(Source BBC World News)
This should come as a surprise for many of the Expats especially for those who regularly visit the Pham Ngu Lao area for their purchases of marijuana. The Vietnamese police just busted the largest shipment of drugs ever (worth $90 million US) of canibis (marjiuana).
There is a perception in the backpacker area that it is all right to smoke marijuana since the Vietnamese police will only try to catch those who use more illicit drugs such as cocaine or heroine. I was never really sure that was such a case but now marijuana users should definitely use more caution.
Anyway, unless you want to become Beavis and Butthead, why smoke marijuana? 🙂
Read BBC story here -> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7403362.stm
You make some mighty big leaps in logic: Because there is a large bust at the border, you assume that purchasing at PNL is not safe? When a big shipment is caught at the Mexican border, is it no longer safe to buy on the street in Wichita? Since there is a big bust at the border, you assume that it’s now less safe? As if now suddenly law enforcement is smarter? Changed their policies? I don’t think so. I think business will continue as usual at PNL.
As for the B&B comment, I happen to know some very smart and very successful people who have smoked dope every day for decades. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.
This is Vietnam, not the US. When the local new sources posts a story such as this one, the smart thing to do is buy a little bit of attention. This is Vietnam, it is best to try to see what the Vietnamese government is trying to say, especially if the article gets picked up by the BBC!
Drug bust of cannibis, yeah, better pay attention. Business as usual in PNL, of course. It is an illegal drug worth the risk in selling.
Some very smart and successful people use heroine, cocaine, ectasy, etc., as well. That does not mean I will try to use these illegal drugs. . .
I doubt there is any relevance or other correlation between the extremely large shipment of Pakistani (or, more likely, Afgani) hashish being shipped through northern Vietnam, for some unfathomable reason, on it’s way to North America, and the casual toker scoring Cambodian trash(ed) weed around PNL from one of the ubiquitous street scufflers.
Besides the execrable quality of this PNL pot, scoring on the street puts the buyer in a vulnerable position, susceptible to “selective enforcement” and “bounty hunters”.
Saying that I have never heard about any foreign tourist being hassled at all for just smoking pot. Discrete pot use is tolerated in many bars and restaurants in Saigon and Vietnam. People just don’t care, they often seem to think it is amusing to see.
Getting back to this hashish, it would be interesting I am sure, if those who organized and financed this smuggle were ascertained. It reeks of a conspiracy among very well connected operators.
The discovery and arrest of the mules has the odor of a double cross or an informant operating inside the conspiracy.
There is now so much domestic hash throughout America since the simple process known as “bubble hash” (GOOGLE it) has become very popular with pot growers. With some water, ice and easily obtainable canvas bags with mesh bottoms anyone can make truly excellent hash.
Where I also live, in California, possessing small amounts and using pot in private is basically legal. Acquiring a doctor’s recommendation is easily done if desired which allows one to grow 100 plants within a hundred square feet and possess up to 3 pounds in the county where I reside.
THe whole “war” in the USA against cannabis is a sick joke. Marijuana is one of the most benign substances known. As more research is completed around the world numerous therapeutic uses have been identified.
The story behind how the first federal anti-pot tax laws were passed is rife with lies, racism and blatant class warfare.
The proponents were recently jobless alcohol prohibition agents and those who benefited from alcohol’s criminal aspects. The chemical and pharmaceutical industries had their own economic reasons to sweep hemp and pot off the table. Anyone can easily research the beginning of this debacle in the late 1930s. Now there are hundreds of thousands of pot prisoners in the USA and more created constantly at great expense and much destruction of lives and families. For what? So completely stupid that the whole situation demands fundamental change soon to end this failed new prohibition.
Wow. Mention pot and a WHOLE bunch of text shows up!
LOL
jo blo: Pretty much every pot smoker I know makes that same argument. Sure, there are a few really smart people who have smoked dope for decades. There are also people who live to 100 after smoking all their lives. They are of course extremely rare. On average smoking pot decreases your chances of success in pretty much any endeavor.
Clifton: I agree that the whole “war on drugs” thing is a bad idea. But I still don’t think much of those who do drugs. Be it tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, meth, whatever. They all have varying effects but none of them are good and they all hinder your success in life.
tracy:
They are not extremely rare, or even rare. I’ve known hundreds of people throughout my life who are regular pot smokers, and just normal people. It’s no more harmful or dangerous than moderate drinking. You’ve been successfully convinced otherwise by decades of disinformation.
I’ve known just as many imbeciles who don’t smoke pot, so saying that smoking pot makes people stupid, as the o.p. said, is just not correct.
Tracy: You use such a broad brush. I imagine there are not many folks who make the grade by avoiding the use of all of the substances you mentioned, and those other drugs you probably omitted in the interest of brevity. Drugs like coffee, chocolate, sugar, aspirin, statins, alpha-blockers, antibiotics and multitudes more, The users of certain drugs, Meth, Heroin, Cocaine, PCP and Ketamine, I do, of course, avoid like the plague they are.
Also as an intelligent, successful, very happy (of course), individual with 44 years of daily smoking experience I have to second “jo blo’s” assertion about how the comparison to B & B is silly and the type of hyperbole Beavis & Butthead might utter themselves, for laughs.
I have moved in many circles through the years and I have shared pot with a lot of successful, well known people few would suspect of being marijuana smokers.
Such is the fear Americans are programmed to endure.
Alienation is another practical strategy utilized to divide and conquer. The “war on [some] drugs” certainly has been successful in limiting our civil rights, incarcerating poor people, allowing selective enforcement, wasting hundreds of billions of tax dollars and devastated countless individuals and families. This “war” has been a complete failure in limiting the availability, quality or quantities of illegal substances or the systemic corruption implicit in any prohibition.
Craig: Mention something that interests me and I will write what I think, especially if my analysis is different than the “common” or “conventional wisdom”. I enjoy attempting to change peoples “wiring” so they see something(s) from a different perspective. I encourage critical thinking, not being a sheeple, ingenuously believing lies because others believe them or because the lies are ubiquitous.
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Nothing there Clifton. I did do more research on hemp and asked several friends. They made some good points which made me reevaluate my view on marijuana. A good thing.