreceptors that bind
   *snip*
>Maybe all our decisions about what is science and what is not
>will be made in Bill Clinton's Baptist Church from now on.
>That is a possibility we ought to face.
>Because it is definitely what is happening in this case.
Thank you for your exposition. A voice of reason and science in a
world gone mad.
Do drop me a line and let me know who you are. We have similar
problems here, although perhaps not so extreme. 
George

Jim Rogers <"jfr"@fc[RemoveThis/NoJunkMail].hp.com> wrote:
>Alan "Uncle Al" Schwartz wrote:
>...
>> 36 children have been killed by automotive airbags - protected to death.
>> To the best of my knowledge, the total number of deaths attributable to
>> marijuana use over the past 35 years is *zero*.  A gram is better than a
>>  damn.
>
>Well let's be a bit more forthright, here. I don't know what the stats
>are, but there have been instances of avoidable nasty trainwrecks and
>such in which the responsible party was smoking dope. Do you attribute
>such tragedies to marijuana? Pot is dangerous mostly in its capacity to
>reduce a person's concern and attentiveness about things they really
>ought to be attentive to; it can impair judgement. There are lots of
>situations where that's totally harmless, but in the wrong situation it
>can be tragic. 
>
Let's care it to the logical extreme though.  If some of those people
were not using MJ would there not be some who instead were drinking?  If
the drinking is worse (which in my opinion it is), then one could posit
that the net result of the MJ use was a reduction in accidents, all
other things being equal.  That said, people shouldn't toke or drink if
they plan on driving, flying, etc.  But the current hysteria over MJ is
nonsensical.
>But a lot of medically-precribed drugs are like that; there's no reason
>pot shouldn't be listed in every doctor's pharmacopoeia, and studied
>just like every other drug. 
>
>Jim
Absolutely.  There are, however, already numerous studies that have been
done.  In study after study the alleged bad effects of MJ have been hard
to find, other then the obvious short term intoxication.  The US gvt has
funded lots of research in a fruitless attempt to find a smoking gun for
MJ and just hasn't found any.  The medical benefits have been well known
for years - certainly better documented as helpful without serious side
effects then many FDA approved drugs used by millions.  There were a
couple of recent stories of drugs that have been used for years that
have been found to be totally worthless - I forget the name but I think
one was for prostate cancer and the other for heart attacks.

New employees paired with experienced workers not withstanding ...
Somebody DID NOT follow established safety procedures.
A facility with an excellent safety record, as this plant seems to
have, most certainly has drafted and published Lock-out / Tag-out
maintenance procedures for every job.  I share in the grief of the
families of those who died, but the simple fact must remain ...
Somebody didn't follow procedure.
Glenn
####################################################
# No one is responsible for anything I say but me. #
#   (And sometimes I have doubts about myself.)    #
####################################################

welshwytch (violette@vasilisa.com) wrote:
: Brian Sandle wrote:
: > 
: > Patricia Schwarz (violette@vasilisa.com) wrote:
: > : The cannabinoid system also effects centers of the brain controlling
: > : fear, panic, muscle spasms
: > 
: > And possibly reduce breathing response in muscles.
: > 
: >  and nausea, in addition to being
: > : found in the hippocampus, where the infamous "short term memory
: > : interference" effect of marijuana no doubt takes place.
: > 
: > The hippocampus is particularly susceptible to hypoxia since the blood
: > vessels in it are blind alleys. I speculate that if it becomes broken
: > then the personality can be divided into the smaller areas.
: 
: Then cannabinoids are undoubtedly good for the hippocampus,
: check out the research on the syntehtic cannabinoid HU211
: which as a brain anti-inflammatory reduces neural damage from
: hypoxia by up to 50%
No, no, for someone whose breathing has been reduced it is no good to 
tell them that they will only suffer half the damage.
`After this Violette you are only going to be two personalites, not in 
fact three, because of the kind nature of the drug'
: 
: 
: > : that is in fact what happens to people with PTSD, many also
: > : have accompanying physics problems of that nature.
: > 
: > Not sure what you mean by physics problems. 
: 
: I meant physical problems but I was not trained as a typist.
: 
: >How do you know it is not
: > working like electroshock treatment, reducing blood flow to the areas
: > which have been overactive producing the depression. 
: 
: It is called "research", try checking Medline under "cannabinoid"
Perhaps you could be a little more explanatory. There will be many entries.
You are probably telling me no more than once drugs have damaged a brain 
through hypoxia then they may have to continue to be taken.
: > 
: -- 
: Naked is a state of mind
: 		Luscious Jackson
Is it under control?
Brian Sandle

Legalization obviates the problem of otherwise seductive warfare upon the citizenry.   Most 
significant is the emasculation of the medical community by means of decades of forbidden 
research.  The politicization of science has already stifled the ability of the populace to make certain 
highly significant inventions public and commonplace owing to the inclusion of superconductivity 
in the list of top-secret activities monitored by the Defense Department, which scours patent 
applications for ideas to be supressed in that field.   
The argument below is empty.  Marijuana is internal and affinity group rooted.
>   Alan \"Uncle Al\" Schwartz  writes:
>      DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD THOUGHTCRIME!  
>  Who cares if it is true?  If we cripple the War on Drugs we will need 
>  double and quadruple unconstitutional shakedowns at airports, and maybe 
>  extend benevolent Federal protection to bus stations, train depots 
>  (BART!), and bicycle racks.  Car pools!
>  
>  Put an end to First Degree murders.  
>  Make it a fine instead of a capital crime.