On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:06:15 -0600, somebody wrote:

> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
> news:4c4ff2fb@news.povray.org...
> 
>> If it were the team of medical experts who were asserting what I'm
>> terming the "moral superiority", that would be one thing.  But here in
>> the US, it's largely the same people who insist that because Evolution
>> is a "theory", the "theory" of creationism should also be taught AS
>> PART OF SCIENCE CURRICULUM.  (Caps for emphasis)
>>
>> In other words, it's not people who have medical training or even
>> chemistry training.
> 
> Such policies have little or nothing to do with science. It's mainly an
> economic, sociological and logistic issue.

True, but the people who push that agenda misrepresent facts about the 
science as well in order to get their way.  "By any means necessary" is 
the motto for many people with such an agenda.

> You don't need the professional opinion of a chemist to decide what
> drunk driving fines or sentences should be, or whether to fine them at
> all, for instance. You just ask the chemist or doctor to provide you
> with the means of measuring the amount of alcohol in blood. That's it.

Sure.  But with regards to the bogus reason that it should be illegal 
"because it's bad for you".  By that logic, eating eggs should be illegal 
because they can elevate your "bad" cholesterol.  Drinking water should 
be illegal because you can drown in it (or die of water intoxication by 
significantly "overhydrating").

>> legalized it to some extent.  The *doctors* (who I'd consider to have
>> medical training and who have studied the effects and have decided that
>> there's a benefit, for example, for people with chronic untreatable
>> pain) are in favor of it,
> 
> Doctors can only look at it from a limited perspective, so they don't
> make good policymakers. You duly note their professional opinion. The
> economic and social implications are a completely different and larger
> part of the entire picture. I'm not arguing pro or con, but it's naive
> to think that those who are con are anti-doctor, anti-medicine and
> anti-science.

Sure, I didn't mean to paint everyone who's against it with a broad 
brush, but the majority (in my observation) use bogus science to push 
their agenda.  I live in Utah, and I see this quite regularly with 
regards to the sin taxes on alcohol and tobacco (highest in the nation 
IIRC), and given that there are a significant number of the population 
here who are LDS who believe that even caffeine is "evil" (I've heard 
some people say that - and if you think it's not against the C&Ds, try 
ordering a Coke, coffee, or black tea at The Roof, which is a restaurant 
owned by the church).

Granted, that's going to be something typically held by the purists.  I 
know plenty of inactive church members who drink alcohol and/or smoke as 
well.  But the alcohol laws in Utah have been backwards for longer than 
pretty much everywhere else in the US (I think Kansas now has more strict 
laws regarding alcohol than Utah).  When I moved out here, a friend said 
"Welcome to Utah:  Step back 20 years" and at least regarding the alcohol 
laws, he was right.  There still are strange laws on the books, but at 
least now you can order beer at a bar without ordering food, and I think 
they might even be allowed to put more than one drink down - when I moved 
out here, you had to finish the first one ("Don't worry, I'll wait" said 
one waitress as I finished my first beer - and she held the second one 
while I did).

So now I think we're probably only about 12 years behind the rest of the 
nation. ;-)

Jim

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