So I went to see Avatar again last night. Seen it twice now both times at the movies. Only movie I’ve ever seen twice at the theatres.

Saw it once at Skycity in 3D and then again last night at IMAX 3D. Movie is awesome. Relates to real life on so many levels.

For one, its just like everytime America (or UK in the old days) invades a country to steal their natural resources. Iraq/South America/Africa. Same old (evil) story… greedy foreign capitalist scumbags trying to make a buck leaving the country (planet) impoverished.

In the Navi’s case it would have no doubt ended in the forest dying and becoming a desert planet… the unobtanium is probably tied in with the neural network – guess we’ll find out in the sequels.

The other thing I thought was awesome is the networking thing in the planet. Imagine that! Petabytes and petabytes of biological storage linked by a global neural network. Thats how it should be. Its like a modern primitive race…

This movie makes me want to go bush. If only we had creatures as interesting on earth (I’d probably get eaten).

Also I downloaded the movie… does that make me a criminal? I paid 38 bucks in total to go see it at the movies and they made over $2 billion dollars off the thing, I don’t think they’ll mind me not forking out another $40 for the DVD.

I do think though at the end of the movie they should’ve fed all the humans to some thanators, instead of letting them go home… they’ll just come back, They’ll tell everyone how close a battle it was, someone will probably send a nuke straight at the tree of souls from outer space. What the fuck are the Na’vi gonna do then?

At least if a shuttle turn up and finds massacred people everywhere and a dead base, and multiple warships destroyed by some savages with bows and arrows it’ll strike fear into them and they might piss off never to return… but I digress, it’s just a movie.

The Law Commission is reviewing the Misuse of Drugs Acts, the next time they do with will be in 25 years. So here’s my submission. Submit yours here

The time to act to protect the public from hard drugs is now. People talk about cannabis being the gateway drug, when really, it is the current Misuse of Drugs Act that is gateway LEGISLATION.

Because cannabis is driven underground with all the other hard drugs, this means that the only way for people to get hold of cannabis is to go to drug dealers, who most probably want a customer for their more expensive, and more addictive drugs.

With 51% of the population having tried cannabis and up to 15% of the population actively using cannabis that makes for a lot of people to potentially have exposure to hard drugs. It also shows that despite the illegality of cannabis, people are willing to smoke it.

We need to take control of cannabis out of the hands of drug dealers and gangs. These unregulated distributors sometimes adulterate or lace their cannabis with harder drugs, or harmful substances such as lead particles (to make it weigh more) or microscopic glass beads (to make it look more potent).

This makes the drug a significantly more hazardous to the health of the people that choose to smoke it (regardless of the legality), because the government doesn’t provide a means of safe access.

Cannabis has been scientifically and anecdotally proven to be beneficial for over 300 ailments and diseases. Making cannabis a class D drug would open up the doors for research on it, allowing scientists to extract the chemical cannabinoids and make newer, safer, and natural drugs.

It is a little known fact that in the human body there are four types of cannabinoid receptors (that have been found so far). Cannabinoids are produced in three ways. Naturally by the human brain (endo-cannabinoids), naturally by the cannabis plant (phyto-cannabinoids) and artificially in labs.

I would also like to compare the situations between the Netherlands and the United States. The United States Government is vehemently opposed to drug tolerance, treat drugs as a criminal issue and as a result have very high drug use rates. The Netherlands on the hand, regulate the use of soft drugs, and treat drugs in general as a social health issue – I.E. providing easy access to education and rehab for those that want it. The Netherlands drug use rates are half that of the United States. These figures can be found within 5 mins on google.

Do I need to mention what happened when the United States prohibited Alcohol?

To put cannabis into the class D category is to take a step in the right direction. It is to take a step into governmental control of drugs, instead of governmental restriction. This is what is needed to protect our citizens from hard drugs.