Lynn R

[QUOTE=The Oddities;9584857]Totally agree with you. I found a tax disc off a motorbike in the street and took it to the police station. The owner asked the police for my address to come to thank me and he insisted on giving me a few pounds for my honesty. In the same week my neighbour found some money (a fair amount) in the street and did not take it to the police but treated her family to chinese and pocketed the rest. She may have gained more than I did but at least my conscience was clear but I hope that hers was not.

Regarding being given the wrong change, I got as far as the door in a small shop and realised that they had given me the wrong change so turned and told them that it was wrong. They immediately and aggressively said that it was too late to query it as I was at the door, I really enjoyed saying OK and thank you very much for the extra money as I would spend it in another shop where they were more pleasant to customers.

Given that reaction, I might well have done the same as you!

You were lucky the person whose tax disc you handed in appreciated what you had done. My eldest nephew (aged 14) found a wallet in the street containing over £80 plus credit cards. He took it straight to the police station as he had been taught to do (not even telling his parents until later) and was asked to leave his details with them. He didn't get so much as a phone call to say thanks! We still all said we were proud of him, though, and encouraged him to do the same again in similar circumstances.

There are still some honest people around, my OH was standing in the ticket queue at Malaga bus station one day when the Spanish lady behind him tapped him on the shoulder and handed him his wallet, which had fallen out of his pocket without him noticing. It had over 400€ in it.

Yes, I guess I am old fashioned in some ways but prefer that to being a slimeball! I do agree with the arguments for legalising drugs, though, although I've never used anything other than alcohol or tobacco (former smoker but not for 30 years) myself.

bil

Still less than aspirin.

The problem is, that people are incapable of properly understanding risk.

Even in this report, the figures are almost meaningless unless you look at them carefully, and really play the numbers, and then this is what happens. (figures slightly rounded)

Heroin. 1 death per 440 users
Methadone 1 death in 110 users
Ecstasy 1 death in 17,000 users.

Cannabis, 3 million users, 1 death per annum, presumably caused when someone dropped a kilo block of hash onto someone's head from a tenth storey window.

It shows that as I have said before, when you give an addict methadone, you are giving hime something far more dangerous than heroin.

Plus, a lot of heroin deaths are caused thru mixing it with alcohol.

Domino

[QUOTE=Lynn R;9585036There are still some honest people around, my OH was standing in the ticket queue at Malaga bus station one day when the Spanish lady behind him tapped him on the shoulder and handed him his wallet, which had fallen out of his pocket without him noticing. It had over 400€ in it.

Yes, I guess I am old fashioned in some ways but prefer that to being a slimeball! I do agree with the arguments for legalising drugs, though, although I've never used anything other than alcohol or tobacco (former smoker but not for 30 years) myself.[/QUOTE]

last year went for a walk round Albaicin in Granada, hot day so OH suggested we stop off for a drink in a bar we know in San Miguel Bajo. sitting out in the sun my wallet fell out of my back pocket under my chair. one of the locals in the bar came out and told me what had happened, didnt have €400 but enough, When I went back in for another drink I insisted on buying him a drink, he refused but eventually gave way - probably to stop me speaking in guiri spanish.
thats the way my parents brought me up, someone does something for you you pay them back. whats a drink between friends, which is how we left an hour later.

bil

Sound policy. One of the first times we went to our local, my wife left her handbag there with everything in it. We went hurtling back, and the bar staff had it safe behind the bar. We gave them a 20 as a thankyou which we had to force them to take. Small wonder we go there regularly and tip well.

Domino

so what are you saying, that heroin can kill you or alcohol can kill you ?

I need to know so I can tell the truth to my children.

bil

What I am saying is the deaths from heroin would be a lot less if you took out the ones where they were drunk.

As for telling your children the truth. You never tell a child anything it doesn't ask about, and stick to answering their questions as simply and honestly as possible.

Domino

ok, so now looking at the one drug not discussed - Tobacco, how many deaths are caused by that.?
tobacco seems to not only cause direct deaths from smoking (or passive smoking) but also indirect deaths (i.e. from incidents where driver drops ciggie on crotch or in footwell and reaches to pick it up whilst driving)

have seen so many sane people who have to smoke whilst driving, not understanding they have blanked about 20% of the brain's capacity by having that rolled up weed in their hand, using ash tray, lighting up etc etc.

Luckily I have never been stopped for reaching for a Mint Imperial in a dangerous manner.

I will take your advice on the children, especially as they are over 30 now it must be about time to have a "serious" talk to them.

agoreira

Problem is for many, cannabis is simply a "gateway" drug to harder drugs.

bil

Yeah, like tobacco. There's a lot of dopers ended up addicted to tobacco thru smoking joints.

You are missing the point.

If drugs are illegal, they cause MORE problems than if they were legal.

We cannot win the war on drugs. We lost it the day they were made illegal.

Trouble is, a lot of people are incapable of thinking logically about this, and like children prefer to clutch at prohibition, because they haven't the wit to think of life without it.

bil

We are treating tobacco sensibly. We are trying to discourage use rather than banning it. This way takes longer, but does actually have a chance of working.

HBG

It's always hard to get agreement on how we bring up our children and maybe rightly so. I can only scratch my head when I hear people saying that they should always be taught to speak the truth, regardless of the consequences. That would also be my advice if we lived in a perfect world, but I acknowledge that we don't.

If our children followed that advice blindly, our prisons would be full to overflowing, and the divorce rate would go from one in three to the full Monte. The government would collapse and industry would fail. All the banks would have run out of money long ago.

The truth is a dangerous topic and needs to be treated as such. That tired spy cliché, the Need to Know, is as relevant now as it was when spying was invented, back in our cavemen days.

Children don't need to know everything from day one, and the learning process needs to account for what goes on outside the home too. And when our protected little treasures face danger for the first time, as in a job interview, we won't be there to put them right.

And if they show any aptitude for politics, we'd better teach them how to lie at an early age. And if they want to be bankers? We should start lying to them as we lift them out of the cot.

Domino

bil, I havent missed the point - you have only just made it

apologies to Lorna of Vicenza for taking this into other areas but...

many people retiring to Spain are surprised that certain of the medications they have had on prescription are available Over The Counter from their local pharmacia. Even when asking for common or garden Ibruprofen I was surprised to find that they are selling 600mg instead of the 400mg max available in the uk.
perhaps the Spanish are more trusted, or are just left to sink or swim.

so the moral of the tale is to find out what you can get locally without a prescription and tell your children the truth about where your drugs came from - the pharmacia


tks

paintermujer

Never.

bil

Honesty does pay when you are dealing with honest people.

paintermujer

How do you spot an honest person then?