White Phosphorous vs. White Widow
"Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of marijuana plants 10 feet tall."
"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices. ... And as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," General Rick Hillier said in a speech in Ottawa, Canada.
"We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said.
Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.
"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those [forests] did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hiller said dryly.
One soldier told him later: "Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."
Drug laws are tools of selective prosecution, allowing police to look the other way if you're a friend, well connected, grease their palm, etc. or conversely force you to hire lawyers, be denigrated in the press, have your assets confiscated, etc. Without such tools, we'd have a more egalitarian society where scotch and beer drinkers would have no legal means of suppressing those they don't approve of.
Without random drug testing, employers would be forced to document failure to perform duties as specified. It's much easier to force a drug test and summarily expel those that aren't 'smart' enough to use drugs whose metabolic byproducts are flushed in a matter of hours.
Society suffers not merely from drug prohibition, and the consequences of criminalizing victimless activities, but from deep seated prejudice and fear of people unlike themselves. One cannot eliminate tools of repression and selective prosecution without first addressing the underlying fear of diversity.
Posted by: paratracker at August 28, 2009 12:35 PM