******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
When I read this story, I thought about the fact that last weekend, two young people died in Sydney at an electronic music festival after taking ecstasy -- or what they thought was ecstasy. Another dozen or so were hospitalised. The state government's response was to announce they would shut down this festival that has run for year and is attended by thousands. They have very exxplictely, and steadfastly, refused to consider allowing pill testing -- which is increasingkly common around the world at festivals as a harm reduction measure, and was trialled at one festival in Canberra earlier this year. The testing found some pills with deadly substances in them, that were then voluntarily binned. Every other attempt in Australia to bring in pill testing has been blocked by authorities. Instead, they put ever more police with sniifer dogs at these festivals (very dangerous as patrons who see cops with sniffer dogs often swallow their stash all at once). Pill testing itself is a partial measure that potentially reduces harm, but actually the only way to seriously reduce risk of harm from taking a drug like MDMA is to legalise ad regulate it. I'm not sure of the ethics in general of giving intoxicants to creatures who obviously can;t consent, but I'm pretty sure there would be ethical guidlelines to ensure no octopus was unreasonably put in harms way, and it was closely monitoried to ensure it was as safe as it could be. So we live in a fucking world were sea creatures are given regulated, safe doses of pure MDMA, and humans have to play Russian roulette to take the same thing -- with frequently deadly consequences. Stuart On Sat, 22 Sep 2018 at 11:11, Louis Proyect via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > Octopuses are smart. They open jars, steal fish and high-five each other. > > Though interactive, they’re generally asocial, and temperamental, with > unique behavior patterns, like those shown by Otto, who caused blackouts > at a German aquarium and Inky, who famously escaped a tank in New > Zealand. They learn through experience and observation, forming lasting > memories with brain-like bundles of hundreds of millions of neurons in > each arm and a centralized bundle in the middle. > > https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/science/octopus-ecstasy-mdma.html > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/stuartmunckton%40gmail.com -- www.greenleft.org.au * subscribe <https://www.greenleft.org.au/subscribe/details> * donate <https://www.greenleft.org.au/donate/details> _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
