Tag: nanny state

Netherlands to ban laughing gas from January

The Dutch government is banning the use of nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, amid concerns over the health risks for the growing number of young people using it.

The ban, which starts in January, makes it illegal to buy, sell or own the gas.

However, the authorities say it can still be used for medicinal purposes and in the food industry.

The government also hopes the ban will reduce the number of road traffic accidents involving the drug.

According to road safety monitor TeamAlert, laughing gas has played a role in 1,800 accidents across the Netherlands over the past three years.

“Almost two a day, figures that really shocked us,” Maartje Oosterink of TeamAlert told AD newspaper earlier this month.

Keep reading

This Biden Proposal Could Turn US into A “Digital Dictatorship”

Last Wednesday, President Biden was widely praised in mainstream and health-care–focused media for his call to create a “new biomedical research agency” modeled after the US military’s “high-risk, high-reward” Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. As touted by the president, the agency would seek to develop “innovative” and “breakthrough” treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes, with a call to “end cancer as we know it.”  

Far from “ending cancer” in the way most Americans might envision it, the proposed agency would merge “national security” with “health security” in such as way as to use both physical and mental health “warning signs” to prevent outbreaks of disease or violence before they occur. Such a system is a recipe for a technocratic “pre-crime” organization with the potential to criminalize both mental and physical illness as well as “wrongthink.”

The Biden administration has asked Congress for $6.5 billion to fund the agency, which would be largely guided by Biden’s recently confirmed top science adviser, Eric Lander. Lander, formerly the head of the Silicon Valley–dominated Broad Institute, has been controversial for his ties to eugenicist and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his relatively recent praise for James Watson, an overtly racist eugenicist. Despite that, Lander is set to be confirmed by the Senate and Congress and is reportedly significantly enthusiastic about the proposed new “health DARPA.”

This new agency, set to be called ARPA-H or HARPA, would be housed within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and would raise the NIH budget to over $51 billion. Unlike other agencies at NIH, ARPA-H would differ in that the projects it funds would not be peer reviewed prior to approval; instead hand-picked program managers would make all funding decisions. Funding would also take the form of milestone-driven payments instead of the more traditional multiyear grants.

ARPA-H will likely heavily fund and promote mRNA vaccines as one of the “breakthroughs” that will cure cancer. Some of the mRNA vaccine manufacturers that have produced some of the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines, such as the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, stated just last month that “cancer is the next problem to tackle with mRNA tech” post-COVID. BioNTech has been developing mRNA gene therapies for cancer for years and is collaborating with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create mRNA-based treatments for tuberculosis and HIV.

Other “innovative” technologies that will be a focus of this agency are less well known to the public and arguably more concerning.

Keep reading

NTSB Calls for All New Vehicles to Be Fitted With ‘Alcohol Impairment Detection Systems’

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recommended that “alcohol impairment detection systems” be fitted into all new vehicles in the United States to prevent an intoxicated person from getting behind the wheel.

The recommendation comes following an investigation into a crash near Avenal, California on Jan. 1, 2021, that killed nine people, including seven children.

Investigators found that the driver of the vehicle lost control because of a “high level of alcohol impairment,” with NTSB noting that his blood alcohol concentration was more than double California’s limit of 0.08 grams per deciliter.

In a press release on Sept. 20, NTSB said that as a result of the investigation into that crash, the agency is recommending a string of new in-vehicle technologies that “can limit or prohibit impaired drivers from operating their vehicles” as well as technologies aimed at preventing drivers from speeding.

“Technology could’ve prevented this heartbreaking crash — just as it can prevent the tens of thousands of fatalities from impaired-driving and speeding-related crashes we see in the U.S. annually,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy. “We need to implement the technologies we have right here, right now to save lives.”

Such technologies include “passive vehicle-integrated alcohol impairment detection systems,” as well as “advanced driver monitoring systems” or a combination of both that would prevent or limit vehicle operation if a driver is over the legal alcohol limit.

The NTSB, which has no regulatory authority and can only ask other agencies to act, is recommending that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) require all new vehicles to be equipped with such systems.

Keep reading

It’s now illegal for anyone under 21 to buy canned whipped cream in New York, officials say it’s to stop teens from inhaling nitrous oxide

It is illegal for New Yorkers under age 21 to purchase a can of whipped cream, according to recently-passed state law. 

The law, which went into effect in November 2021, is meant to prevent teenagers from using canned whipped cream to inhale nitrous oxide, otherwise known as “whippets.” 

“Inhalants are invisible, volatile substances found in common household products that produce chemical vapors that are inhaled to induce psychoactive or mind-altering effects,” according to a US Drug Enforcement Administration factsheet.

Approximately 1 in 5 young people have used inhalants like whippits by the time they reach eighth grade, the DEA said. Abusing inhalants can “cause damage to the parts of the brain that control thinking, moving, vision, and hearing.”

New York State Sen. Joseph Addabbo of Queens said he sponsored the New York law after receiving complaints of empty canisters littering the streets. 

Keep reading

Patrick Henry Argues Against Imaginary Dangers

On June 9, 1788, Patrick Henry delivered a speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention arguing that many of the alleged crises of the time used to justify the proposed constitution were “imaginary.”

This was actually the fourth long speech Henry delivered during the convention and it builds on arguments he previously made on June 7 when he observed “it is the fortune of a free people not to be intimidated by imaginary dangers” and urged the addition of a bill of rights to the proposed Constitution. 

At the time, the United States of America was hardly a decade old. It was still struggling to pay significant debts owed to France from the War of Independence. There were also disputes with Spain over control of the Mississippi River to the west. Many Federalists believed that a new government was needed to pay off the debts to France and also effectively handle the dispute with Spain.

However, Henry pushed back against the underlying sense of urgency, while reiterating the need for a Bill of Rights.

“When I review the magnitude of the subject under consideration, and of dangers which appear to me in this new plan of government…unless there be great and awful dangers, the change is dangerous, and the experiment ought not to be made. In estimating the magnitude of these dangers, we are obliged to take a most serious view of them — to see them, to handle them, and to be familiar with them. It is not sufficient to feign mere imaginary dangers; there must be a dreadful reality.

“…I am persuaded that four fifths of the people of Virginia must have amendments to the new plan, to reconcile them to a change of their government. It is a slippery foundation for the people to rest their political salvation on my or their assertions. No government can flourish unless it be founded on the affection of the people. Unless gentlemen can be sure that this new system is founded on that ground, they ought to stop their career.”

Keep reading