kibufox
kibufox t1_j6mtqka wrote
Reply to comment by apprehensivelights in TIL that India had to ban charas (cannabis concentrate) due to pressure from the US. by UltimateGamingTechie
Nope.
India didn't even outlaw it. All they did was, in exchange for lower import tariffs on other goods, stop sales of it around major airports into and out of the nation.
The problem wasn't the charas itself, it was people trying to bring it back to the US. The main issue here being Customs (the guys that search your bags when you return from an overseas flight), are federal officers. So they follow federal laws. Whether something is 'legal' on a state level, really doesn't matter when you're talking about federal laws. So people were getting arrested for smuggling and trafficking in states where marijuana use had been decriminalized. Since these were federal charges, and not state level charges, there wasn't anything that could be done about those charges, regardless of how 'legal' cannabis was in them.
kibufox t1_j6mt5qb wrote
Reply to TIL that India had to ban charas (cannabis concentrate) due to pressure from the US. by UltimateGamingTechie
Part of the issue with it wasn't the concentrate itself, but the sheer number of people being arrested for trafficking by trying to bring it back into the country.
One of the things people tend to forget is that even when something is decriminalized on a state level, it remains illegal on a federal level unless Congress passes a law that over rules the previous law.
The laws which govern customs, which handles importing of goods into the US, is federal law, not state or local. It also covers things like tobacco, and food. Meaning yes, you can also get arrested for bringing too many cigarettes into the country, but I digress.
The problem that the US noticed, was that US citizens were going to India, buying charas, and then trying to return to the US with it. When they would pass through customs, those people were getting found out and were being arrested on smuggling or trafficking charges. Since these were federal charges, this was happening in places where cannabis use was technically legal, and it was creating a severe backlog in the federal legal system.
To help curtail this, the US State department reached out to other nations where this drug originated, and requested that they do something about the sales of it in and around where major international airports were. The reasoning there being that it would prevent US citizens from getting it and bringing it back; while at the same time it would help cut back the number of native Indian smugglers, since drug mules rarely operate too far from points of embarkation due to how the internal (inside their body) smuggling is performed. Meaning there's a short time frame between ingestion of the smuggling packets, and when the mule boards a plane.
For India, there were concessions also made, as things like this are never so one sided as they're presented on places like Reddit or Facebook. These concessions were a relaxation on import and export tariffs (basically taxes), which would allow legal importation of other goods at a higher rate, since companies wouldn't need to pay as much to do so. Given how high tariffs are to begin with, when offered a chance to lower them and only needing to make a simple concession to prevent sales of something around major airports, well it's no surprise that the Indian government agreed to the decision.
Oh, and something that may interest you. Going back to the point I made about federal charges, LAX (Los Angels Airport) has clear warnings that while you may legally have cannabis on your person inside the non secure areas of the airport, attempting to go through TSA with it will result in your arrest for smuggling charges.
Edit: One final note. TSA and Customs are not the same thing. Customs officers, those who search the bags of returning passengers, are federal officers. TSA are employed by the airport themselves, or in some cases by the state.
kibufox t1_is016w8 wrote
Reply to comment by CrieDeCoeur in TIl the first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer was built in Germany during world war 2 by Konrad zuse but received no press coverage because of the war by mankls3
Automatic transmission has no ties to war. Alfred Horner Munro, a Canadian steam engineer, designed the first automatic transmission in 1921 and patented the transmission in 1923. He created the automatic transmission with four forward gears and no reverse or parking gears, and he used air pressure instead of hydraulic fluid. General Motors used the transmission in the Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac between 1937 and 1938.
kibufox t1_j8jucmz wrote
Reply to TIL The Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah is almost 4000 feet deep (that's 3X as tall as the Empire State Building). It's the largest man-made excavation and the deepest open-pit mine in the world. It's also visible to the naked eye from space. by lqwertyd
It's also so big that it obliterated an entire mountain, and took something like 1/2 to 2/3 of a city out. There are historic photos from a street looking down a road near the mine, which to have the same perspective today, you'd need to be flying a drone some 200 feet in the air.