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[novapsyche]

Men who lack taste genes more prone to infertility

New fingerprint technology that means evidence can no longer be wiped away

Nano-Scale Tweezers Enable Precision Control of Enzymes -- Amazing.

Herbal stimulant khat to be banned in UK | more -- This is very surprising to me, as khat (or qat) is a traditional stimulant among certain ethnic groups

Comments

[novapsyche]

I completely understand the impulse to find a societal scapegoat. Still, considering that khat is entirely traditional, I would have thought that Britain would have looked at all facts on the table. Yes, the country is nearer the epicenter of the item's trade, but as something so integral to the lives of segments of its society, I would have hoped that officials would have made allowances. It's just disappointing.

(To your point, I would posit that it does not take an economic crisis for such measures to be undertaken. I think of the trajectory of marijuana restriction in the US--over decades (starting well before the Great Depression), corporations worked in concert with social crusaders (i.e., the Prohibitionists) to shut down what both saw as a threat; the way they did so was to paint an entire subsection of society as problematic & their substance use as the primary cause. This was despite the fact that upper-class persons had used certain substances (marijuana, cocaine, opium/morphine/heroin) for a long, long time; they were seen as being socially mature enough to use the substances, whereas other segments of the population were inherently suspect.

The illegality of drugs is a fascinating subject.