*Documents and texts and their presentation

Documents referred to in the evidence will be accessible from a list of links to web pages or offline material.

To be allowed to successfully present my defence according to my rights under Article 29 of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia, and save the court's time to the best degree possible, I propose the court, interpreter and witnesses will each need a pc with internet connection, Chrome browser, and subject to the court's approval the google translate widget. The translator will check the machine translation, or if necessary translate manually. Or if there is no internet, an offline collection of documents will be provided. Or, if everyone wants to get an inferior view and a neckache, a large screen and laptop projector may be provided in order to fully allow the defence to present its case.

To make the best use of the time available to the court, unless the court particularly wants to hear me speaking in English, I propose to turn over questions, longer than the translator can deal with in one or two chunks, to be translated directly from the text. I think this will save time.

*Validity of international evidence

Do you think genetic makeup varies in different parts of the world, say for instance between Chinese people and African people, between people from different parts of Africa, or between people from Maine, USA and people from Ptuj? Yes or no?

So they’re all different types of people?

Some tall, some short, some with bigger feet and some with smaller feet?

And yet they're all human?

What single term covering all these people can you think of?

How would an anthropologist define this species?

Despite these variations, and because of their similarities, would you, as a lay person, not a specialist in anthropology or fossils, think it correct to say all of what we call humans or people are members of the species Homo sapiens?

None of them are Australopithecus?

None of the citizens and residents of the nations of the world are members of the extinct species Homo habilis, Homo naledi, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonensis, or Homo neanderthalensis, would that be your view?

So they're all homo sapiens, yes?

So however different they are from people in Ljubljana or Lima or Lusaka, people in Ptuj are members of the species Homo sapiens?

And when the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia says in its Article 71, “The state shall promote the economic, cultural, and social advancement of the population living in mountain and hill areas,” it’s not saying those people are a different species, is it?

Do you know of any countries, whose citizens or residents are other than the standard Homo sapiens?

Now in your profession, you work with people, yes?

And are you authorised to deal with people from other countries, or is your work entirely concerned with people from Slovenia?

So, excluding countries with which Slovenia has no extradition treaty, if I'd robbed a bank in Iceland, or had sex with a moose in Canada, and came to Slovenia, I wouldn't be able to say, hey, Mr/Ms [] don't hunt me down, you can't arrest me, you can't touch me, because it didn't happen in Slovenia?

*Importance of sample size

My next question's about shopping. I want you to imagine you're opening a shop selling shoes. Customers might visit from anywhere in the world. You don't want a shop full of sizes nobody will buy, so you want to know what will be the popular sizes and what proportions in each size to stock, are you with me?

And let's say you also sell trousers. And for the same reasons, you want to know if people are tall or short, ok?

You want to put in your stock. So what would you do? Ask a couple of people what size they are?

Do you think it would be better to ask a hundred people?

And if you see that a thousand people are between 1,75 and 1,85 m tall, wearing size 44 to 46 shoes, would you think you have a better statistical basis for stocking trousers for people around 1.8m and with shoe sizes around 45?

You would have a more accurate picture of how to stock your shop, than if you had only seen two people, or a hundred, with those heights and sizes?

Do you think if your neighbour opened a shoe shop stocking shoes or trousers based on his own sizes, all the same size, that it would be as successful or popular as yours?

What would you think of his thought processes if he did that?

But you couldn't ask everybody in the world what sizes they wore, could you?

But the bigger your sample, the less the error, would you agree with that?

Timeline of cannabis law [1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_cannabis_law

So I think we've established Slovenia isn't the whole world as far as you're concerned?

So, among the countries listed there, or any others you can think of, can you name any, where the tendency has been from a more liberal to a less liberal classification of marijuana?

And the same question for tryptamines...?

Do you see or otherwise know of any where the classification has remained the same but the sentences have got heavier?

Now do you think the effects of drugs on Homo sapiens, outside of Slovenia, could be of any relevance to their effects and legal status here?

What about scientific discoveries about cannabis made outside of Slovenia, can you think of any reason why those would be completely irrelevant to Slovenia's Homo sapiens?

How about the legal status of drugs around the world, irrelevant to Homo sapiens here?

Why's that?

It is not saying Slovenia doesn't have jurisdiction in its territory, to say that there is a bigger picture, of Homo sapiens and substances they use in everyday life. And Slovenia contributes to that bigger picture, correct?

If it were otherwise, why would the NIJZ - a Slovenian organisation - would be quoting a so-called "World Health Organisation" and various foreign scientific researchers on matters of drug effects and drug policy? [107]

This is Slovenia! Why would they be paying any attention to them??

And so, you deal with people. They could be from anywhere in the world, they could be from somewhere you would get executed for passing a joint, or somewhere they receive business incentives, startup grants to help their cannabis business, and preferential  status to compensate them for their previous treatment due to drugs prohibition.

So this could result in quiet a variety of expectations in  interactions between police and public, particularly in tourist areas?

And yet biologically, as members of homo sapiens, would you agree that despite the variety of legal backdrops they came from, their physical responses to any particular drug would be similar, these responses would lie along a range typical for homo sapiens?

*The race to normality

Now I'd like to refer to an article in Guardian  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/07/luxembourg-to-be-first-european-country-to-legalise-cannabis [2]

Luxembourg, it says, plans to join "Canada, Uruguay and eleven US states in flouting a UN convention on the control of narcotic drugs which commits signatories to limit “exclusively for medical and scientific purposes the production, manufacture, export, import distribution, trade, employment and possession of drugs” including cannabis."

Flouting an international convention? How can they do that?

Now there are actually three United Nations treaties: the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis [3]

And Slovenia became a member of the United Nations on 22 May 1992?

And so Slovenia is bound by these conventions?

And so if Slovenia decided to go the way of Uruguay, Canada, etc. it would also be flouting these international conventions?

And can you say what the consequences of flouting the conventions have been for Uruguay, Canada, the American states, and other countries which have done so?

And if an individual came from one of these to Slovenia and used cannabis he or she might be a bit confused if you arrested them?

Of course you have your jurisdiction, I'm just asking you if they would be confused?

Given that we haven't identified a global trend towards deliberalisation, they might feel they had somehow travelled back in time, to somewhere rather backward and illiberal, when you arrested them, correct?

When I was looking for somewhere a bit more like Slovenia among these places that are using their state or sovereign status to flout the international order with impunity, one is Georgia - the former Soviet satellite, not the American state. It was admitted to the UN on 31 July 1992. Do you think cannabis reform has moved faster in Slovenia, or faster in Georgia?

Well before 2015 you could get 14 years for possession in Georgia, did you know that?

Then there were some protests, and in October 2015 their Constitutional Court ruled that this was "too strict". Then in December 2016 the Court further declared that imprisonment for use of small amounts of cannabis, as well as its purchase, retention, and production for personal use, was unconstitutional.

Then, on 30 July 2018, the Constitutional Court of Georgia ruled that "consumption of marijuana is an action protected by the right to free personality" and that "[Marijuana] can only harm the user's health, making that user him/herself responsible for the outcome. The responsibility for such actions does not cause dangerous consequences for the public." The ruling made legal the use and possession of cannabis in Georgia but kept in place penalties for cultivation and sale of the drug. Actions which also remain illegal include public consumption and use in the presence of children.

And the latest I have from Georgia is that on 20 October 2018 Girchi Party activists held the Cannabis Legalization Festival in the downtown of Tbilisi protesting the new aim of Parliament to pass a bill restricting the consumption of cannabis.

So having heard about all the energy that's been expended by activists, and now a pushback by conservative forces, overall would you say that Georgian society and its constitutional decision-making has moved faster in the direction of liberalisation than Slovenia since they both joined the UN in the summer 1992?

So, anyway, back in Slovenia, the drug laws have been left alone by the Constitutional Court, and are specified in the ZPPPD?

Article 2 of the ZPPPD begins "Illicit drugs are plants or substances of natural or synthetic origin that have psychotropic effects" - would you agree with that, personally?

And "psychotropic" means "relating to or denoting drugs that affect a person's mental state"?

So the law here doesn't say all psychotropic drugs are illegal, does it?

Do you think drugs suffer additional stigma when they are relatively new?

Do you think newer drugs should have harsher penalties?

Would you think it was just and equitable if users of a new psychoactive drug were let off with a cudgeling for a first offence, but for a second one, sewn up in a leather bag and thrown into the river?

What if it was declared Satanic by a large contingent of the priesthood? Would that stop the users of the new drug do you think?

What if your country's ruler took a more scientific approach, ordering murderers to consume the drug while doctors watched to determine the lethal dose, and ordered the nation's first clinical trial to prove the drug was dangerous, in which some twins, condemned to death, had  their sentences commuted to life so they could take part in an experiment to prove that the new drug was worse than the old drug?

What if the new drug became a state monopoly and you hired disabled soldiers to go around acting as "sniffers" to prevent commoners from preparing their own?

What if you issued a prohibition against use of the new drug - except by the rich?

What if the problem with this new drug wasn't the drug itself at all, but that it was something perceived by the ruling classes as subversive, something that might bring their reign to an end, or at least damage their credibility in the eyes of the populace by helping them to think, socialise together?

Perhaps it would cause health problems and religious concerns in Mecca in 1511 and 1546, foment sedition in Constantinople in 1633, more sedition and meetings between commoners and intellectuals in England in 1675, be involved in tax avoidance and black marketeering in Sweden between 1746 and 1811, undermine the state monopoly in Prussia in 1781, get the poor on their legs in Cologne in 1784, or be used at illegal parties for women to plan civil disobedience and resistance to the Tsarist regime in Finland in the early 1900s? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_III_of_Sweden%27s_coffee_experiment [125] https://procaffeination.com/21-times-when-coffee-was-illegal/ [126]

And for the record, the Court may wish to note that in King Gustav's twin experiment - one drank three pots of coffee and one an equivalent amount of tea -  the twin on the old drug died first.

And can you think of any plants or substances of natural or synthetic origin that have psychotropic effects which aren't illegal?

What about caffeine? Does it affect a person's mental state?

What about paracetamol?

What about tobacco?

What about alcohol? Any effect on a person's mental state?

So the ZPPPD and its list of outlawed substances which affect mental states is looking to distinguish between mental states which ought not to be allowed and those which can be?

And whose decision is that, which are and which are not?

Article 2 continues: "and may affect the physical or mental health or endanger the appropriate social status of people"?

So firstly, again, this does not preclude the possibility that these things might happen to people with legal drugs, does it? It's just that those kind of drugs, caffeine, paracetamol, tobacco, alcohol, were already legal before the UN convention was written, correct?

In fact LSD was also legal in 1961, correct?

It was being used in psychiatric settings, correct?

"LSD was introduced as a commercial medication under the trade-name Delysid for various psychiatric uses in 1947.

"LSD was brought to the attention of the United States in 1949 by Sandoz Laboratories because they believed LSD might have clinical applications.

"Throughout the 1950s, mainstream media reported on research into LSD and its growing use in psychiatry, and undergraduate psychology students taking LSD as part of their education described the effects of the drug. Time magazine published six positive reports on LSD between 1954 and 1959.

"LSD was originally perceived as a psychotomimetic capable of producing model psychosis. By the mid-1950s, LSD research was being conducted in major American medical centers, where researchers used LSD as a means of temporarily replicating the effects of mental illness. One of the leading authorities on LSD during the 1950s in the United States was the psychoanalyst Sidney Cohen. Cohen first took the drug on October 12, 1955 and expected to have an unpleasant trip, but was surprised when he experienced “no confused, disoriented delirium.” He reported that the “problems and strivings, the worries and frustrations of everyday life vanished; in their place was a majestic, sunlit, heavenly inner quietude.” Cohen immediately began his own experiments with LSD with the help of Aldous Huxley whom he had met in 1955. In 1957, with the help of psychologist Betty Eisner, Cohen began experimenting on whether or not LSD might have a helpful effect in facilitating psychotherapy, curing alcoholism, and enhancing creativity.[13] Between 1957 and 1958, they treated 22 patients who suffered from minor personality disorders.[13] LSD was also given to artists in order to track their mental deterioration,[13] but Huxley believed LSD might enhance their creativity. Between 1958 and 1962, psychiatrist Oscar Janiger tested LSD on more than 100 painters, writers, and composers.

"In one study in the late 1950s, Dr. Humphry Osmond gave LSD to alcoholics in Alcoholics Anonymous who had failed to quit drinking. After one year, around 50% of the study group had not had a drink — a success rate that has never been duplicated by any other means.

"In the United Kingdom the use of LSD was pioneered by Dr. Ronald A. Sandison in 1952, at Powick Hospital, Worcestershire. A special LSD unit was set up in 1958. After Sandison left the hospital in 1964, medical superintendent Arthur Spencer took over and continued the clinical use of the drug until it was withdrawn in 1965. In all, 683 patients were treated with LSD in 13,785 separate sessions at Powick, but Spencer was the last member of the medical staff to use it.

"From the late 1940s through the mid-1970s, extensive research and testing was conducted on LSD. During a 15-year period beginning in 1950, research on LSD and other hallucinogens generated over 1,000 scientific papers, several dozen books, and six international conferences. Overall, LSD was prescribed as treatment to over 40,000 patients. Film star Cary Grant was one of many men during the 1950s and 1960s who were given LSD in concert with psychotherapy. Many psychiatrists began taking the drug recreationally and sharing it with friends. Dr. Leary's experiments (see Timothy Leary below) spread LSD usage to a much wider segment of the general populace.

"Sandoz halted LSD production in August 1965 after growing governmental protests at its proliferation among the general populace. The National Institute of Mental Health in the United States distributed LSD on a limited basis for scientific research. Scientific study of LSD largely ceased by about 1980 as research funding declined, and governments became wary of permitting such research, fearing that the results of the research might encourage illicit LSD use. By the end of the 20th century, there were few authorized researchers left, and their efforts were mostly directed towards establishing approved protocols for further work with LSD in easing the suffering of the dying and with drug addicts and alcoholics.

"A 2014 study showed evidence that LSD can have therapeutic benefits in treating anxiety associated with life-threatening diseases. Rick Doblin, an American drug researcher, described the work as “a proof of concept” that he hoped would “break these substances out of the mold of the counterculture and bring them back to the lab as part of a psychedelic renaissance.”

"Eight subjects received a full 200-microgram dose of LSD while four others received one-tenth as much. Participants then took part in two LSD-assisted therapy sessions two to three weeks apart. Subjects who took the full dose experienced reductions in anxiety averaging 20 per cent while those given the low dose reported becoming more anxious.

"When subjects taking the low dose were switched to the full dose they too showed reduced anxiety, with the positive effects lasting for up to a year. The effects of the drug itself lasted for up to 10 hours with participants talking to Dr Gasser throughout the experience.

“These results indicate that when administered safely in a methodologically rigorous medically supervised psychotherapeutic setting, LSD can reduce anxiety,” the study concludes, “suggesting that larger controlled studies are warranted.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lysergic_acid_diethylamide#Psychiatric_use [4]

So, commercially speaking, and I would say culturally and philosophically, LSD was a threat to alcohol, would you say?

Alcohol depends on addicts, repeat users, doesn't it?

It would be no good for the brewers and distillers and winemakers if, the first time they took LSD, people lost interest in serious drinking as a recreational experience, that's just ordinary business sense, isn't it?

“By the mid-1960s the backlash against the use of LSD and its perceived corrosive effects on the values of the Western middle class resulted in governmental action to restrict the availability of the drug by making any use of it illegal.” (ibid.)

Obviously the alcohol industry puts money into political lobbying. In the US:

46 clients spent $29,255,855 on Beer, Wine & Liquor lobbying in 2019

There were 270 registered lobbyists, 72.22% of whom were former government employees

Political campaign contributions were almost $18.6 million spent in 2018. Campaign contributions in 2020 are more than six times those of 1990:

The source notes that "Perhaps appropriately, studies have shown that Washington D.C. is home to the nation's highest percentage of heavy drinkers." https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/industries/summary?cycle=2019&id=N02 [5]

Now we don't have any figures going back to the 1960s, but do you have any evidence to suggest that the money spent on lobbying and campaign contributions in favour of LSD was greater then than the spend by the alcohol industry?

Now the story of drugs in my lifetime is one of a growing distance between those who do harmless and many obviously believe beneficial drugs, with the establishment who peddle fibs which directly contradict their own experience.

I happen to know that even after the ban on LSD in America, which at the time was followed by many governments of the world as if it knew what it was doing, there were many many people who continued using LSD and analogous psychotropics. And here's what happened a year after the first state bans on LSD, but before the national ban, from the fact-checking site Snopes.

This twisted tale was born on Thursday, 18 May 1967, when California newspapers began reporting a horrific tale concerning some Santa Barbara college students who damaged their eyes by staring at the sun while they were under the influence of LSD. Here’s how the story was written up by the Los Angeles Times:
 

FROM SUN GAZING WHILE ON ‘TRIP’
Four LSD Users Suffer Serious Eye Damage
Exclusive to The Times from a Staff Writer

SANTA BARBARA — Four college students have suffered permanent impairment of vision as a result of staring at the sun while under the influence of LSD, according to a spokesman for the Santa Barbara Ophthalmological Society.

One of the youths told his doctor he was “holding a religious conversation with the sun.”

Another said he had gazed at the sun “to produce unusual visual displays.”

The students, all males, suffered damage to the retina, the sensory membrane which receives the image formed by the lens.
In the same way that a piece of paper will burn when bright light is beamed through a magnifying glass, a pinhead-size hole was burned into the retina of each eye of the students as sunlight passed through the lens.
What this has left the students with is not total blindness but a blind spot in the center of their vision.

As a result, the victims have lost their reading vision completely and forever, the ophthalmological spokesman said.
“For example, if you wanted to read,” he said, “you might see all of the corners of the page and most of the print — except you wouldn’t be able to see that one word you were looking at.
“If you were to look at a traffic stoplight, you might see the pole and trees and cars — but you wouldn’t see the stoplight itself.

“That little black hole always moves directly where you want to see,” he said.
Solar burns of the retina, the spokesman said, are not uncommon, particularly among children watching eclipses of the sun. But he knew of no previous cases which resulted from someone being under the influence of LSD.
In the cases here, the victims admitted they were users of LSD.

Three of them attend UC Santa Barbara, the other goes to Santa Barbara City College. Their ages range from 18 to 24.
The spokesman said it was his impression that each of the sun-staring incidents occurred separately. He did not know whether the students knew each other.

The four had no awareness of pain or discomfort while the sun was burning through the eye tissue, the spokesman said. The damage is permanent, because tissue so damaged does not regenerate itself.



Do you recall the first of those six one-word interrogatives all good journalists are supposed to ask?

Good.Now ask yourself, what the heck happened to the who in this story? Not a SINGLE NAME is mentioned anywhere in the article! None of the students is identified, none of the doctors who presumably treated them is named, the ophthamologist quoted at length is never referred to any more specifically than “a spokesman,” and even the reporter (“a staff writer”) remains anonymous. How is it that this unidentified reporter managed to procure bizarre quotes from the alleged victims (e.g., “I was holding a religious conversation with the sun”) yet failed to gather any other basic information, such as the students’ names or places of residence? Why is it that no mention is made of the medical facility where these students were presumably treated? How come the “spokesman for the Santa Barbara Ophthalmological Society,” who is quoted at length, is never identified?
This story has HOAX written all over it, even before we consider the implausibility of four students’ independently staring at the sun until their retinas burned, all on the same day in the same town. (A similar article from the San Francisco Chronicle, also credited to an anonymous “correspondent,” mentions that the ophthamologist “would not be identified,” and that he “refused to reveal the victims’ identity.”)
The LSD horror story was picked up by the Associated Press and quickly spread all over the U.S., appearing in such prominent news publications such as The New York Times and Time magazine. One might expect that even though these staid news journals were taken in by the hoax, they learned their lesson when no more details were forthcoming. (We saw, for example, no follow-up articles describing how these students were coping with their impaired vision, nor did the press offer any rueful “I’ll never use drugs again” comments from any of the unfortunate victims once they’d had time to reflect on their foolishness.) It took a scant eight months before the media were trumpeting the same headline again. Here’s an Associated Press dispatch as it appeared in the Los Angeles Times on 13 January 1968:
 

6 College Men Take LSD, Blinded by Sun
WASHINGTON (AP) — Six college men suffered total and permanent blindness by staring at the sun while under the influence of the drug LSD, it was learned Friday.

The six, all juniors at a western Pennsylvania college that officials decline to name, lost their sight after they took the hallucinatory drug together last spring.
Norman M. Yoder, commissioner of the Office of the Blind in the Pennsylvania State Welfare Department, said the retinal areas of the youths’ eyes were destroyed.

Federal officials questioned about the case said it is the first they have heard of in which total blindness resulted. The only similar case officials knew of was one reported last May in which four students at the University of California at Santa Barbara suffered permanent loss of their reading vision by staring at the sun after taking LSD.

Lie on backs in Sun

Yoder said in a telephone interview from Harrisburg that the Pennsylvania students all had taken LSD at least once before. He said they went to a grassy area in a woodland about half a mile from the college and took the drug there. Then, he said, they all lay on their backs in the grass “and were not consciously looking at the sun.”

The youths were found at the scene, blind and helpless, the afternoon of the same day by fellow students who knew of the “trip” plans. Those using the drug had been gone about six hours.

Yoder said the youths didn’t even realize they were staring at the sun “until they came out of the trance,” but that they had come to their senses when the other students arrived.

The afflicted students have since been receiving rehabilitation services of the Pennsylvania Welfare Department.



First of all, notice that the ante has been upped: now there are six students; the victims have been made completely blind; and, as Newsweek described it, this tragedy befell engineering students who were “nice kids, not hippies” (unlike those California freaks who blathered on about having “religious conversations with the sun”). And once again, there’s that nagging non-specificity of detail: the students, their school, their rescuers, the doctors who treated them, and the medical facility where they were taken are all unnamed. The spokesman is identified this time, but as we’re about to see, Dr. Norman M. Yoder is not quite a reliable source.

Although the incident in Pennsylvania was reported as a breaking news story, it had allegedly occurred 20 months earlier (in April 1966). Dr. Yoder, blind from childhood due to an accident, had attended a lecture on the “dangers of LSD” in the autumn of 1967, and shortly afterwards he mentioned the story of the blinded students to Joseph Hunt, the commissioner of the Rehabilitation Service Administration, an office of the federal cabinet’s Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Hunt asked Yoder for a written account of the incident, and Yoder complied by submitting actual case studies of six blind students (with the students’ names covered over), all of whom were reportedly receiving state aid. This “report” was leaked to an Associated Press reporter who released it to the media on 13 January 1968, and outraged government officials took quick action. The next day the Federal Drug Administration announced it would conduct an investigation and prosecute the persons who had supplied LSD to the blinded students. On January 16, Pennsylvania state senator Benjamin R. Donolow and the press secretary for vacationing Pennsylvania governor Raymond P. Shafer both stated at news conferences that the story was true, as did Governor Shafer himself on January 17.
Some sensible skeptics managed to make themselves heard, however.

Ophthamologists expressed their doubts that even LSD could override self-preservation instincts long enough to keep a person’s eyes focused on the sun until retinal tissues burned, or that such an occurrence could have remained unreported twenty months later. And when investigators began to check on the case reports offered by Dr. Yoder, they found several damning inconsistencies: one of the “victims” had been receiving state aid since before April 1966, and another hadn’t even been a student at the time of the alleged blindings. Yoder admitted on January 18 that he had made the whole thing up because of his “concern over illegal LSD use by children.”

The “distraught and upset” Commissioner Yoder was immediately suspended from his post as he checked himself into the Philadelphia Psychiatric Center, where he spent four weeks before being permanently removed from his position with the Welfare Department. (Although Dr. Norman Yoder is the name now mentioned whenever this story is discussed, the creation of this legend should be credited to the anonymous hoaxster[s] who had planted the “blinded students” articles in California newspapers eight months earlier.)

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blinded-by-the-light/ [6]

And Snopes notes:

As usual, the unraveling of the legend received far less attention from the press than its sensational outbreak had produced, and it remained a widely believed drug horror story throughout the next decade.

Snopes then quotes Joel Fort's book The Pleasure Seekers, in a 1969 swipe at fake news which we might well apply to some of the WHO propaganda, he wrote:

"No instances of blindness have been shown to result from LSD use, but, of course, there are millions of blind people and hundreds of known causes of blindness which the public and press have shown much less concern about than the propaganda associating LSD with this severe disability. The propensity of the mass media uncritically to accept lurid and sensationalistic stories emanating from generally untrustworthy and uninformed government sources is probably far more dangerous to our social fabric than LSD."

GENERALLY UNTRUSTWORTH AND UNINFORMED GOVERNMENT SOURCES. Let that sink in.

Fort concludes: "Printers’ ink in one sense is the most dangerous chemical in use."

In fact we know that blind or nearly blind people can have hallucinations, don't we?

It's called Charles Bonnet Syndrome
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgOTaXhbqPQ [129]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_release_hallucinations
[130]

So when Dr Yoder heard about LSD hallucinations he might have recalled hallucinations as  frightening experiences of his own. Do you think that might be the entire  explanation for Dr Yoder's nationally promoted made-up story?

So when it became illegal, did the uses of LSD as a psychiatric drug go away?

Here's a startup in New York that wants to market LSD as an anxiety treatment.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2020/04/01/this-new-york-city-pharma-startup-wants-to-turn-lsd-into-an-fda-approved-medicine-for-anxiety-disorder/#597d4bcb3293 [7]

According to the April 1 2020 article, Mind Medicine Inc. counts among its investors, a shoe shop owner. While traveling through Argentina in 2006, TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie saw the hardships faced by children without shoes. This inspired him to create a for-profit business with giving at its core. The idea? For every pair of shoes the company sold, a new pair would be given to a child in need.

"If the thought of taking acid to treat anxiety gives you, well, anxiety, researchers have found that the drug can be harnessed to reduce anxiety disorder symptoms in humans. LSD was discovered in 1943 by Sandoz chemist Albert Hofmann. A few years later and through 1966, Sandoz provided LSD to psychiatrists and researchers to study its effects and potential as a treatment for anxiety associated with terminal cancer, alcoholism, opioid use disorder and depression in conjunction with therapy. In 1968, after LSD became synonymous with the counterculture revolution, it was banned by the U.S. government [this was the federal ban, not the first ban by states], Sandoz stopped making the substance and it entered the black market."

The governors of Nevada and California both signed bills into law on May 30, 1966, to control LSD, making them the first two states to outlaw the manufacture, sale, and possession of the drug. The law went into effect immediately in Nevada, and on October 6, 1966, in California. Other U.S. states and the rest of the world followed with the ban.

"By the mid-1960s the backlash against the use of LSD and its perceived corrosive effects on the values of the Western middle class resulted in governmental action to restrict the availability of the drug by making any use of it illegal. LSD was declared a "Schedule I" substance, legally designating that the drug has a "high potential for abuse" and is without any "currently accepted medical use in treatment." LSD was removed from legal circulation. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration claimed:

"Although the initial observations on the benefits of LSD were highly optimistic, empirical data developed subsequently proved less promising ... Its use in scientific research has been extensive and its use has been widespread. Although the study of LSD and other hallucinogens increased the awareness of how chemicals could affect the mind, its use in psychotherapy largely has been debunked. It produces no aphrodisiac effects, does not increase creativity, has no lasting positive effect in treating alcoholics or criminals, does not produce a 'model psychosis', and does not generate immediate personality change.

"However, drug studies have confirmed that the powerful hallucinogenic effects of this drug can produce profound adverse reactions, such as acute panic reactions, psychotic crises, and "flashbacks", especially in users ill-equipped to deal with such trauma."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lysergic_acid_diethylamide#Resistance_and_prohibition [8]

To which my response would be: "Maybe for them".

Do you think the people banning LSD were taking LSD until it was banned?

Do you think their personal experiences had any bearing on their political direction?

Including the societal effects, do you think alcohol became less dangerous or more dangerous under Prohibition?

Do you think LSD became any less useful as a psychiatric drug when it was made illegal?

Or do you think "Printers’ ink in one sense is the most dangerous chemical in use."

So returning to where we left off with ZPPPD and its selective list of illegal psychotropic substances, Article 3 defines the classifications:

Group I: plants and substances that are very dangerous to human health due to severe consequences that can be caused by their abuse and are not used in medicine;

Group II: plants and substances that are very dangerous due to the serious consequences that can be caused by their abuse and can be used in medicine;

Group III: plants and substances that are moderately dangerous due to the consequences that can be caused by their abuse and can be used in medicine.

Well we've seen that besides its cultural uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lysergic_acid_diethylamide#Aldous_Huxley [9] LSD was used in medicine practically from the first discovery of its effects in 1943 https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/the-accidental-discovery-of-lsd/379564/ [10] until it was banned by the US government in 1968. Then it was used for the same purposes, and for fun, continuously until the present day.

And "Since the late 1980s, there has also been a revival of hallucinogen research more broadly, which, in recent years, has included preclinical and clinical studies involving LSD and other compounds such as members of the 2C family compounds and psilocybin. In particular, a study released in 2012 highlighted the extraordinary effectiveness of LSD in treating alcoholism." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lysergic_acid_diethylamide#Modern_times [11]

We shall see, in further evidence, that LSD was never banned on the grounds of toxicity, but rather for political reasons and moral hysteria based on false information. So, since its first investigations by Humphry Osmond after WW2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphry_Osmond [12] would you say there was ever a time when LSD was not used medicinally?

“In Ann Arbor, Michigan, populated by Homo sapiens just like here in alcoholic Ptuj, City Council voted unanimously Sept. 21 in favor of a resolution declaring it the city’s lowest law enforcement priority, MLive.com reported.

It means that authorities won’t investigate and arrest anyone for planting, cultivating, buying, transporting, distributing, engaging in practices with or possessing “entheogenic plants” or plant compounds.

“The resolution defines entheogenic plants as plants and fungi that contain indole amines, tryptamines and phenethylamines “that can benefit psychological and physical wellness, support and enhance religious and spiritual practices, and can reestablish human’s inalienable and direct relationship to nature.”

“The move applies to ayahuasca, ibogaine, mescaline, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms and other substances with hallucinogenic properties considered illegal under state and federal law.”
https://apnews.com/article/plants-archive-fungi-ann-arbor-b0ce69ca0961c150e0f900e8ea4cf432 [13]

LSD acts via the same serotonin pathways to psilocin, the active metabolite of psilocybin. The effects are almost indistinguishable, except in my experience you might get a slight temporary tummyache or bloating from raw mushrooms due to impurities in the natural material which have nothing to do with the psychedelic effects. There’s also the risk of pesticides or fungicides from mushrooms gathered in nature.

According to T. Peredy, H. Bradford, in Encyclopedia of Toxicology (Third Edition), 2014, Psilocybin is dephosphorylated to its active metabolite psilocin (4-hydroxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine) and…There is relatively little dopamine agonism compared with other hallucinogens such as LSD.

I would add that the wide variation in subjective experience probably outsizes the precise differences in chemical action – a subject which has not concerned users of natural psychedelics for thousands of years.

As Ramzy Abueita, a graduate in Biopsychology, Cognition and Neuroscience at the University of Michigan and member of the Michigan Psychedelic Society explains, these substances help to shake people out of mental ruts.

If as a clinician you know that a substance has the potential to treat people, withholding it is a violation of medical ethics, contrary to the principle of beneficience, he explains.

Ann Arbor councilor Anne Bannister describes letters of support from organisations helping veterans with trauma, PTSD, and high suicide rates, end-of-life non-profits – “I don’t think we’ve ever had so many medical professionals come to the meeting and speak in favour of something.” “Some of the religious uses of this have been criminalized” she says, referring also to “booms of racialized trauma” that psychedelics can help deal with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJrw7bUTKAQ&feature=youtu.be [14]

Oakland also unanimously enacted a similar ordinance in June 2019 https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/oakland-decriminalize-magic-mushrooms-natural-psychedelics-844879/ [15] following Denver’s decriminalization of psilocybin a month earlier. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/denver-psychedelic-mushroom-decriminalize-ballot-832414/ [16] Oregon has it on the ballot for November 2020. https://www.opb.org/news/article/psychedelic-mushrooms-psilocybin-measure-approved-oregon-november-ballot/ [17] and not half a century too soon:

The Williamette Week reports:

“With a pandemic killing thousands worldwide, fires immolating the West Coast, and an unstable president sending heavily armored federal agents to quash protests for racial justice, it's tempting to pour vodka on your Cheerios in the morning, drink a 12-pack for lunch, and wash down a handful of Xanax for dinner.

“Some Portlanders are taking a more constructive approach and finding solace in a drug that at first glance seems purely escapist: psychedelic mushrooms. But talk to almost anyone who has begun tripping recently and you learn that most of them are confronting the end times, not running from them.”

https://www.wweek.com/culture/2020/09/22/oregon-may-soon-legalize-the-use-of-magic-mushrooms-as-mental-health-treatment-many-portlanders-arent-waiting-until-november/ [18]

Indeed the accusation of escapism is ironic, coming from alcoholics. And if you’d asked me about this 40 years ago, I would have told you the same thing. I’m not claiming any religious use in the traditional sense of religious – but if you want to count rationality, awareness, immunity to political bullshit and a search for the truth about reality as religious aims, then I’m religious. But as far as discrimination is concerned the category of “other” will do.

So would you agree that according to the definition of Group I in Article 3 of ZPPPD LSD cannot be a substance that is not used in medicine"?

Similarly, the first recorded medicinal use of cannabis dates to 2727 BCE https://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_timeline.php [19] and there are several other historical examples there.

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ratified the International Opium Convention on 4 September 1929. The first law to sanction drug abuse was the Criminal Code of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes passed on 27 January 1929 and which entered into force on 1 January 1930, which sets a prison sentence of up to 6 months for "serving" narcotic drugs in the section "Crimes against Public Health" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_Serbia [20]

Cannabis and opium are of course different drugs. Opium is addictive. So right from the beginning of prohibition in the West, there has been a conflation of dissimilar drugs the authorities either didn't understand or sought to control out of motives unrelated to toxicity, as we shall see. What united these drugs?

Was it that they weren't alcohol?

So for at least 4657 years from 2727 BCE until 1930 cannabis was a medicine. And for 90 years since then it hasn't been a medicine, according to Americans who don't like jazz, black people, Mexicans, and the cultural and medicinal benefits of cannabis, with the world in tow - more of which later.

Would you agree that according to the definition of Group I in Article 3 of ZPPPD cannabis cannot be "a substance that is not used in medicine"?

Turning to Group II, and including LSD because we know that LSD can be used in medicine, "plants and substances that are very dangerous due to the serious consequences that can be caused by their abuse and can be used in medicine" - can you show any serious consequences for the general population by cannabis or do you just believe the printer's ink?

What dangers have been shown to occur from using LSD, described in research or known to you?

How is it, do you think, that "Alfred Matthew Hubbard is reputed to have introduced more than 6,000 people to LSD, including scientists, politicians, intelligence officials, diplomats, and church figures" without a single case of harm being reported? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lysergic_acid_diethylamide#Alfred_Hubbard [21]

Turning to Group III, and including LSD because we know that LSD can be used in medicine, "plants and substances that are moderately dangerous due to the consequences that can be caused by their abuse and can be used in medicine", what moderately dangerous consequences have been experienced in the general population by cannabis or LSD?

Therefore cannabis and LSD do not meet the definitions given in the Groups I, II or III.

The substances in question therefore have "not been defined by law as a criminal offence" by Article 3 of ZPPPD and therefore, according to Article 2 of KZ-1, no crime has been committed, as "no one shall be sentenced or punished for a criminal offence for an act which was not defined by law as a criminal offence before the act was committed".

As the warrant has been instigated and the items have been seized without being defined by such legal authority, no offence has occurred, and the items under Articles 69 and 73 of KZ-1 should be returned, per Article 217 of ZKP.

If the Court also agrees with my other submissions about the cooked-up nature of the warrant, Article 498 of ZKP cannot apply.

And Article 2 also includes in its definition drugs which "may...endanger the appropriate social status of people" - what is an "appropriate social status"?

So you mean the appropriate social status decided by people who take legal drugs, when they compare themselves to people who take illegal drugs?

Do you think it means people might look down on those people because they're breaking the law?

So in that case, if what they were doing wasn't illegal, those people wouldn't be able to look down on them, is that right?

Unless they were just looking down on them because they were homeless, they'd still be able to do that, right?

Or if they were looking down on them because they didn't have a job, they'd still be able to do that?

So Slovenian society wouldn't be entirely out of options for ways to look down on them?

But how about if they were brawling half naked and drunk in the street, they would still be entitled to all the respect they deserve, because alcohol is legal?

If they were wearing a suit, creating shell companies, pumping up shares with takeovers and creative accounting, and swallowing EU funds for fake projects in a perfectly legal fashion, there would be no way to disrespect them at all, if they weren't drug users, and their appropriate social status would be intact?

What if they invented some world-changing device, something many of us use every day, but did it as a result of taking LSD? Do you think everyone should throw their useful device away?

So do the possibilities for appropriate social status align precisely with drug use or not?

*Famously inappropriate people and their social status

I wonder have you ever used a computer mouse?

Do you think it would have been better for the world if the mouse had never been invented?

Do you think going without the mouse would be a worthwhile price for the world to pay, if one man's social status had remained more appropriate?

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' use of LSD in his younger days is well-documented. He once called the experience "one of the most important things in my life." They could be a Steve Jobs?

Virgin Group chairman and founder Richard Branson is an outspoken advocate of marijuana legilization. Would it be right to describe his social status as inappropriate?

Michael Bloomberg was asked if he had ever tried pot, he responded: "You bet I did. And I enjoyed it." Should his time as New York City Mayor be written off as socially inappropriate?

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner credits his use of marijuana later in life with changing his perspective on sex. "I didn't know what making love was all about for all those years," he says. If he were in Slovenia, would this made Hef's social status more or less inappropriate?

Billionaire investor George Soros is a known supporter of marijuana legalization, enjoyed it but didn't get addicted. Has his appropriateness been affected?

Sarah Palin says she couldn't "claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled."

Bill Gates has tacitly admitted to using LSD and marijuana. Would Slovenia say, get outta here Bill, we don't want your money?

Peter Lewis, former CEO of Progressive Insurance, has both smoked marijuana and lobbied heavily for its legalization. After smoking weed recreationally in his youth, he started using it medicinally after his leg was amputated. “I was very glad I had marijuana," he told Boston Magazine. "It didn’t exactly eliminate the pain, but it made the pain tolerable — and it let me avoid those heavy-duty narcotic pain relievers that leave you incapacitated.”

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger can be seen smoking marijuana in the 1977 documentary "Pumping Iron."

Aldous Huxley, author of The Doors of Perception and Brave New World, experimented with hallucinogenics.

After banning cigarette smoking at CNN in the early '90s, a memo emerged that claimed it "was common knowledge that CNN founder and Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner sits in his office and smokes marijuana." Would his social status be inappropriate in Ptuj?

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas smoked marijuana "several times" in college, White House spokesman Judy Smith said back in 1991.

Nobel Prize-winning chemist Kary Mullis credited much of his success to his use of LSD, according to Wired.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/most-successful-people-tried-drugs_n_2783793?guccounter=1 [22]

Songs such as Nat King Cole performing "Unforgettable" (1952 Capitol Records), Frank Sinatra performing "Young at Heart" (1953 Capitol Records), and Bill Haley performing "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" (1954 Decca Records), were recorded on an Ampex 200A reel-to-reel tape recorder. Its designer, Myron Stolaroff, used LSD for inspiration. Stolaroff is the co-author of Psychedelic agents in creative problem-solving: a pilot study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5942087/ [23]

Dr. Andrew Sewell, a psychiatrist and neurologist from the Harvard Medical School who studies alcohol and drug abuse, says most problems with LSD occur when users take an unknown dose they don't feel comfortable with, in an uncontrolled setting, without supervision to shield them from dangerous situations.

"LSD flashbacks are well-confirmed phenomenon but they are relatively rare and don't seem to cause as much trouble as the media would have you believe," said Dr. Sewell at the LSD symposium.

Dr. Sewell says people who have underlying mental disorders should not take LSD because it could make their symptoms worse. "Like any powerful drug, if LSD is used incorrectly it can cause more harm than good," said Dr. Sewell. "LSD is a potentially dangerous drug and should be taken under medical supervision."

Personally I think that's ridiculous. None of the above people took LSD under medical supervision. Medical supervision would be very likely to plant the idea in your head that there was something abnormal about you, and as for controlling the experience, well not having people controlling my experiences is one of the reasons for taking it.

Dr Sewell, you see, is a psychiatrist - and he has his own trip.

Sewell continues: "There is no evidence that LSD causes permanent brain damage – and quite a lot of evidence that it doesn't," said Sewell. "We are lucky that we have over 1,000 papers written in the '50s and '60s when LSD was given to thousands and thousands of research subjects so we have a pretty good idea at this point what it does and does not do."

Early computer pioneers who used LSD include Douglas Englebart, the inventor of the mouse.

https://www.wired.com/2006/01/lsd-the-geeks-wonder-drug/?currentPage=all [24]

So is evaluating people's "appropriate social status" something we all need a psychiatrist to do?

Would that be a good way to run things? Everybody to the shrink station once a year?

Once a month?

All the time?

Such a judgement would be standing the individual's life completely on its head, based on one thing?

A bit like a witch?

A bit like a communist film director in the McCarthy era?

A bit like the psychiatric system portrayed in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest?

Did eradicating witchcraft and the red menace, and doing pre-frontal leucotomies for bad behaviour, all seemed official, appropriate to the social statuses of those involved, and motivated by good purposes at the time?

Those things seem like cruel, mass delusions now don't they?

So would defining a person's social status according to their choice of drug alone would be more in the nature of a personal opinion, a mass delusion, or a verifiable fact?

Do you think it means, if we had two identical twins, with similar jobs, perhaps married to another pair of identical twins, but one smokes weed and the other doesn't, the one who doesn't would declare his or her sibling's social status inappropriate?

And suppose there were legal consequences for the inappropriate twin, how do you think that would appear to the outside world looking on?

And what is appropriate is similarly decided by you, because you only take legal drugs, or conceivably no drugs - no alcohol, no paracetamol, no nicotine, nothing at all.

And when it says "appropriate", it means appropriate for what?

Could a foreigner in Slovenia have an appropriate social status?

What would that depend upon?

Would it depend on having somewhere to stay?

Would it depend on his living expenses and the money available to him?

Do you think he might inquire around, upon first coming to Slovenia, as to the prices of things?

And what information do you think the locals in Ptuj would volunteer?

Would they tell him the beer was very cheap?

And cigarettes?

Do you think they would know any other prices?

Gas, electricity, water, etc?

Or would everyone you meet appear all be living with their parents in a state of permanent studentism, and know nothing about utility costs?

So without any real experience of the world they would be generally positive that, as far as the sum of their needs were concerned, Slovenia was a cheap country?

Would the new arrival's appropriate social status depend on his residence permit?

And he could only have a temporary residence permit?

So he could have a permanent residence permit after how many years?

And that would depend on the amount of the five years he spent on the territory?

If he went out of Slovenia for more than a certain amount of time then the five years would start again when he came back?

And if he didn't receive a reminder that his permit was expiring, and didn't renew it, then the five years would start again?

So the conditions of a temporary residence permit don't have anything to do with the nature of his accommodation?

He could live in a hotel for five years, then?

Ever heard of anyone doing that?

He could buy a house?

He would have the right to enjoy his property under Article 17 of the CFRE and Article 33 of the Constitution?

And while Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) enshrines the right to property as follows:

(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his or her property,

...having the right to property in Slovenia doesn't mean you can actually live in it without a licence, correct?

And in fact the property can be seized on the non-payment of any amount awarded in a judgement against the property owner?

So the situation is not as secure as, say, the UK, where a bankrupt cannot have his principle residence sold from under him, or Germany, where there is a minimum debt below which that cannot happen?

So a foreigner could buy a house in Slovenia, but if he doesn't have the right paperwork, no residence permit, he's treated as a tourist, correct?

He would have to report to the police station on a regular basis?

How often?

How many tourists are reporting to the police station in Ptuj as of this week?

How many tourists reported to the police station in 2020?

Because if they stay in a hotel, the owner or manager registers their stay and they don't have to?

Because you want to keep an eye on foreigners, especially, in Slovenia?

And why's that?

Is it so you can count any missing tourists, in case they fall down a hole, or somesuch?

But EU tourists can come in and out without a passport check.

So there's no real count of foreigners, just foreign tourists in hotels, and foreign residents?

So if he does have a temporary residence permit, the foreigner can't have any health insurance?

[Go to www.aaa.si/q questionnaire if necessary]

So a person could live in limbo for five, six, seven, eight nine years in his own house and still not be eligible for healthcare equivalent to the citizens of Slovenia, correct?

Because paragraph 1 of Article 50 of the Constitution refers to citizens, doesn't it?

How about paragraph two?

Is that a segue, or a statement that applies to all residents, as opposed to citizens?

An EHIC card would be invalid after six months, correct?

The UK National Health Service doesn't operate in Slovenia, does it?

Private health insurance would cost the temporary resident a fortune, correct?

And he wouldn't be able to get that paid for out of public funds, would he?

And he wouldn't be able to collect disability pay?

And by paying a doctor privately would he be able to get anything from public funds?

He wouldn't be entitled to social security benefits of any kind, because of his residence status, is that your understanding?

He wouldn't be allowed to pay health insurance unless he had a job?

And he wouldn't be able to have a job if he didn't speak Slovene?

And he wouldn't be able to pay for tuition at the racist language school unless he had a job?

And nobody would employ a foreigner over a local, however inferior the talents of the local?

Do you think Slovenia would warn him of this in advance, before he took the plunge?

So in terms of estimating your neighbours' appropriateness - for what, the Act does not enlighten us - the ZPPPD awards a higher level of decision making about the lives and experiences of the drug user to the person who has no personal experience of the thing under discussion, compared to the person that does?

Would you say, then, that the ZPPPD discriminates against the "inappropriate" people?

Well they can't make a similar judgement about the "appropriate" person, can they, because it's not illegal to not take illegal drugs?

The "inappropriate" people can't make a judgement on the "appropriate" ones - for being drunk or stinking of tobacco, addicted to coffee or painkillers, something like that?

The option of deciding who is appropriate simply isn't available to the inappropriate people?

But if the drugs were found not to be illegal - and as we have seen they are not the drugs defined in Article 3 of ZKKKP and therefore not - everybody would be equal again, in their right to judge each others' appropriateness?

Why would you say that wasn't a form of discrimination?

Whereas egging others on to get that inappropriate person, to take them down, and inciting anti-drug forces to punish them, fine them, use them to make a living, and lock them up for doing no harm to anyone but (just possibly) themselves, with no rational grounds, you are saying that’s not discrimination?

That could be misguided concern, or unwarranted fear, or a delusion unsupported by the evidence, or it could just be hatred, plain and simple, no?

*Constitutional issues

Which brings me to Slovenia's wonderful Constitution. Article 63 says:

Any incitement to national, racial, religious, or other discrimination, and the inflaming of national, racial, religious, or other hatred and intolerance are unconstitutional. Any incitement to violence and war is unconstitutional.

That could be against people who don't fit the Slovenian religion's opinion of appropriate social status?

That could be incitement by religious people, using the drug laws to strike at other religions, or people of no religion?

It could be "other" couldn't it? Someone with a better car, or a sexier wife?

It could be Canadian nationals, if they came over here with the idea that smoking weed was legal?

It could be your son or daughter who is inappropriate, couldn't it?

Which isn't going to make any difference at all?

Above your pay grade?

But you [police] are the physical manifestation of that religious crusade, aren't you?

And so is everyone involved in this process. So what are you, then, just robots, on the government dime?

And the police in Slovenia are being propelled this way and that all the time, aren't they, by resentful criminals, political factions, religious factions, racists, all sorts of petty wars, and you can't choose which to investigate and which not, can you?

So it falls to the most inappropriate to take the brunt of the attention, and you must be sick of it.

Can I just say what a fantastic Constitution Slovenia has! Have you read it?

Have people ever expressed to you an opinion like, ach, that's just a load of - you know - nobody pays any attention to that, it's not true in practice, and the principles it enshrines won't make any impact in real life lawsuits?

Is that your opinion?

Would you expect dismissive opinions of that nature to come from a court in Slovenia?

Do you think it's a good Constitution? Very high minded?

So maybe its critics and pessimists just don't know how to demand the rights they already have?

Now this Constitution, does it apply to me as described in the Constitution?

Constitution articles of interest: 4 territorially unified and indivisible state; 5 human rights and fundamental freedoms; 7 separation of state and religious communities; 13 (this is the only one I'm a bit iffy about) equal rights aliens have except when they don't; 14 discrimination; 15 manner of exercise of rights and freedoms limited only by the rights of others; 16 no discrimination in the variation of rights and freedoms and exceptions to ability to vary; 17 inviolability of human life; 18 degrading treatment, medical experiments; 21 coercion of statements; 23 undue delay; 24 public court; 25 right of appeal; 26 compensation; 27 innocent until proven; 28 more lenient later law supervenes; 29 right to conduct defence, right to present all evidence to his benefit, right to not incriminate oneself or relatives; 33 private property; 34 personal dignity and safety; 35 inviolability of physical and mental integrity; 36 dwellings inviolable; 37 privacy of communications; 38 right to data; 39 freedom of expression and thought; right to public information; 41 right to freedom of religion and other beliefs (but see 15); 46 right to conscientious objection; 48 right to asylum; 49 freedom to choose employment, no forced labour; 51 rights to health care and no health care; 52 disabled protection; 55 right to bear children and opportunities thereto; 57 creation of opportunities for proper education; 59 freedom of science and arts; 63 hate and intolerance; 66 work opportunities; 67 property; 72 healthy environment; 73 protection of natural and cultural heritage; 74 free economic initiative and protection from restrictive competition; 104 oath of office; 153 laws in conformity with the Constitution and international law; 156 jurisdiction of Constitutional Court in conflicts between law and Constitution; 157 jurisdiction in matters not provided for by law for a particular matter; 159 ombudsman rights; 160 powers of CC; 161 abrogation of law; 162 right to CC for persons with a legal interest.

http://www.us-rs.si/legal-basis/constitution/?lang=en [25]

*Denials of defence

Let the record show that by truncating the answer to the previous question the defendant's right to conduct a defence and present all the evidence to his advantage under Article 29 [and have the case struck out] was denied.

Let the record show that the Court has chosen to exercise or reinforce prejudice against the defendant's language by rejecting the explanation offered contrary to Article 14.

Let the record show that the outcome of the proceedings was announced before all the evidence was heard.

Let the record show that the court did not allow for the use of technology to present all the evidence to the accused's advantage under Article 29 and thus his rights to a defence were denied.

Let the record show that the court did not permit recording of the proceedings.

Let the record show that the court indicated that exercising my right to freedom of speech granted under Article 39 might affect the court's perception of my guilt or my sentence.

*Failure to translate and translation accuracy issues

[when they start rambling on between themselves]

Ni prevedeno!

ZKP Article 8:

(1) The parties, witnesses, suspects and other participants in the proceedings shall have the right to use their language in the manner prescribed by this Act in investigative and other judicial acts or at the main hearing.

(2) If the investigative, other judicial act or main hearing does not take place in the language of the persons referred to in the preceding paragraph, it is necessary to provide oral interpretation of what they or others say and written translation of documents and other written evidence essential for exercising his rights. (essential documents), and in particular:

- for the suspect and the accused, indictments, summonses, all decisions on deprivation of liberty, judgments, court decisions on the exclusion of evidence, rejection of evidentiary motions and exclusion of judges;

(3) Notwithstanding the preceding paragraph, the court may, at the proposal of the injured party, suspect or accused, decide that, depending on the specific circumstances of the case, other material or acts must be interpreted or translated to ensure the exercise of guarantees or rights in pre-trial or criminal proceedings.

(4) The court may exceptionally decide to summarize in writing or orally or to interpret orally those parts of otherwise essential documents that are not important for the understanding of the criminal case or for the possible use of legal remedies by an individual referred to in the first paragraph of this Article.

(5) Persons referred to in the first paragraph of this Article may file an objection when conducting investigative and other judicial acts or at the main hearing and in the cases referred to in the second and third paragraphs of this Article on the basis of reasonable application of the seventh paragraph of Article 82 of this Act. or translation is inappropriate because it does not allow the exercise of guarantees or rights in pre-trial or criminal proceedings, or if, in view of the need to respect them, they consider it necessary to provide interpretation or translation in other cases in accordance with paragraph 3 of this Article.

(6) The persons referred to in the first paragraph of this Article must be instructed on the right to translation and interpretation. If he knows the language in which the proceedings are conducted, the individual may voluntarily and expressly refuse to translate or interpret a particular investigative and other judicial act or part of the main hearing or certain judicial or other documents in accordance with this Article. The instruction and the statement of the individual shall be entered in the minutes.

(7) Translated and interpreted by a court interpreter or court interpreter (hereinafter: court interpreter). If a court interpreter is not available for a certain language, the court may ex officio or at the proposal of the public prosecutor or the police, in accordance with the reasonable application of Article 233 in connection with the fourth paragraph of Article 249 of this Act, appoint another appropriate person to perform translation or interpretation. who speaks a foreign language for which there are no court interpreters or a lack of them.

(8) The provisions of this Article shall also apply mutatis mutandis to deaf and mute persons.

(9) The costs of interpretation or translation shall not be charged to the persons referred to in the first and eighth paragraphs of this Article and shall be charged to the budget.

May we have the case struck out due to the failure of the translator to present all the evidence to the accused's advantage, which is his right under Constitution Article 29 and ZKP Article 8.

Let the record show that the translator tried to undermine the defence by refusing to translate the question/answer directly.

*Questions for the translator

So drug prohibition is part of the criminal code, correct?

And you're working here in a drugs case today, true?

And if you want to make money out of drug prohibition you're going to have to earn it, is that right?

You can't expect to sit there and earn money, getting paid to translate accurately, and not translate things you don't understand, can you?

How about opinions you don't like, can you leave those out of the translation?

So if I say Slovene is impossible, or Ptuj is covered in a dangerous and depressing stink, you can't change that to "The defendant thinks Slovene is too hard for him" or "He's obsessed about a problem he believes Ptuj has with its air quality and it makes him sad," can you?

You can't expect anyone else to tell you how to translate something, the judge, the witnesses, the defendant?

It's no use helping people in ways the person being helped doesn't think are helpful, is it?

I'm sorry if the court doesn't understand the thrust of my questioning, and I'd like the translator to read an explanation which I hope will assist with this.

May I continue?

And under zkp Art. 110, if the case falls, the law states that the seized property of an acquitted defendant should be restored?

And under para. 3 of Art. 110 items "inevitably needed" by the accused can be returned before the end of the proceedings, is that also correct?

Suppose some legally prescribed drugs were seized, those would he returned, correct?

And the same would apply to over-the-counter medicines?

And the ex-defendant would be entitled to compensation for any damage to his or her health which could reasonably be attributed to the confiscation?

Suppose he had some epilepsy medicine in an unmarked container, which was seized, and he had a seizure during the period of the seizure, then he would have grounds for a claim?

And if proceedings are stopped, any money or goods seized must be returned if there are no grounds to seize them?

And per Art. 224 of ZKP, any money confiscated which was not returned, the acquitted person would be able to appeal per Article 498a. para 4 if there was no legal basis for the confiscation?

And the law prohibits the return of goods which might be used in a crime or which might be regarded as dangerous?

What about a dual use item, a hammer for instance?

Do you have any direct evidence that I was engaged in the supply of any controlled substance?

What evidence do you have connecting my cash savings with drug sales?

*Translation issues

Attributionsfehler auch Korrespondenzverzerrung

"It is also not uncommon for a childhood teacher to still yell at us in our adulthood, and he tickles us."

Please note that it is not my duty to augment the translator's income from prohibition by helping to translate well-known English words or expressions, nor am I responsible for the absence of equivalent concepts not understood in Slovene, nor the absence of technical knowledge or the terms related thereto. And that my defence must not be impaired by the isolation of Slovenia by its language or the diminuition of its ability to understand my defence due to language or backwardness issues.

Backwardness issues include vikanke/tikanje. You cannot simultaneously claim everyone is equal under the law, while demanding a supplicant population bow and scrape to anyone who claims to have passed some exams. The preservation of the supplicants' supposed inferiority, and the inequality it assumes, engenders, and facilitates, is baked into the language and the education system.

I can only say that in the UK, very few people still employed domestic servants after World War 1 and the idea virtually expired after WW2 - that's why rich, unequal, superior people in the UK nowadays have to get their au pairs and maids from eastern Europe, the Middle East, or the Philipppines.

Meanwhile a multi-billion dollar corporation translates the following "Prav tako ni nič nenavadnega, da učitelja iz otroških let tudi v svoji odrasli dobi še vedno vikamo, on pa nas tika." as "It is also not uncommon for a childhood teacher to still yell at us in our adulthood, and he tickles us." 

All the world is a mess because it doesn't speak Slovene. Google (2019 profits $162 billion, or 137 billion euros) can't figure it out - but here, says Slovenia, is a lone foreigner, unaccustomed to hand-wringing before officialdom, who is assumed by the system to be capable of surviving on his independent means, who must figure it out, kowtow where necessary, while being reminded, socially, that he is both superior...and inferior.

As one friend - who declares herself offended by my protestations - puts it, "Ptuj is not a bad place. It is perfect for some people. Not for foreigners though." And discussing my responsibility for the situation she adds, "And yet only you are dumb enough to move to Ptuj which is one of the worst options in Slovenia and stay there [like a] lost little child. Having no job or social securities other citizens have. And even saying it is a good thing to work from home because you spend less money." She goes on to explain (from Ljubljana) "I have sugar daddy and therefore enough time to focus on studying which I really like."

But she does not say how the correct Slovenian approach applies to me, a man - whether in order to prosper and "invest in myself" I am supposed to become a gigolo, or gay. Does Slovene have a translation for the well-known psychological term "fundamental attribution error". Can you explain that to us in English, says the Slovenian, certain that whatever is lacking for the invader, it is the invader's fault, and his fault alone.

In my opinion, my only mistake in learning Slovene is trying to get it right - which a reasonable person of above average intelligence would sensibly conclude is not possible, as the population themselves do not have a clue www.a2z.si/h or anything to talk about - except where am I from and how long am I here.

Assisting me with my survival does not help theirs, as they would perceive the matter, somewhat myopically. Does this "create opportunities for the harmonious development of society and culture in Slovenia"? (Constitution RS, Art. 5). Will it "create opportunities for employment and work, and shall ensure the protection of both by law" (Article 66). Instead, never was so much foreign talent excluded from economic participation on such misconstrued, spurious, and prejudiced grounds.

In French and German I never sensed there was a ruler-and-ruled aspect to vous/tu and Sie/du. These formal/familiar forms are not about who are the masters and who the slaves. Not so Slovene. Texts such as https://www.leemeta.si/blog/v-srediscu/vikanje-kdaj-in-kako [26] on vikanje/tikanje show Slovene is an inegalitarian tongue, involving what I would regard as obsolete customs and antiquated rituals to which I have no impetus to return, but which persist of course, contrary to Slovenia's own constitutional position, specifically Article 14 of the Constitution of RS, contrary to the spirit of European law, specifically Article 14 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and contrary to Slovenia's purported legal aspirations as a nation state, specifically Art. 131 of KZ-1.

Nobody will convince me that Slovenia in general and Ptuj in particular really really wants me to learn Slovene. They might wish it as a sort of dream, but dreams end when you wake up. There's no danger of that here. They might want to profit from an endless merry-go-round, in which a teacher of little quality invites me to look at this or that book which is either in Slovene, or never passes elementary level. But I never had an infinite amount of money, and could not renovate a house using animal stories.

Unsurpringly the best text on learning Slovene available to me - not written for someone who understands Slovene already, and of course not from Slovenia, but from Kansas, is http://www.seelrc.org:8080/grammar/pdf/stand_alone_slovene.pdf [27]does not mention vikanje/tikanje. I moved to Ptuj in 2005, and first heard these terms in 2020. It does mention namenilnik, just once in its 186 pages, and I first heard about that perhaps fifteen years after arriving. However, one of Ptuj's most enthusiastic barfly critics of my inabilities at Slovene could only stare blankly when I asked him how many cases there were, had no clue what imenovalnik was, didn't know what a case was.

Another pub-based critic declared that imenovalnik was the "type of word that means the name of something". Dvojina sounds quite romantic until you learn that in the event the two people are one guy and one girl, you have to do it like two guys...and so on. Perhaps the best advice from Kansas is as follows (page 12):

"The Slovene speech territory is famously dialectally variegated with mutual intelligibility very limited from one end of the territory to the other. Traditionally the dialects are divided into eight 'bases,' more or less corresponding to regional affinities arising in the medieval period, and forty-eight individual dialects based on more fine-grained if heterogeneous criteria."

And on pages 14-15 we learn:

As a consequence of the artificial nature of the standard language...there is a wide gap in the structural characteristics of the written and spoken language, a gap that might be referred to as diglossia, though the Fergusonian definition of H(igh) and L(ow) prestige codes would oversimplify matters. To some extent the diglossia label captures a significant piece of reality, however, insofar as educated speakers switch codes in formal (public speech, television, radio, stage) and informal circumstances. Following Toporišič’s categorization, the social variants of Slovene speech may be divided into four types, as illustrated in the table:

Standard (literary language)                                           Non-standard

   Formal (zborni jezik)                                  Regional colloquial

                                                                        (pokrajinski pogovorni jeziki)

            Colloquial                                                     Local dialects

(splošno- ali knjižnopogovorni jezik)                    (zemljepisna narečja)"

It continues:

"Educated Slovenes use—or aim to use—the formal standard language in public address and in most writing. The best exemplars of this kind of speech are generally actors, teachers, journalists, and writers. A high degree of social prestige is assigned to speakers who accurately use the standard literary language in appropriate situations (i.e., most public speech) and there are even rare examples of speakers who use the code exclusively in everyday speech. Acquisition of the formal code constitutes a significant part of basic public education, during which children learn the relationship between their home speech and the target code, the formal literary language. Most educated speakers switch to the colloquial register of the standard language when communicating in less formal circumstances, but tend to aim for more formal usage in circumstances where educated speakers are present or the company is not exclusively local. The more local or the less educated the speaker and/or addressee(s), the more likely a local dialect or a regional koinè, or even a blend of the formal language with dialect features, will be used. According to Priestly (1999), one can measure the relative awareness of the norm, for example, on the basis of several parameters, i.e., (higher awareness > lower awareness): educated > less educated; family background = central Slovene speakers > family background = peripheral Slovene speakers; female > male; humanities training > other educational background."

So do you think, while I'm learning Slovene in Ptuj, while everyone's using the opportunity of meeting me to get a free English practice, that I would want to come across as an educated person, or someone I'm likely to meet socialising around here?

Do you think I want to get threatened or attacked in Ptuj for sounding like I think I'm superior because I speak English, or would it be better to be dogged by jealous drunk coked up sporty men from the chicken factory because I speak high Slovene, or the Slovene of Ljubljana?

I'm a writer. Most of what I've learned comes from reading Slovene, not speaking it. Do you think I would end up speaking Slovene like people in Ptuj, this way?

Or, if I learned from the way people speak in Ptuj, do you think I would make much of an impression in Ljubljana, where the money is, by speaking Ptujčan?

So would you agree that with all the the choices: dialect, vocabularly, regional political and historical affiliations, the number of choices facing a foreigner wanting to learn Slovene are beyond the bit limit of the average individual?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two [28]

"Miller concluded that memory span is not limited in terms of bits but rather in terms of chunks. A chunk is the largest meaningful unit in the presented material that the person recognizes—thus, what counts as a chunk depends on the knowledge of the person being tested. For instance, a word is a single chunk for a speaker of the language but is many chunks for someone who is totally unfamiliar with the language and sees the word as a collection of phonetic segments."

"However, the limit of short-term memory cannot easily be characterized as a constant "magic spell" either, because memory span also depends on other factors besides speaking duration. For instance, span depends on the lexical status of the contents (i.e., whether the contents are words known to the person or not).[12] Several other factors also affect a person's measured span, and therefore it is difficult to pin down the capacity of short-term or working memory to a number of chunks. Nonetheless, Cowan has proposed that working memory has a capacity of about four chunks in young adults (and less in children and older adults)"

And there is more information to deal with than just the Slovene language:

"Information scientists have quantified all this: In 2011, Americans took in five times as much information every day as they did in 1986—the equivalent of 174 newspapers. During our leisure time, not counting work, each of us processes 34 gigabytes, or 100,000 words, every day."

https://www.fastcompany.com/3051417/why-its-so-hard-to-pay-attention-explained-by-science#:~:text=In%20order%20to%20understand%20one,you%20at%20the%20same%20time [29].

"The processing capacity of the conscious mind has been estimated (by the researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [ https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi/ [30]] and, independently, by Bell Labs engineer Robert Lucky) at 120 bits per second. That bandwidth, or window, is the speed limit for the traffic of information we can pay conscious attention to at any one time."

"What does this bandwidth restriction—this information speed limit—mean in terms of our interactions with others? In order to understand one person speaking to us, we need to process 60 bits of information per second. With a processing limit of 120 bits per second, this means you can barely understand two people talking to you at the same time. Under most circumstances, you won’t be able to understand three people talking at the same time. We’re surrounded on this planet by billions of other humans, but we can understand only two at a time at the most! It’s no wonder that the world is filled with so much misunderstanding."

Now I have to tell you that any enquiry about Slovene almost inevitably, if it elicits a response at all, consists of two or three or more people talking to you at the same time. At the same time, they are arguing with each other about the answer, or one is trying to stop the other from answering, so they won't be deprived of the sport of accusing the foreigner of not being able to speak Slovene, and won't be wasting their time telling him what they already know, instead of finding out what they don't. www.a2z.si/h

What, ultimately, was my answer to this? I believe it is the normal response of anyone in this situation. My answer was...Slovene, fuck off! Go and sort out the language of your territorially unified and indivisible state, the only territorially unified and indivisible lanuage of which is written and not spoken by officials in missives at which locals squint and furrow their brows when you show them your official document, probably of a type they have never seen before because they live with their parents, and come back when you've reached some sort of consensus.

So what does Article 6 of the Council of Europe's European Convention on Human Rights mean for a foreigner in a Slovenian court, if 15/16 years isn't adequate to acquire one of the forty-eight dialects in whose environment you might find himself in the "territorially unified and indivisible state" (Constitution Art. 4)?

How is the defendant going to have "adequate time and facilities to prepare their defence, access to legal representation, the right to examine witnesses against them or have them examined". What is the value of the right to the free assistance of an interpreter" if the defendant has to shrink his defence to fit the translation, while helping the translator - who isn't going to be practised or adept at ideas not permitted in Slovenia - at every turn?

Backwardness issues in language are not limited to the class struggle. To give an extreme example of what I mean by this, there is a tribe in the Amazon with no numbers greater than two:

Peter Gordon of Columbia University studied "The Pirahã, an isolated Amazon tribe of fewer than 200 people, whose language contains no words for numbers beyond "one," "two" and "many." Even the Piraha word for "one" appears to refer to "roughly one" or a small quantity, as opposed to the exact connotation of singleness in other languages." https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-08/tccu-soo081804.php [31]

The Pirahã language has no word for "number," and pronouns do not designate number--"he" and "they" are the same word. Most standard quantifiers like "more," "several," "all," and "each" do not exist. In general, while containing a very complex verb structure common to many Native American languages, the Pirahã language does not allow for certain kinds of comparative constructions. For example, it was not possible to ask participants whether one group of objects "has more nuts than the other" because of the lack of that construction in the Pirahã grammar.

That does not mean that three, or 333, things cannot exist in the home of the Pirahã, and it doesn't mean that three and 333 are the same because they are both "many". It doesn't mean they aren't decent people, perhaps with the best of intentions, but it might make a court case quite difficult. I hope [translator's name] will do [his/her] best, but if that is not good enough to make my defence understandable to the court then the defence must inevitably suffer, in consequence my right to a defence will be unsustainable, and then I should be able to go home.

In the local cultural context we should also note that prenatal alcohol, like living up the jungle, also impairs mathematical and wider cognitive ability and "affects higher order processes such as abstraction". For example when subjects with FAS were asked to estimate the age of the oldest woman in the world, their answers ranged from 75 to 600 years. How fast do race horses gallop? The responses ranged from 3 to 2000 mph (5 to 3200 km/h). And many other examples are given in the paper:

http://www.unicog.org/publications/KoperaFryeDehaene_FetalAlcoholCalculation_Neuropsychologia1996.pdf [32]

I hope this will not create difficulties, but experience shows me that it definitely will. Your national decision to profit from prohibition is yours and not mine. That's why we're here. Not out of any desire for world peace or the public well-being, and certainly not mine - but so [translator's name] and the rest of you here can make money out of prohibition. And that my assistance to the translator will be strictly limited to a written or oral spelling of words and expressions in doubt.

*About Mr T, to the police

Who did Mr T speak with, representing the police?

Anyone else?

Where was that?

Anywhere else?

On what occasion?

Any other occasions?

*The Warrant

So the basis for the search relied on three evidential elements, your advisor Mr T, the light, and the electricity usage, is that so?

Anything else?

Do you think, as a police officer experienced in these cases, that you could have obtained the warrant with just one or two of the three elements contained therein?

So the light on its own? Would that have done do you think?

And the usage on its own? Would that have been enough to obtain a search, do you think?

What about the light and the usage together? Do you think that might have worked?

Did you in fact try to obtain it with only one or two?

Which/Why not?

So why did you bother with the second/third?

The truth is, isn't it, that you were working in a vacuum? There was no obvious crime in progress, no genuine and credible complainant, just a foreign guy smoking weed in his own house, no minors around, no driving, he wasn't in charge of a nuclear power station, and bothering nobody, correct?

But on the other hand, he wasn't doing normal Ptuj things, he wasn't going round town fighting and smashing windows, he wasn't stealing or hassling people in the park, he wasn't driving home drunk to his village and beating up his wife, he wasn't lying drunk in the road, and he was foreign and he wasn't speaking Slovene. And somehow he was getting away with this. True?

So to fill this vacuum, you needed corroboration, some kind of interplay between the informant, a grow room, and electricity usage, to fill this evidentiary vacuum. To get in. And if you put several inadequate reasons together, that feels kinda like you're doing what's expected of you, doesn't it?

Policist opravi hišno preiskavo na podlagi obrazložene pisne odredbe sodišča.

The police officer conducts a house search on the basis of a reasoned written order of the court.

https://www.policija.si/images/stories/Publikacije/PDF/Kaj_moramo_vedeti_o_policijskih_postopkih_nova.pdf [33]

Let’s consider a worst-case scenario. Let's imagine I am a racist policeman, annoyed about foreigners and people with bigger houses than mine. I'm connected to a lawyer, who can do land registry searches. I can look for a house with a light, check it's owned and not rented, decide I want it, go and find a jealous drunk perpetually in trouble who will say what I need, beef it up with a meaningless statement from the electricity customer, and boom, I'm in.

And that's why the court must remove all influence of the RESULT of the search in its decision on whether the warrant was lawfully issued.

*Look at the lights

Now about this light mentioned in the warrant. This is very important. Article 14 says we are all equal under the law. This seems like a very good idea to me, because it tells us what kind of society we want to live in.

I am passing a dwelling, let's say for example your dwelling, or it could equally be the dwelling of anyone here, Miss []'s, Mrs []'s, or Mr []'s private dwelling - and I see a light in a window.  And I have already decided by myself or heard somewhere that they are growing weed in there.

And I know that one of the things you can do with lights is grow marijuana. So if I see a light in a window, perhaps just the top of a window, should I go to the police and tell them to get a warrant, go to the dwelling and have a look around?

So all grow rooms mean lights. And therefore all lights mean grow rooms?

And this light at my window? Was it actually a grow room?

It was a computer room?

There were some pieces of hifi equipment, and some records and tapes in the room?

Did that prove anything about marijuana?

Did the hifi, records and tapes prove I use marijuana, for instance to make it sound better?

Can you describe what you found regarding the light?

And was there a grow room anywhere? In the cellar? In the roof? Anywhere in or around the dwelling?

So as a single, discrete piece of information, without the other information in my warrant, this wouldn't have amounted to a reasonable cause?

So because you succeeded on this occasion in a search for illegal fun and dangerous self-medication, the issue of this light is of no prior evidential value, a case of the end justifying the means, would that be correct?

[To court] That is NOT correct.

And so because you have used confirmation bias to obtain your warrant, and been successful in your search, do you assert that it doesn't matter, after the fact, that you were completely in error in the first place?

[To court] That is NOT correct.

As an investigator, you should be extremely cautious in believing human intelligence, do you agree?

And why is that?

Yes, you should exclude any other possible explanation, really, isn't that how you work?

Because people have motives other than justice in mind when they make accusations?

And you're quite experienced in raiding people for weed?

And they're all equal before the law?

People who own houses and people who rent houses?

People who own big houses and people who own small houses?

People who speak Slovene and people who don't?

All attended to equally?

In the same way you attended to the matter of the translator equally?

And in all the raids you've been on involving suspicion of growing, did you ever find some grow lights shining out of a window?

Do you think someone growing cannabis would do that?

That would be a pretty stupid thing to do, no?

Even if it was legal to grow that would be stupid. Don't you agree?

And in the middle of town, even more stupid, yes or no?

So the historical evidence doesn't point to lights shining out of windows as a particularly strong basis for a warrant, is that a fair assessment in your opinion?

In fact it's no evidence at all, is it?

Do you think experienced police investigators, looking for harmless but technically illegal substances on rather flimsy evidence, to which they habitually turn a blind eye, having taken one step beyond hearing a possibly dubious accusation, having gone and looked for a light, and found one, might they not feel that they have still not quite made the grade, and go another step to try and beef up the evidence?

Might they, for instance, contact Elektro Maribor and say (or maybe not say) "We've seen this light! Can you please tell us if the light's owner uses more electricity than we think he ought to be doing?"

And when it says, in the warrant, that I use more in eight months than a family of four in a year – is that what it says?

When it says that, is it talking about a particular family of four, the man at Elektro’s family, or someone he knows perhaps?

So it’s talking about an average consumption for families of four generally?

Now how does Elektro know how many children which of its customers have?

Do they ask on the application form for an electricity supply?

Do they ask when they come to read the meter?

Do they maybe they find out from the bank or the post office, how many children so-and-so has?

So it’s some kind of guesstimate they’ve made, but I still don’t see how they know how many children which customers have?

Do you think perhaps they did a survey, a questionnaire?

They could have offered some kind of incentive to provide that information?

And did they?

And how many households would have responded to an inquiry like that?

Would you have responded to a questionnaire with no incentive , like that?

So where does Elektro get its data on the electricity usage of families of four?

So it’s not surprising you don’t show any figure for that in the warrant, because because Elektro don’t have any, do they?

And did this turn out to be relevant to your search, in the end?

So my consumption, the consumption of one dwelling, is more than this average?

How much is that average for a family of four, in kilowatt hours per year?

And it’s more than the average of what? The average of all the dwellings in Slovenia? In eastern Slovenia only? In Podravska? In the Elektro Maribor supply area?

The law on house searches is the same all over Slovenia, yes?

So can you think of any variables the police should use to determine abnormal electricity usage, maybe in different villages, at different altitudes, or at different times of the year, perhaps?

So you would you always investigate the size of the dwelling?

Did you investigate the size of mine in advance of the raid?

Did you investigate the average of all the dwellings of the same or similar size as the one with the light being investigated? 

So did you see from the Land Registry that my dwelling had an area of 125 m2?

Did you ask Elektro Maribor or SURS or the Land Registry for the average usage for all the houses with that particular area?

Did you ask any of these what the average dwelling size was?

On average, do you think bigger properties use more electricity than smaller ones?

Do you think the largest house in Ptuj uses more than the smallest?

The discovery that you’ve just made, that bigger properties use more electricity played no role in your analysis, did it?

Did you then compare this average with the premises you were going to search?

So it's a flawed analysis, would you agree?

The warrant doesn't show any working out, any arithmetic concerning this, does it?

What it does contain is a sort of humanistic statement, which implies, in effect by innuendo, that if you use more electricity as a single occupant than a family of four, there must be something illegal going on, and you already knew what it was, would that be a fair assessment of your state of mind at the time you were preparing to apply for the warrant?

A note for the Court in regard to the translation. In respect of the limitations of the Slovenian language, I must point out here that an innuendo is not the same in English as a hint. Innuendo has a more negative polarity, suggestive in this context of an unfair and unwarranted assertion, whereas a hint is simply a clue, plain and simple, lacking concrete proof and uncorroborated, it a fact which may be considered but not elevated. An innuendo is a biased, discriminatory and perjorative view - I believe it is probable that the two languages meet on the definition and common understanding of innuendo with the words insinuation/insinuacija. The warrant insinuated that usage meant cultivation, dismissing alternative interpretations including, as we have seen, the correct one. This illustrates the essential inutility, fragility, ineptitude, uselessness, hollowness, meaninglessness and fruitlessness of innuendo in search warrants.

And perhaps you were guided in this by the prosecutor?

So the prosecuting judge said “You’ve got this drunk guy with a grudge, it’s not enough, it won’t stand up, get a couple more things and I’ll give you the warrant,” is that what happened?

And if you hadn’t gone and got those things, you wouldn’t have got the warrant, is that right?

The only useful result was that this bigger than average property used a bigger than average number of kilowatt hours, and the only reason that would be useful would be because it would confirm what you already wanted to think, isn't that the fact of the matter?

And because it got you over the line with the investigating judge, that third element - after the informant, after the discovery that I own a light - that would be a piece of confirmation bias, would it not?

And was there a fourth element? A fifth?

Was there covert surveillance, another informant?

[If yes] What can you tell me about that?

Was there surveillance inside the house?

Of the inside from the outside?

[If yes] Authorised by the judge?

[if yes] Using a device planted by an informant?

[if yes] Who was that?

Well what else, then, apart from the end justifies the means?

And if the end justifies the means, how does that differ from the logical fallacy known as circulus in demonstrando?

Why is it not the type of logical fallacy known as "circular cause and consequence"?

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Circular-Reasoning [34]

We can see how confirmation bias produced the desired result - from the police perspective and not the defendant's - are you saying that confirmation bias is not a key element of circular cause and consequence?

Because - and the order doesn't matter if a single element is insufficient - if the light is a good reason to believe in the informant or the usage, or the usage is a good reason to believe in the light and the informant, or the informant is a good reason to believe in the light and the usage, as elements worthy of a house search warrant, they are all as circular as each other, don't you agree that's the case?

But in respect of cultivation there was no end, no result, to which the allegedly abnormal electricity usage could be attributed. The grow light was non-existent, and no evidence that the kilowatts were used by the non-existent grow light used, was there?

So it's ok for the end to justify the means when the end is confirmed, but when the end and the means don't match up you can just ignore that your badly reasoned application was didn't pan out?

And that's a kind of confirmation bias as well, a negative confirmation bias, do you agree?

In this instance, how many dwellings was your average of electricity usage by a family of four based upon?

[If don't know] So to get your average that you presented to the court to obtain the warrant, you divided, presumably, the total amount of electricity used by private customers [in Elektro area/in eastern Slovenia/in all of Slovenia] by the number of dwellings?

How did you do that?

So your estimate of average electricity usage without a large sample of dwellings, would that be as reliable as an analysis based on two houses?

So it's a biased analysis, discriminatory to the subset of the population with lighted houses greater in size than the average of the sample, which is already a limited sample, while people with smaller than average dwellings would be able to grow marijuana unperturbed, in terms of your ability to obtain a warrant, that's right isn't it?

Now Protocol 12 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms provides for a general prohibition of discrimination, and this was ratified by Slovenia on 1 November 2010 https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/treaty/177/signatures?p_auth=IX2n5uc0 [35]

What that did was amend Article 14 of the Convention which previously only prohibited discrimination concerning enjoyment of one or more of the other rights guaranteed by the Convention (Article 14 – Prohibition of discrimination, namely: "The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.").

Protocol 12 removes this limitation and guarantees that no-one shall be discriminated against on any ground by any public authority.

Do you think Protocol 12 would include a ban on discrimination for having a light on?

Do you think Protocol 12 would include a ban on discrimination for having a great big house?

Do you think Protocol 12 would include a ban on discrimination for having an electricity usage larger than an average you did not know, based on a sample size you did not know, compared to an average for a family of four you did not know, and whose sample size you also did not know, and which we have recently discovered neither you nor Elektro could not and did not know, or chose to ignore?

[To Court] May it please the Court, I have not included any factor for global warming, as any decrease in electric heating expenses, which might produce an historical average greater than the present one, which could be used to further exaggerate the customer’s profligacy, may be offset by an increase in air conditioning expenses.

So do you agree that discrimination in obtaining a search warrant based on the presence of lighting and electricity usage would be inimical to the spirit and terms of Protocol 12?

Can you think of any previous occasion when having a light on in a big house was ever used as justification for obtaining a warrant for a house search?

Would you like some time to check your records and see if you can find another example?

Are you familiar with Article 131 of KZ-1?

Can you see where it says "nationality"?

Can you see where it says "political or other belief"?

Can you see where it says "language"?

Can you see where it says "property status"?

Can you see where it says "birth"?

Can you see where it says "genetic heritage"?

Can you see where it says "education"?

Can you see where it says "social status"?

Can you see where it says "any other circumstance"?

Do you think that being British, not speaking Slovene, having a political belief about drug policy, or about Ptuj's Town Smell, or about some other environmental issue, or living in an above average-sized house, or being genetically not from Ptuj, or being too educated to be employed in Ptuj, or being born outside of Slovenia, or being genetically different to Slavic people, or having the social status described on my LinkedIn page, do you think any of these are justifiable reasons for me not to have the right to a light?

Would you agree that having a light is an internationally accepted fundamental freedom?

Would you be able to manage at home without a light?

Has anyone ever challenged your right to have a light?

So what was it about this allegedly womanising gay nigger-loving devil-worshipping communist capitalist jewish gipsy junkie pedo foreign spy and former major British gangster who doesn't like Slovenian food, with his different nationality, with his different place of birth and his different genetic heritage, with his different education (better or worse), with his different social status (higher or lower), with his different beliefs to everyone else about Ptuj's Town Smell, with his different beliefs about relative drug risks, and with his different language, that drew your attention to the particular light owned by him?

Because you mentioned the language a few times, your officers. Officer Lovrenc said when delivering my invitation to Maribor that I should learn Slovene, isn't that right?

In fact Ms Toš might have been right, if she had not equated written and spoken Slovene. For you can go at your own speed, and back and forth, if it's written, isn't that true?

So there was no presumption of innocence as far as language ability is concerned, in Ptuj?

And you might have heard, perhaps, that svetloba and luč are both just light, in English, and a žarnica or svetilka is a light bulb, or a lamp - but that a lamp can mean, besides the light source, the whole item, the whole equipment with the stand, base, shade etc. So would you say my knowledge of Slovene in terms of lighting is as good as yours is in English? 

Conversely, an arm and a hand are distinct in English, but in Slovene they are the same, right?

So in Slovenia, if you want to wave a car through your checkpoint, are officers taught to wave their arms at the driver, or wave their hand?

In fact in Slovenia, if you are driving, you have to have your lights on whatever the time of day, isn't that right?

And that's in contrast to the more northerly UK, were you aware of that?

And because it's more northerly, the UK spends more time in darkness, would you say?

So although it's brighter on average in Slovenia, here you'd be in trouble if you drove on the highway without your lights on, correct?

You'd be drawing attention to yourself by having less light as you went along, yes?

So compared to dark, rainy Britain, what is it about Slovenia that requires drivers to make themselves extra visible, in your opinion?

Is it the conditions on the road, the nature of the terrain?

Because a lot of people are drunk and careless, something like that?

So drugs are partly the reason why the law in Slovenia has been adjusted, so to speak, counterintuitively to the lighting conditions?

The law has been adjusted to take account of drunk drivers, to help them see, and make them more visible to other drivers?

So returning to the light in my unequally-sized house, and the mathematical set of dwelling areas to which the area of this individual house belongs - would you say I have the same right to a light as anyone else, in a dwelling of any size?

Including a dwelling of an average size?

And what is that average and how big is that sample, do you know either of those?

Well let's take a look, which we can thanks to https://gis.stat.si/#lang=en [36] under the heading "Dwellings" and "all dwellngs" and "average useful floor space" the average for Podravska was 79 m2 and for Ptuj 81 m2 in fact. Whereas mine is 125 m2 according to the metric used by SURS.

Did you visit my roof?  Is it lit by electricity? How big would you say that is?

Was the floor space in the roof being used?

Do you think that I regard the floor space as useful?

And is the roof covered by the SURS definition of "useful floor space"?

You could calculate the size from an aerial photograph or housing plan, could you not?

Did you?

So you were able to calculate the size of the roof, but you decided not to do that?

I happen to know it's about 12 metres by ten, so 120 m2. And there's two hallways about 9 by 1.5m each, a garage 9 by 2.5, so another 36 for those, and moreover toilets and bathrooms are omitted in the SURS methodology. 6 m2 for those. And the cellar is at least 30 m2, would you like to disagree with that?

Do you think I use the floors in my hallways?

How about the garage?

And would I find the floors in my toilets, boiler and storage rooms useful? A

What about the cellar floor? Useful?

Would all those spaces be included or omitted in SURS' calculation of "useful floor space"?

So although SURS regard my useful floor space as 125, a realistic total of what I actually use is around 336 m2?

All lit by electricity?

No gas lamps anywhere?

And because you can look both ways simultaneously, you'd be jealous of that?

Or in fact your information from Elektro Maribor didn't consider floor space - by either my or SURS' method of measuring it?

So with my actual floor space of 336 m2 how would my actual floor space compare with the 81.5 m2 national average?

Well 336/81.5 is 4.123 times the national average, correct?

And that's a little on the low side as an estimate, because the divisor for the whole of Slovenia is slightly bigger than the divisor for the Elektro Maribor area data that you presumably got? If the divisor were smaller the quotient would be bigger, ok with that?

And if I was normal, and didn't just leave the parts of my house that SURS considers not useful in darkness, my bill would be 336/81.5 or 4.123 times the national average, is that correct?

So when you say my usage is abnormal, and I use in eight months more than a family of four in a year, none of that supported by any figures whatsoever, what do you mean?

Which means this search warrant applied to a dwelling 1.5625 times the average of those two according to the SURS methodology? And in actuality, 4.123 times the SURS average?

So perhaps you can now see that it would be reasonable, based on the useful floor area as defined by SURS, that the average electricity usage of 125 m2 houses could be 1.5625 times the usage of the SURS average-sized dwelling?

And in the case of the actual floor area, considered useful by me, it electricity usage could be up to 4.123 times the SURS average, do you agree?

In addition, the averages for the east and west cohesion regions of Slovenia are 82 and 81 respectively, so for one nation under one jurisdiction with equal rights for all the people with lights my place is 1.5337 times the average, not very different to the local figures.

So what would a normal person reasonably use, according to the information given, so that he could NOT be suspected of growing marijuana?

You knew my bill was around 60 euros?

So knowing that figure, and the size of the house, how would you reverse engineer that to get a reasoned bill that would not justify a search warrant?

Well SURS say the house is 1.5337 times the average size. Can you do it now?

Well the reciprocal of 1.5337 is?

1 divided by 1.5337 i.e. 0.652, times 60 ...which is 39.12?

So that means anyone with a bill over 39.12 could be searched, is that what you thought?

But of course that's just my bill. What is the average bill?

Elektro didn't say what the average bill was, or you didn't want to know?

And did they report to you what my actual bills were?

[If nothing concrete on usage] So what you're saying to the court, [Ms.Mr] is that a figure you've never seen was larger than another figure you've never seen?

[If nothing concrete on area] And [furthermore] what you're saying to the court, [Ms.Mr] that the figure for the area of a house you've never seen was larger than the figure for some average of houses that you've never seen?

[If nothing concrete on SURS/estimated areas] And not content with that, you're telling this court, [Ms.Mr] that the usage you've never seen was not related to the area you've never seen, or tried to find out by a fairly straightforward visual or documentary examination?

All we have from Elektro on the warrant is this vague, mealy-mouthed comparison of my consumption with the consumption of a family of four, is that all you had?

It's not a comparison of some average with the house four times the average size, is it?

Is it Elektro's job to provide a reasoned proposal to the court?

Is it yours?

In view of what you've told us, do you think you submitted a reasoned proposal to the court?

And because you had already seen an alcoholic burglar, and because you had already seen a light, and because you did not know the SURS opinion of the size of the house, and because you did not contemplate the actual size of the house, and because you had started with the result you wanted and worked backwards, confirmation bias and a circular argument enabled you to convince the judge you had a reasoned plan to invade my privacy and steal my recreational and medicinal property, that’s right isn’t it?

So please explain to the court how, when you did not know what an average bill was, [did not know my actual bill], did not know the size of the house either according to SURS or in reality, and didn't factor any of this into your calculations - how was that "reasoned"?

And that’s because someone on patrol had said “Look at the lights”!

Let's just make sure nothing's gotten lost in translation here. It seems quite fortunate, that in the Slovene language the words for "reasoned" and "reason" seem to be dissimilar. In the original Article 215 "Preiskavo na obrazložen pisni predlog upravičenega tožilca odredi preiskovalni sodnik z obrazloženo pisno odredbo." And an everyday reason, the reason we are here, the reason things fall to the earth, is "razlog". Obrazložitev, the noun form, has no place in describing why the dog ate my homework. That is "razlog". And razlog has no relationship to step-by-step deductive reasoning of the type referred to by “obrazloženo” in 215. I hope the translator will be able to confirm this.

Ironically, considering all this light, it was blind prejudice that produced the warrant and not reason at all, isn’t that obvious to you now?

What's the useful floor area of the place you live in? How much is your electricity bill? When did you last have a monthly electricity bill that low?

Did you make any of these calculations? Did Elektro Maribor make that calculation adjusting for the size of the premises or any of the other variables I've mentioned?

And you didn't care about any of that because you just wanted to get the warrant already, and you cooked up some nonsense to get it - that's what happened in this case, isn't that the truth of the matter here?

So if that isn't what happened, where did you get this fact that you placed in front of the court to get this warrant? In fact the warrant doesn't contain any actual data, in figures about the average utility usage of anyone, does it?

It doesn't, for instance, say what the usage of a family of four living in a 62.5 m2 dwelling is, does it?

It doesn't say, therefore, that my usage is bigger than that, does it?

And it doesn't refer to a family of four using gas heating, does it?

It doesn't distinguish between types of heating, hot water heating, or refer to whether they have both gas and electricity at all, does it?

And the meter cannot distinguish between electricity used for lighting and used for other purposes: computers, fans, ovens, fridges, washing machines, televisions, it doesn't know anything about any of that, does it?

And do Elektro store data about the size of each dwelling?

So how does Elektro know, and how do you know, how much electricity a family of four, possibly with gas heating, gas hot water, and possibly with electric heating, and water heating, possibly using electricity for one and gas for the other, possibly electricity or maybe gas for cooking, maybe with a lathe in the garage, how does Elektro know how much that family of four uses?

In fact if they did know, to any degree of accuracy, Elektro would not need to pay for installing an electric meter at all, would they?

So your argument must be a sort of vague conclusion that, well, Elektro have all the data, they know about this, and this is what they said right?

And I'm sorry to ask you this, but is there a kind of official process through which this information is obtained?

And is that data is protected under the Data Protection legislation, or not?

So I can just go and ask how much electricity you use, and they'll tell me?

So who at the police dealt with Elektro on the topic of my usage?

Are they here today?

Are any of them his or her relatives?

How about former policemen or women?

Girlfriends? Boyfriends? Exes?

Business associates?

And is this the same Elektro Maribor where seven members of staff were convicted on bribery and corruption charges in 2019?

And after a trial process lasting nine years, the boss of Elektro Maribor a Mr Andrej Zorec was sent to prison for a year and two months? https://www.vecer.com/kronika/afera-elektro-maribor-tudi-ob-koncu-sojenja-zanikali-krivdo-10024905 [132]

https://www.sta.si/2649712/nekdanjemu-direktorju-elektra-maribor-zaporna-soobtozenima-pogojna-kazen [133]

This case could be something lawyers and judges cook up from time to time, using cannabis as an excuse, to create financial penalties, to go and get their hooks into people's property, that's a possibility isn't it?

And with regard to lighting in particular, which drew you to the subject of usage, when you go into a room with your partner or family, let's say there are two of you, do you put on a second light to maintain the lumens being used up by the occupants?

I think you can see that four people in a room use the same amount of light as one person, yes?

Maybe someone is working at a desk and has a table lamp, is that possible?

And so do you think that four people in a room use four times the lighting of one person?

When twenty police officers go into a briefing, do you put on twenty times the light?

And what evidence did you have that they might?

And this lighting you anticipated was growing weed, and where it was, that didn't turn out to be true upon your arrival, did it?

So whatever basis in theory you did have - and we've seen you didn't - was wrong, correct?

And so it didn't amount to a justification of the warrant, did it?

But that sort of evidence doesn't count for you, does it [Ms . Mr ]?

Because it doesn't match up with the prejudice you had at the outset?

And the truth is, there aren't many people growing marijuana who own a house that can be stolen by these means, are there?

You can't tip up the life of someone who lives in a rented apartment so your lawyer friends can gain control of that kind of property, can you?

And if it's someone who doesn't even speak Slovene, that's even better, isn't it?

And you're not saying, as you're saying with the accusation from the informant, that it actually WAS true that I had used all that electricity for growing weed BECAUSE you had been told so in advance, even though the lighting didn't exist, are you Mr/Miss []?

And I wonder if you have ever heard it said about Slovenians, that they are jealous or envious?

Is there a Slovenian alive who hasn't heard that, do you reckon?

And one of the things Slovenians routinely get jealous about is others' possessions, yes?

And an above average sized house, that would be a possession they could get jealous over?

So besides a jealous informant, if you could get a jealous electrical company clerk too, and some jealous policemen, that would be all you would need to go before the judge and get a warrant, and then come along, bringing a couple of jealous witness wanting to have a look at the foreigner's house?

In fact you took advantage of an addled informant, then added the story about the light, then added the story about the electricity usage, because you were out to get me before any of this began, and you needed something to put before the prosecutor to get what you wanted, that's the actual sequence of events, isn't it?

[If yes/well known etc.] Well it doesn't say that in the warrant does it?

And as to the sequence in which this evidence was obtained, was it a different sequence to that given in the warrant document, which is informant first, then light, then usage? Was it first the light, then the informant? First the electricity consumption, then the informant, anything like that?

If none of the individual reasons put forward were adequate, and if you cannot rely on the end justifying the means, can you think of any reason why the order of that sequence even matters?

Using your detective powers, before applying for the warrant, you could have established pretty easily that it was a big house, or at least bigger than average, could you not?

You didn't need to obtain a court order to do a house search, is that correct?

Under what circumstances would a court order be unnecessary?

Circumstances permitting entry without court order

Article 218

(1) Police officers may also enter a foreign apartment and other premises without a court order and, if necessary, conduct an investigation if the owner of the apartment so wishes, if someone calls for help, if it is necessary to apprehend a criminal who has been caught in the act itself, or if it is necessary for the safety of people and property, if there is someone in the apartment or any other room who must be detained or forcibly brought in by order of the competent state authority or who has taken refuge there due to persecution.

(2) In the case referred to in the preceding paragraph, no minutes shall be made, but a certificate shall be immediately issued to the owner of the apartment stating the reason for entering the apartment or other premises. If an investigation has also been carried out in foreign premises, the third and sixth paragraphs of Article 216 of this Act must be complied with.

(3) The investigation may also be carried out without the presence of witnesses, if it is not possible to ensure their presence immediately, and it would be dangerous to delay. The reasons for the investigation without the presence of witnesses must be stated in the minutes.

(4) Police officers may, without an investigation order and without the presence of witnesses, conduct a personal investigation when executing a decision on apprehension or when depriving someone of liberty if there is a suspicion that he has a weapon to attack or a suspicion that he will drop, hide or destroy objects to be taken as evidence in criminal proceedings.

(5) When police officers conduct an investigation without an order, they must immediately submit a report to the public prosecutor, if the proceedings are already underway, as well as to the investigating judge.

And were any of those circumstances met in this instance?

So you could not have relied on any of those circumstances in this case?

Article 217

If, during a house or personal search, objects are found which are not related to the criminal offense for which the investigation was ordered, but indicate another criminal offense for which the perpetrator is being prosecuted ex officio, these shall also be described in the record and seized. . This is immediately communicated to the Attorney General to initiate prosecution. These items are returned immediately if the public prosecutor realizes that there is no reason for criminal prosecution, nor any other legal reason that the items should be taken (Article 498)

Article 498

(1) Objects which may or must be taken under the criminal law shall also be taken when the criminal proceedings do not end with a judgment by which the accused is found guilty, if there is a danger of them being used for a criminal offense or if this is required by general security benefits or reasons of morality.

(2) A special decision on this shall be issued by the body before which the procedure was conducted at the time when the procedure was completed or stopped.

(3) The decision on confiscation of objects referred to in the first paragraph of this Article shall also be issued by the court if such a decision is missing in the judgment by which the accused was found guilty.

(4) A certified copy of the decision on confiscation of objects shall be served on the owner of the objects, if the latter is known.

(5) The owner of objects shall have the right to appeal against the decision referred to in the second and third paragraphs of this Article if he thinks that there is no legal basis for the seizure of objects. If the decision referred to in the second paragraph of this Article has not been issued by the court, the senate (sixth paragraph of Article 25) of the court that would have jurisdiction over the trial at first instance shall decide on the appeal.

Article 498.a.

(1) Except in cases where the criminal proceedings end with a judgment finding the defendant guilty, the money or property of illegal origin referred to in Article 245 of the Criminal Code and the bribe referred to in 151, 157, 241 shall be unlawfully given or accepted. , 242, 261, 262, 263 and 264 of the Criminal Code, also take:

1) if those legal signs of a criminal offense referred to in Article 245 of the Criminal Code have been proven, which indicate that the money or property referred to in the said Article originates from criminal offenses, or

2) if those legal signs of criminal offenses referred to in Articles 151, 157, 241, 242, 261, 262, 263 and 264 of the Criminal Code are proven, which indicate that a reward has been given or accepted , gift, bribe or any other material gain.

(2) A special resolution on this shall be issued by the senate (sixth paragraph of Article 25) upon a reasoned proposal by the state prosecutor; before that, the investigating judge must, at the request of the panel, gather information and investigate all the circumstances relevant to the establishment of the illegal origin of the money or property or the bribe illegally given or accepted.

(3) A certified copy of the decision referred to in the preceding paragraph shall be served on the owner of the confiscated money or property or bribe, if the latter is known. If the owner is not known, the decision shall be affixed to the court board and, after eight days, service shall be deemed to have been effected on the unknown owner.

(4) The owner of confiscated money or property or bribes shall have the right to appeal against the decision referred to in the second paragraph of this Article if he considers that there is no legal basis for confiscation.

*The search

I think you must have known I don’t speak Slovenian before you arrived, is that correct?

You knew I wasn’t born in Slovenia?

You knew my parents had nothing to do with Slovenia?

But you arrived with your colleagues to search my house without a translator?

Why was that?

Well I’m glad you’re not pleading ignorance, because the first words out of your [colleague’s] mouth were “Policija…police”. Why would he translate that?

Did you hope that I would just be bowled over by the shock and intensity of this official home invasion, and not know my rights?

So you had some expectation, some sense of probability, that I would be able to understand the warrant and everything you would ask?

And what was that probability, in your mind, as you arrived?

You might have read Kisilevsky et al. (2009) who presented fetuses with two speech recordings to test whether they are sensitive to a change in speech from English (a stress-timed language) to Chinese (often argued to be a syllable-timed language), as compared to when they were presented with two English recordings.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0163638308000866?via%3Dihub [37]

You could have read in https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170718084600.htm [38] and https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091105092607.htm [39] that language acquisiton starts in the womb - specifically the rhythm and melody of the language.

So you had no reasonable expectation that I would have been accustomed from the third trimester of my mother’s pregnancy to the zlogovna prosodija of Slovene?

[what's that?] Well the official language of Slovenia is Slovene. Do you want me to explain the difference between zlogovna prosodija and the besedna prosodija of English and other Germanic languages?

I first heard Slovene at the age of 47. Do you think that would be easy or hard for a 47-year old adult to pick up zlogovna prosodija, compared to a fetus?

At that age, would it be easier to go from zlogovna to besedna prosodija or from besedna to zlogovna prosodija, in your experience?

So you could easily have understood beforehand that I wasn’t exposed to the zlogovna prosodija.

But you went ahead without a translator to try to save money, correct?

Or you thought I would just learn Slovene there and then on the spot?

How many house searches have you been on? You can estimate if you’re not keeping count.

You don’t just rock up at people’s front doors without knowing anything about them, do you?

And among the most basic things, surely, is where they were born, how old they are, and of course how long they have been in Slovenia?

How many involved accused persons whose first language wasn’t Slovene?

And of those, at what percentage or proportion of the homes you visited did you arrive without an interpreter?

It should be 0%, correct?

The truth is, you knew perfectly well I speak English, because the informant had made his views and his prejudices known on that very subject, correct?

And you probably picked this up from the other officers, they probably had a bit of a moan about this non-Slovenian-speaking foreigner before you began?

And the right to an interpreter was one you hoped to avoid, to increase your leverage in the situation, isn’t it?

So it wasn’t to save money, and it wasn’t to increase leverage, and it wasn’t racial discrimination, the reason you came unassisted with your language is because it was just an extra hassle, with no benefits from your perspective, and you just couldn’t be bothered, correct?

My concern is that with likelihood of iodine deficiency in previous decades https://t.co/0DUTsUssQ1?amp=1 [40], hypothyroxinemia in pregnancy due to the chicken factory air of Ptuj https://t.co/j14BeMtCJZ?amp=1 [41], and the effects of fetal alcohol exposure http://www.unicog.org/publications/KoperaFryeDehaene_FetalAlcoholCalculation_Neuropsychologia1996.pdf, [42] the court will be unable to fully understand the abstractions required, or the ramifications of its decision.

ZKP...

XVIII. chapter

INVESTIGATIVE ACTIONS

1. House and personal search

Article 214

(1) The search of the apartment and other premises of the accused or other persons may be carried out if there are substantiated grounds for suspicion that a certain person has committed a criminal offense and it is probable that the search of the accused may arrest or reveal traces of criminal activity. acts or objects relevant to the criminal proceedings.

(2) A personal investigation may be carried out if there are substantiated grounds for suspicion that a certain person has committed a criminal offense, and it is probable that the investigation will reveal traces and objects that are important for the criminal proceedings.

Article 215

(1) The investigation shall be ordered by the investigating judge with a reasoned written order upon a reasoned written proposal of the entitled prosecutor.

So there's quite a bit of heroin and especially cocaine around and those are dangerous drugs associated with dangerous people?

And you don't want to get involved in that?

But quantitatively, in numbers of people and numbers of kilograms there's much more weed than either of those drugs, would it be 1000 times more, 10,000?

So it suits you to go after cannabis for economic reasons, not because it's actually doing any harm? If you play down the heroin and cocaine you avoid the more dangerous people, correct?

And by grouping cannabis and pychedelics with those in the public imagination you can allow a sort of public ignorance to pervade the subject?

All the illegal drugs are more dangerous than all the legal drugs, and you can even twist things to convince yourselves and the public, because of the quantities, cannabis is causing more harm overall?

And that's because people here are ignorant and prejudiced for the most part about the relative risks of drugs, even despite the evidence of their own eyes, the problems caused by alcohol and tobaccco, they gloss it over, and tell themselves these wouldn't be legal if they were more harmful than cannabis and mushrooms?

They think cannabis is  And that's because the police are are under pressure to produce a quota of cannabis busts? There's a financial target? A target for seizures? Or at least some ambitions to be met?

And that preceded the events we've just discussed, that's right isn't it?

Because you know perfectly well that you're going to miss a large percentage of the marijuana grown, you just need to produce results from somewhere to keep someone happy?

And who is it, that you need to keep happy in this regard?

And does that take the form of a particular individual or group of individuals?

And who are they?

And what would happen, do you think, if you didn't keep them happy?

Because you personally think cannabis is mostly not harmful at all, isn't that right?

What about tryptamines?

In a multiplication sum containing two or more terms, one or more of which is zero, what is the product?

[Struggles] For example what would the product be of 31 times 78 times 0?

[Struggles] Ok then, let's take an easier one. What is 1 times 0?

V slovenščinim jezik, lahko dajmi primer namenilnikov?

And could you translate your answer and explain what it means?

And what would be the English equivalent term for namenilnik?

[supine]

Could you explain why the correct morphology is "za svobodno Slovenijo" but "proti svobodna Slovenije"?

There's no case, gender or number issue, in that, is there? Why do the endings differ?

So you arrived for the house search without a translator?

Why was that?

So you didn't know I was a foreign national?

And you've met lots of English-speaking people who speak Slovene?

And you personally have spent how long acquainting anglophone people with your language?

And how many Slovenian people do you know who have spent time doing that?

So what would be the average amount of time spent by ordinary Slovenian people teaching English people to speak Slovene, would you estimate?

What is the basis for your estimate?

And Slovene is spoken by which ethnic group?

Now what do you know about market forces, and the market economy?

Why do you suppose gold and diamonds are more valuable than iron and soot?

Which do you suppose is more plentiful on planet earth, gold or iron?

Which of diamonds and soot is more plentiful?

And if you had to choose two of those four, and not have the others, which two would you choose?

And as I'm the rarity here, with my exotic and unusual language, I'm the rarity, would you agree?

And so according to market forces, the price I get for my rare and some might say more useful skill should be greater than, say, what I might pay at a language school to learn the language that everybody here knows?

And have you heard of anyone in Ptuj paying me to converse in English?

So although it knows Slovene has some market value, to the extent that it thinks it’s funny I would even expect them to tell me something do with the language http://www.a2z.si/dear [43], Slovenia doesn’t know anything about market forces as far as they apply in that direction?

But you do know I talk to people, don't you?

So if we multiply the amount of time spent teaching English people Slovene, that you know of, by the number of people that you know of who did that, we would get the average amount of time per Slovenian person spent teaching English people Slovene, is that correct?

And we could extrapolate that so that, if I had met all two million Slovenian speakers, with their 48 different dialects depending upon which source you believe, what would be the total amount of time spent by Slovenian people teaching me Slovene?

Did your informant mention in his complaint that I don't speak Slovene?

And who was supposed to help me with that, did he say anything about that?

What about Elektro Maribor, didn't anyone there inform you I don't speak Slovene?

Would it surprise you in fact to learn that I've never any Slovenian person in Ptuj - apart from someone who had never met anyone I had already met - who didn't already know that I don't speak Slovene?

Isn't my not speaking Slovene a well-known fact about me in Ptuj?

And presumably, because you were diligent in your research about me prior to the search, you knew that I was saying this was all a convenient smear, a reprisal against me for complaining about the chicken factory smell in Ptuj, and the sort of reason that people who don't like foreigners can use - on the face of things perhaps quite reasonably - to downgrade me in the eyes of Ptuj society?

And why did they want to do that, do you think?

And you didn't know that despite being English I'm not even interested in football?

Or physical sports of any kind?

And you didn't know that I'm not interested in drinking until I can't walk or see?

And you didn't know that I'm alone here?

And this was of no concern in your investigation?

And you don't think that, having scared off any potential partners by building me a reputation as described in my LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/julian-bohan-a035203a/ [44], Ptuj society had effectively created the very circumstance they were complaining about?

So there’s no pleasing them really.

Which of them do you think I should listen to, those who are unhappy and critical if I don’t speak English, or those who are unhappy and critical if I do?

And do you think that might have been intended to cause verbal or physical assaults if I went out somewhere?

So you didn't know about the physical assault on me in 2012 at the poetry festival?

None of the twelve people who witnessed the assault came to you and said, this English guy was assaulted by this cokehead from the chicken factory because he had made a few lighthearted remarks in front of his friends and made his racism, based on this language excuse of theirs, look rather pathetic?

Because you could have found that on the inaugural website of the National Poet Of Slovenia In A Language People Understand. You didn't?

So you didn't know that any conversation I had by 2012 in any bar, or at any event in Ptuj, quickly resulted in anything from a reminder, to an accusation, to a shaming, to a "how come" I don't speak Slovene?

And we've already seen why that is, haven't we?

And it must have been annoying from the police point of view, that after that assault I virtually never went out any more in Ptuj because these insults had become so predictable and threatening? That I just gave up on meeting people because they were all quickly going to become the same? That strange people were watching - and I'm not being paranoid here - and warning anyone who stepped out of line and related to me in English, that this was a bad thing, something they could use me for, but only in a fake way, and that they couldn't genuinely be seen to be my friend, because that would be some kind of a betrayal of Slovenia and would have consequences for them?

You didn't find it annoying because most of the information you need to investigate foreigners comes from them blabbing off in the pub about themselves?

Because you get a lot of information about Slovenian lowlife from drunks in bars, isn't it?

The police wouldn't be interested in defending the victim of attacks like those if they were of the same opinion themselves, would they?

So you didn't think it might oil the process to arrive with a translator?

You didn't want to spend the money?

It was too difficult to find anyone?

You thought it would amount to special treatment for me?

So you thought you could just barge your way past my rights to understand the document you brought, not bring a written translation, and not bring an interpreter?

You thought it would be to your advantage, in fact, if I didn't get that?

And how long was it before a translator-interpreter arrived?

You thought it would be better to have six people standing around for that amount of time waiting, than to plan ahead.

So if nobody wants to come around to my house except drunk after the pub, maybe you thought, well he's been here fifteen years, he must have learned Slovene somehow?

Because if we take the amount of time spent by everyone you know teaching Slovene to anglophones,  and multiply it by all the Slovenian people they meet, and then multiply that by the amount of time they spend together, that gives us a measure of the throughput of language learning acquired, is that a fair analysis?

So if the number of people an anglophone meets is N, and the amount of time they spend together not getting the Slovenian person a free English practice is X, and the amount of time T spent teaching Slovene to anglophones per Slovenian person is zero, the result of that calculation N x X x T is ...?

The product of any multiplication sum, one of the terms is zero, is zero, is that right?

So how did you think I learned to speak Slovene?

Was it for instance by listening to dull men in bars asking me about football and the Queen in bars?

Was it for instance by speaking to myself?

Was it by watching Slovenian porn?

So either you didn't investigate very hard, or you just investigated the things you thought were important in a rather biased and self-serving way? Which was it? Can you think of a third option?

And how many people does your information suggest are currently using marijuana in Ptuj?

And how many dealers?

And you've never used marijuana yourself?

And you also have no relatives, no friends, no colleagues who use marijuana?

OK I'm not going to put you on the spot here. But I must now introduce an extraordinary article https://maribor24.si/slovenija/ce-slovenija-ne-bo-upostevala-novih-smernic-glede-konoplje-ji-grozijo-desetmilijonske-kazni [45]

Now I'm somewhat confused by this article. I quote the translation [or read the original] from the paragraph under the heading "Cannabis will finally breathe". Plants do respire, but no change to their legal status is going to change that. And as a proofreader in English, I would extemporize that a little and put "Cannabis will finally breathe easy".

And the machine translation says "Recall that cannabis and hashish will be transferred to a group of substances that are mostly harmless to health, and should even be used for horticultural purposes (such as for years in Austria). According to the new world guidelines, cannabis will finally be solved? after decades of subjugation from September 2020." My internet translates rešena as "solved" but that doesn't make any sense in English; the real translation is "rescued", does anyone disagree with that?

It doesn't say, does it, that the legal situation is being solved, or resolved, does it? It's marijuana itself which is being "rescued"?

Rescued from whom or what?

*Relative risks

It does say, doesn't it, that the product should be transferred to a group of substances which are mostly harmless to health?

And to avoid any ambiguity, do you think that some of the substances in that category could be deadly, or does the translation actually mean that all the substances in this category are harmless to most people, in most cases?

The latter, exactly.

So we've all seen the little leaflets that come with pharmaceuticals warning of contraindications, yes?

Here's an example for one drug. It should be not used by people with

systemic mastocytosis

low vitamin K levels

a type of joint disorder due to excess uric acid in the blood called gout

anemia

hemophilia

a decrease in the blood clotting protein prothrombin

blood clotting disorder - von Willebrand's disease

decreased blood platelets

alcoholism

Reye's syndrome

thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura

a type of blood disorder

nasal polyp

an ulcer from too much stomach acid

stomach or intestinal ulcer

liver problems

bleeding of the stomach or intestines

decreased kidney function

pregnancy

a mother who is producing milk and breastfeeding

anemia from pyruvate kinase and G6PD deficiencies

Sounds pretty risky. Any idea so far what this might be?

Perhaps I can help by adding the last two categories of user for whom this drug is contraindicated:

overdose of the drug aspirin

aspirin exacerbated respiratory disease

https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-1082-3/aspirin-oral/aspirin-oral/details/list-contraindications [46]

Any idea now what this drug might be?

And aspirin is available over the counter without prescription in Slovenia, yes?

Because people want to buy it and chemists want to sell it? Because it's a popular analgesic, even at the hugely inflated price you pay in Slovenia?

And so, the article suggests, cannabis is "mostly harmless" in the same way as aspirin is mostly harmless?

Even despite the possibility of contraindications?

Because no drug is completely safe?

Because nothing can stop people overdosing on aspirins if they are freely available?

Because we rely on people's common sense not to harm themselves, but accept that some will anyway?

And we accept that because the benefits of having aspirin available outweigh the risks?

And the LD50 of aspirin, taken orally, in rats, is 200 mg/kgBW?

And it says, you should assume - admittedly a dangerous thing to do in any pharmacological assessment - that the LD50 for rats and humans is the same?

http://cures.lmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/M4_L4.1_S_Key_Final-1.pdf [47]

And just to be clear, do you know of any source that says that aspirin can be more dangerous if somebody THINKS it is more dangerous?

So the feelings that the user or other people might have about aspirin, they don't actually have any influence on its chemical properties or how it affects the mind or body?

Because that would be nonsense?

Somebody who believed that could be entitled to that belief, but it wouldn't actually be scientifically correct?

And they couldn't foist those beliefs on somebody else in, say for instance, the cause of public safety?

So if they were to begin a campaign against aspirin abuse, called The League Against Aspirin, or maybe Smart Approaches to Aspirin, gather money from others concerned about aspirin and companies selling rival products, if they published research, held conferences, flew doctors and pharmacists around the world, invited the NIJZ to dinner in Vienna, planted scary one-sided stories in the media, used emotion and selective information to frighten parents and others who knew no better, if they were to completely control the public discourse in favour of their beliefs about aspirin, if they were to do any or all of these things, do you believe any of these activities would make one iota of difference to the actual toxicity of aspirin, or increase the quota of groups for whom it is contraindicated?

Because it doesn't say there, in the footnotes or anywhere else, that the 200 mg/kg LD50 for aspirin could fall, if Mrs Novak heard from the neighbour that their other neighbour took an aspirin once and fell over, or went berserk around the village with an axe later that day?

Even if these activities went on for decades, until everyone was totally convinced, the actual toxicity of aspirin still wouldn't be affected?

So someone with a belief of that kind would merely be in the category of a religious adherent or a follower of other unscientific beliefs?

And if the League Against Aspirin was successful to the point where voters would not vote for politicians, who didn't oppose the aspirin menace, and governments felt they had to pass laws against aspirin, even that wouldn't change the actual toxicity?

And so if this religion became part of the state and its apparatus, it would effectively become a state religion, can you see any alternative to that conclusion?

And if that state had vowed to keep state and religion apart, it would be even more determined, don't you think, to say that aspirin was excluded from this doctrine, that the dangers of aspirin were real, as everybody had known for so long, and would say as an excuse that the public had to be protected, that we had to hold the line on aspirin, that we simply could not risk adding another dangerous substance, habit- or tolerance-forming substance, to those already at large?

And if that state had vowed to provide freedom to choose or not choose health care, except as provided by law, it would have to override its own constitutional undertaking with an exception for aspirin, so aspirin could not be provided by law.

The state would say that "Everyone has the right to health care under conditions provided by law."? (Article 51).

And one of those conditions would be that the state religion would override the right to aspirin?

And in that way the state religion could say it was doing one thing, while actually doing another, so it could have its cake and eat it?

But like all the other activities mentioned, this wouldn't actually alter the toxicity of aspirin, would it?

And so the state and its religion would not be separate, would they?

And the public would not have the right to the treatment, or to practice their own religion, if it happened to involve the medical, spiritual, sacramental or other use of aspirin would it?

So back to this article https://maribor24.si/slovenija/ce-slovenija-ne-bo-upostevala-novih-smernic-glede-konoplje-ji-grozijo-desetmilijonske-kazni [48] the two confusing parts which remain are, from whom is cannabis being rescued from after decades of subjugation in September 2020?

And the article says if Slovenia doesn't do this in time, it's going to get fined tens of millions of euros for not complying with its international treaty obligations under laws defining the obligations of states who sign those treaties, is that something upon which we can agree?

And it doesn't say what day in September that is supposed to happen in the article, does it?

So we have a situation here, don't we, where cannabis could be officially dangerous one day in September, and officially quite normal on another, is that fair to say?

Do you suppose, as a rational person, that anything about the chemical or pharmacological properties of cannabis itself will change between those dates in September?

And do you know, if that day came to pass, what day that day is or was?

And, if they exist, do you know if Slovenia is now liable to be fined tens of millions of euros for not complying with these obligations?

Why do you think she says, "obviously"?

It seems to be an opinion of hers that the government is all over the place.

So a person reading this might reasonably conclude that cannabis must have been legalised without the Slovenian government knowing it, would you say?

Then it says,

We were told that if any proposed amendment is actually adopted in March, Slovenia, as a signatory to the convention, is automatically subject to its provisions. “All conventions are superior to laws and regulations and other regulations in the hierarchy of legislation,” they say. Slovenia will thus have to properly implement and regulate the proposed changes in its legislation.

"If it does not follow the guidelines, there will be sanctions, which are set when international agreements are violated," they added, adding that we had to pay a staggering 80 million euros just for not complying with the Kyoto agreement.

The key phrase being "if any proposed amendment is actually adopted in March". The tone set by the article seems to suggest, one the one hand, that this is a shoe-in anyway, but that on the other, people reading well-informed articles cannot even expect the government of Slovenia to know what's going on, is that a fair analysis?

It says that the law might have to change, unless the country is willing to stump up a massive fine so it can go on pretending cannabis is dangerous, in violation of its oblligations as a signatory to, but not a voter on, the convention?

And then into this mix we have the NIJZ representative(s) going off to a conference in Austria featuring a pressure group funded by the makers of Fentanyl/Oxytocin, killer pills, addictive drugs that definitely are registered and definitely are dangerous, to foil any wayward nations who might be considering making cannabis officially safe?

And do we know if the NIJZ knew that big pharma was funding "Smart Approaches to Marijuana"?

So we're in a bit of a sticky situation in that we don't know if the amendment will be agreed, the day in September if it comes at all, we don't think it actually affects reality, we can't be confident the government knows what it's doing - and we don't know if the article is an accurate reflection of the legal situation at all, do we? In fact the author writes says, under the heading "Slovenia's Position",

"And what practical changes are expected in Slovenia? Obviously no one knows that."

And what would happen? According to the recommendations, cannabis and hashish should be moved to group I of non-hazardous substances, in order to maintain control over the substance, and at the same time the latter will be made available for medical purposes. Extracts from the CBD, however, will no longer be part of the convention at all.

I'm confused again. It could be the language. "cannabis and hashish should be moved to group I of non-hazardous substances, in order to maintain control over the substance".

I sometimes lose control over a cup of tea when I'm walking up the stairs, it slops out of the cup and I lose a bit. Does it mean that kind of control? Or does it mean legal control of some kind, do you think? What kind?

Why would you need to maintain control over a non-hazardous substance?

Hazards depend on the circumstances don't they. Flour doesn't seem hazardous, but under the right (or wrong) conditions it can cause a silo to explode, can it not? A piece of wood can be hazardous if someone hits you with it? A wonky paving stone can send you flying if you trip over it?  But we deal with all of these fairly frequently without any big news stories emerging. Can you suggest any other non-hazardous substances over which we need to maintain control?

And finally in regard to this article, which is free to read on the internet,

"The latter" must mean hashish. Well you can't make hashish without cannabis. And CBD has been in the shops without prescription since - and I've had to ask around here because I'm not personally interested in extracts for general use any more than I think white bread is more nutritious than wholemeal - February 2020, one said, and 2018, said another. Whichever it is, both are before the article. So it is not clear what is going on. The government isn't saying. And their tendency would be to let sleeping dogs lie. There's probably some manoeuvering around behind the scenes by politicians relatives to control the non-hazardous, they want to keep the competition in the dark, hoodwink them basically, and avoid disturbing the voters' petticoats, so to speak. Is that an analysis which a reasonable reader, knowing about the situations in America and the Republic of North Macedonia, and the way politics and business overlap in Balkan countries, might come away with?

And if someone asked me, do I think it's possible that cannabis could have secretly been legalised or decriminalised in Slovenia without the police knowing about it, in the midst of a pandemic or not, the answer in each case would be YES. And if you asked me, would anyone who wanted to use weed care either way what Purdue Pharma, vendors of a drug that has caused thousands of overdose deaths, thought about it, the answer of course would be NO.

And while we're on Oxycontin, which I hope I never am, we learn from the Nation that:

"Now, the pandemic has made addiction even more dangerous. In addition to inflicting the sort of widespread hardship that can drive people to opioids (or even greater doses of them) and to take their chances with the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl, Covid-19 has stymied efforts by [CADCA consultant] Dr. Sue (Thau) and others to provide effective guidance and care. In normal times, opioid users can at least protect themselves from dying of an overdose by using their drug in the company of others, so that someone can administer naloxone if it becomes necessary. Now, however, that safety mechanism has been fatally disrupted. While social distancing saves lives, stark solitude can be deadly — both as further reason for using such drugs and because no one will be present with the antidote. Referring to naloxone as a miracle medicine, Sue said that there is no medical reason why people should die of an opioid overdose.

“The reason they die is because of isolation.” "

Now I know a guy who thinks if he can just get some weed, he won't have to do heroin. Now I don't now how true that is. But if he can't get the weed, he's going to get the guy with the weed busted. He's a desperado with a touch of extortionist. So while for the Police the annual weed campaign is a bit of a jolly jape, where the biggest threat is probably the danger of getting bitten by an angry hippie for being so unfair, the forces propelling them, propelling against legalisation, are making for a more dangerous outcome, and no joke for Serdinšek or the people he runs into. And the police have ended up working against public safety and very obviously for The Man. And the nice thing about Slovenia is the scale: you can see the gears turning, every faction represented in its own little way, but all crammed together so that there is no disguising the chaos begotten by prohibition.

Let the record show that asking for the interrogation to be explained in advance in the presence of the witness clearly deprives the defendant of his right to examine the witness in a way for which the witness cannot prepare his answers, and so is prejudicial to the defendant and contrary to the defendant's rights under Article 29 of the Constitution of RS.

*Dangers of misinformation and prohibition

The Law of Obligations (OZ) Article 134 states "Everyone has the right to request from a court or other competent authority to order the cessation of an act which violates the inviolability of human personality, personal and family life or any other personal right to prevent such an act or to remove its consequences."

What is the right to freedom of thought granted under Art.39? I think cannabis is ok. I'm free to think that. But that's not much use if I have to submit to somebody else's opinion that it's not ok. I am open to some restrictions as defined under Art. 15, which says that my freedoms mustn't hurt anyone else. So if someone wants to make an exception about driving, fine. I don't drive. If someone has evidence that it damages the unborn, and wants to prosecute pregnant smokers for reckless endangerment, well it can be argued. I don't have any children and I'm not pregnant.

But nothing like that has been legally argued for alcohol or tobacco, and that's either because it's unenforceable, or because it's better to trust people's common sense and instinct for self-preservation. When you trust people to show common sense it's a contract, between the people and the State. The State says - don't damage that pedestrian or that child, and people don't want to. Prohibition doesn't make any difference to that.

Art. 49 freedom of employment. If someone wants cannabis they have to get it somewhere. That can be achieved legally and safely, without risking your neck hanging around in dark alleys, which is what prohibition wants to happen. Prohibition is sadistic.

The makers of Fentanyl, Oxytocin, and other anti-cannabis legalisation lobbies claim to be acting in the interests of public safety.

To which I say, yeah, right. Unlike these opiods, marijuana isn't dangerous. Using my money to sit at home smoking marijuana is safer than using it to go out drinking in Ptuj. Users want safety, alright. They want to be safe from the effects of prohibition. I know I do.

Because if getting it is such a hassle, people like me are going to buy larger amounts, because rationally, the size of the risk depends more on the frequency with which I visit dark alleys than by the size of the buy. So if you think more cannabis is worse, you should oppose prohibition, and this is a logical, not a political statement, a common sense position about safety which people can understand whether they are for marijuana or against it.

Art. 49 also mentions forced labour. Well is forced labour more likely in a black economy or a grey or white economy? If everybody can grow their own weed, how necessary will it be for a smuggled Vietnamese person to be locked in a grow house? Another type of forced labour comes from the perspective of the people in the chain. He or she has to work harder under prohibition conditions, to avoid getting caught growing, selling or buying. Under prohibition, if a person goes to jail, he's basically in a position of servitude. So prohibition is contrary to Art. 49 in all these ways. If there are counter-arguments to any of these points I for one would like to hear them.

Art. 51 the right to treatment and no treatment. This implies, doesn't it, that there are some treatments we might like to avoid, such as allopathic alternatives to cannabis. We might not, with the vagaries of the health insurance system, not even have access to conventional medicine. The gap between theory and practice is vast. In my case, for example, I could come to Slovenia, I could buy a house and live there and enjoy my rights to that under the Treaty of Rome. But there was no health insurance allowed. By the time I had been able to achieve the requisite residential status, I wasn't even interested in the health insurance system any more. It was run by a man who didn't know how to copy and paste on a computer. And the computer said no. They also said, you have to speak Slovene to get health insurance. Meanwhile I read some stories about Slovenia's uniquely half-baked health system. I was a "temporary resident", an alien, who would be expected to pay for any hospital services. I had my ear syringed. I ended up not paying because nobody even knew how to make the system work. So much for the right to treatment. We might like to avoid being categorised - and this is almost heresy in Slovenia in my experience. We don't want to be classified mentally ill for goofing off. We don't wish to classified as criminals for self-medicating, under circumstances like these, and I can only shudder at the thought of thousands of the erased people for whom this was a reality for two and a half decades. A medicine for 3000 years, some say 5000. And an evil drug for 90. Can anything you get from the doctor or the chemist say it's been a medicine for thousands of years? I don't think so. I think it's a medicine.

Does it work? Well was radium water a good idea? Was morphine and mercury good for teething babies? How about that radioactive toothpaste? Radioactive corsets? Radioactive suppositories? Turns out not. But incredible claims, backed by medical authority, accompanied these nostrums. Then we entered the pharmaceutical age in earnest. Well did thalidomide work? Antibiotics worked, but then came resistance and they didn't work. Infectious diseases abated, only to be replaced by epidemics of diabetes and cardiovascular illness. More and more drugs came and went. You cannot keep this information about the history of medicine from people, not now. They understand more now about their bodies, and apart from in Ptuj, about healthy eating, about placebo effects, everything doctors didn't want them to know about, everything the drug manufacturers didn't want them to know about. And still they used marijuana. More and more of it. It doesn't even matter if it doesn't work. It's nobody's business but the purchaser's. And nobody in a country whose Constitution contains the right to medicine or no medicine has the right to stop them. If they want advice from doctors, they can still get it. But they don't have to prove to the doctor that they are right and he is wrong. And he is wrong, because his whole attitude is shaped by pressure from his drug dealers, and we already know what they think on about marijuana. The doctor's whole schtick is an artifact of this dependence he has - on salesmen, on medical journals, on and because of prohibition itself. The doctor is biased. And this in fact undermines the credibility of the profession. It replaces what should be a collaboration in health with competition. It means people have to hide what they're using, which could upset medical diagnoses or cause drug interactions. Does this sound like the freedom to choose medicine or no medicine? Prohibition is un-medicine. It is the white man's medicine or no medicine. And as we shall see, marijuana prohibition started out very white indeed.

In a 1999 review of progress during the twentieth century, Lloyd D. Fisher

Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, writes:

The consistent progress in medicine over the last 50–55 years gives a misleading impression of the overall history of medicine. The earliest recorded medicine was associated with magic and religion (2, 32). Although there was considerable progress before the twentieth century, the history of medicine also included long periods of adherence to authority, little or no progress, and most importantly, very harmful treatments. Ackerknecht (1) reviews the history of therapeutics, noting that it has been called a “history of errors.” Further, “...the history of therapeutics is embarrassing on account of the extraordinary lack of logic, rationality, and openness to experience that is manifest in its history.” He attributes the “many reports of success contained in the history of therapeutics where quite obviously the therapeutics could not have produced this success” to four main reasons: (a) wrong diagnosis, (b) spontaneous recovery, (c) the curative effect of suggestion, and (d ) the forgetting or reinterpretation of failures.

And he goes on to describe various ways in which biostatistics have improved the doctors' chances of getting it right. And we'll see some of those techniques in use in the evidence on marijuana, in relation to addictiveness, gateways to other substances, and therapeutic value. http://www.medicine.mcgill.ca/epidemiology/Joseph/courses/common/fisher1999.pdf [49]

But you do not feel you need biostatistics to have a cup of coffee, or pop a vitamin pill. These things pick us up, but they are more in the nature of foods than medicine, and we know what used to go on in Yugoslavia, the trips to Šentilj and Trieste people would take to get coffee and other commodities increasingly hard to find at home.

In fact the history of the eastern bloc countries and Yugoslavia - which went more market-oriented than the rest - is one of people wanting even more the things they couldn't get.

"Shopping items were mostly intended for personal consumption, as gifts for family and friends, or as bribes for doctors, nurses, and various officials in the positions of power, in exchange for their services." (!)

That's from Maja Mikula, Highways Of Desire: Cross-Border Shopping in Former Yugoslavia, 1960s-1980s, in Yugoslavia's Sunny Side of Tourism in Socialism (1950s to 1980s)

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30650563.pdf [50]

And today, in Slovenia, I can tell you I'm definitely not paying ten euros for a few aspirins than I can get in the UK for 30 cents, and will not visit a doctor to get ibuprofen which in England I can just walk into an ordinary store and buy for a couple of quid. So there is profiteering in allopathic drugs, there is a constraint on people's choice, right now today, without even starting on marijuana. And this all has to do with concentrations of power which, as I have said, have dissipated thanks to the internet, and before that to some extent, books. And nothing to do with the right to medicine or no medicine.

So what, in effect, has Slovenia done for me in this regard. First it says I can't have any medicine, because I'm foreign. Then it says I can't have the other medicine, because it's illegal. And to that I say, take a hike.

*Credit card debt

Six years time barred under the four conditions set out in the Limitations Act 1980

if:

it had been more than six years since you last made a payment; and

the creditor has a cause of action more than six years ago; and

you haven’t acknowledged the debt in writing during this time; and

the creditor hasn’t already gone to court for a CCJ.

*PTSD biomarkers

A topic of some complexity

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4520791/ [51]

List of potential tests in Table 1

The last biomarker mentioned is lowered endocannabinoids, and reference 64 refers to

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4520791/ [52]

in which AEA and 2-AG were assayed in addition to cortisol in survivors of the WTC collapse, so the patients were all exposed to similar experiences at the same time, increasing its usefulness

The effect of reduced 2-AG content in PTSD remained significant after controlling for the stress of exposure to the WTC collapse, gender, depression and alcohol abuse. There were no significant group differences for AEA or cortisol levels; however, across the whole sample AEA levels positively correlated with circulating cortisol, and AEA levels exhibited a negative relationship with the degree of intrusive symptoms within the PTSD sample. This report shows that PTSD is associated with a reduction in circulating levels of the eCB 2-AG. Given the role of 2-AG in the regulation of the stress response, these data support the hypothesis that deficient eCB signaling may be a component of the glucocorticoid dysregulation associated with PTSD. The negative association between AEA levels and intrusive symptoms is consistent with animal data indicating that reductions in AEA promote retention of aversive emotional memories.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex may contribute to conditioned response inhibition via suppression of the amygdala.  https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/26/37/9503.full.pdf

[148]

The state of knowledge on  species differences shows that humanity is at an early stage in the understanding of these processes https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2019/12/17/1902288116.full.pdf

[149] although new data keeps pouring in on THC and it all tends to support the notion that THC is a fear-reducing substance. More precisely, one which inhibits the system by which learned fear is retained. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31096264/

[150]

Diurnal variations in endocannabinoids

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31610409/ [53]

Shows daily variation in endocannabinoids, the effect of circadian rhythms, on AEA, 2-AG and congeners OEA and PEA.

Congeners of AEA, the structural analogs oleoylethanolamide (OEA) and palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) were simultaneously assayed. Prior to 24-h blood sampling, each participant was exposed to two nights of normal (8.5 h) or restricted sleep (4.5 h). The two sleep conditions were separated by at least one month. In both sleep conditions, during the period of blood sampling, each individual ate the same high-carbohydrate meal at 0900, 1400, and 1900.

Results: Mean 24-h concentrations of AEA were 0.697 ± 0.11 pmol/ml. A reproducible biphasic 24-h profile of AEA was observed with a first peak occurring during early sleep (0200) and a second peak in the mid-afternoon (1500) while a nadir was detected in the mid-morning (1000). The 24-h profiles for both OEA and PEA followed a similar pattern to that observed for AEA. AEA, OEA, and PEA levels were not affected by sleep restriction at any time of day, contrasting with the elevation of early afternoon levels previously observed for 2-AG.

Conclusions: The 24-h rhythm of AEA is markedly different from that of 2-AG, being of lesser amplitude and biphasic, rather than monophasic. These observations suggest distinct regulatory pathways of the two eCB and indicate that time of day needs to be carefully controlled in studies attempting to delineate their relative roles. Moreover, unlike 2-AG, AEA is not altered by sleep restriction, suggesting that physiological perturbations may affect AEA and 2-AG differently. Similar 24-h profiles were observed for OEA and PEA following normal and restricted sleep, further corroborating the validity of the wave-shape and lack of response to sleep loss observed for the AEA profile. Therapeutic approaches involving agonism or antagonism of peripheral eCB signaling will likely need to be tailored according to time of day.

These two papers tell us that a) reduced EC is a reliable marker of PTSD; b) more AEA correlates with less symptoms of PTSD; c) AEA behaves differently in its diurnal behaviour; and d) any perceived need for exogenous supplementation of EC is likely to be time of day dependent.

In a study of the effects pf THC on fear extinction, Compared to subjects who received placebo, participants who received THC showed increased vmPFC and HIPP activation to a previously extinguished conditioned stimulus (CS+E) during extinction memory recall.

 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24055595/

[146]

Another study using MRI and a well-established threat-processing paradigm found that low doses of ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) can produce anxiolytic effects, reduce threat-related amygdala activation, and enhance functional coupling between the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex and adjacent rostral cingulate cortex (mPFC/rACC) during threat processing in healthy adults.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32162103/ [147]

*Reasons to recuse

ZKP Article 39 gives some circumstances in which a judge or lay judge may not perform the duties of a judge:

para 1. if he has been harmed by a criminal offence -[this one? similar ones? any?]

para 6. if circumstances are given which cast doubt on his impartiality

and will be disqualified and replaced per Art. 40

The circumstances adduced in this case are as follows:

*Presumption of supply based on quantity

Quantity possessed has no bearing on toxicity

Prohibition encourages larger purchases to reduce transaction-related risks.

Presumption of supply based on quantity is presumption of guilt.

Challenge per Art. 48 of CFREU and RS Constitution Article 27.

Cannabis is a private possession, per Art. 17 of CFREU. It is for the lawmaker to show that limits are "necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."

None of these apply except in the religious sense, contrary to Article 9 of the Convention. Religion and state must be separate, see Buscarini and Others v. San Marino, 1999.

https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22dmdocnumber%22:[%22696792%22],%22itemid%22:[%22001-58915%22]} [54]

CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

(2010/C 83/02)

http://www.eudaimonia.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/EU-Charter-2010.pdf [55]

Art1. The right to life

Art. 3 (1) Right to respect for his or her physical and mental integrity.

Art. 2. In the fields of medicine and biology, the following must be respected in particular:

(a) the free and informed consent of the person concerned, according to the procedures laid down

by law;

and

(c) the prohibition on making the human body and its parts as such a source of financial gain;

Art. 4

Prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6

Right to liberty and security

Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person.

Article 7

Respect for private and family life

Everyone has the right to respect for his or her private and family life, home and communications

Article 10

Freedom of thought, conscience and religion

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Article 11

Freedom of expression and information

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold

opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority

and regardless of frontiers.

2. The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.

Article 13

Freedom of the arts and sciences

The arts and scientific research shall be free of constraint. Academic freedom shall be respected.

Article 15

Freedom to choose an occupation and right to engage in work

1. Everyone has the right to engage in work and to pursue a freely chosen or accepted occupation.

2. Every citizen of the Union has the freedom to seek employment, to work, to exercise the right

of establishment and to provide services in any Member State.

Article 17

Right to property

1. Everyone has the right to own, use, dispose of and bequeath his or her lawfully acquired

possessions. No one may be deprived of his or her possessions, except in the public interest and

in the cases and under the conditions provided for by law, subject to fair compensation being paid in good time for their loss. The use of property may be regulated by law in so far as is necessary for the general interest.

2. Intellectual property shall be protected.

Article 20

Equality before the law

Everyone is equal before the law.

30.3.2010 Official Journal of the European Union C 83/395 EN

Article 21

Non-discrimination

1. Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin,

genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.

2. Within the scope of application of the Treaties and without prejudice to any of their specific

provisions, any discrimination on grounds of nationality shall be prohibited.

Article 31

Fair and just working conditions

1. Every worker has the right to working conditions which respect his or her health, safety and

dignity.

Article 34

Social security and social assistance

1. The Union recognises and respects the entitlement to social security benefits and social services

providing protection in cases such as maternity, illness, industrial accidents, dependency or old age,

and in the case of loss of employment, in accordance with the rules laid down by Union law and

national laws and practices.

2. Everyone residing and moving legally within the European Union is entitled to social security

benefits and social advantages in accordance with Union law and national laws and practices.

Article 35

Health care

Everyone has the right of access to preventive health care and the right to benefit from medical

treatment under the conditions established by national laws and practices. A high level of human

health protection shall be ensured in the definition and implementation of all the Union's policies

and activities.

C 83/398 Official Journal of the European Union 30.3.2010 EN

Article 36

Access to services of general economic interest

The Union recognises and respects access to services of general economic interest as provided for in

national laws and practices, in accordance with the Treaties, in order to promote the social and

territorial cohesion of the Union.

Article 37

Environmental protection

A high level of environmental protection and the improvement of the quality of the environment

must be integrated into the policies of the Union and ensured in accordance with the principle of

sustainable development.

Article 38

Consumer protection

Union policies shall ensure a high level of consumer protection.

Article 47

Right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial

Everyone whose rights and freedoms guaranteed by the law of the Union are violated has the right to

an effective remedy before a tribunal in compliance with the conditions laid down in this Article.

Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and

impartial tribunal previously established by law. Everyone shall have the possibility of being advised,

defended and represented.

Legal aid shall be made available to those who lack sufficient resources in so far as such aid is

necessary to ensure effective access to justice.

Article 48

Presumption of innocence and right of defence

1. Everyone who has been charged shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to

law.

2. Respect for the rights of the defence of anyone who has been charged shall be guaranteed.

Article 49

Principles of legality and proportionality of criminal offences and penalties

1. No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which

did not constitute a criminal offence under national law or international law at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the criminal offence was committed. If, subsequent to the commission of a criminal offence, the law provides for a lighter penalty, that penalty shall be applicable.

2. This Article shall not prejudice the trial and punishment of any person for any act or omission

which, at the time when it was committed, was criminal according to the general principles

recognised by the community of nations.

3. The severity of penalties must not be disproportionate to the criminal offence

Article 52

Scope and interpretation of rights and principles

1. Any limitation on the exercise of the rights and freedoms recognised by this Charter must be

provided for by law and respect the essence of those rights and freedoms. Subject to the principle of proportionality, limitations may be made only if they are necessary and genuinely meet objectives of general interest recognised by the Union or the need to protect the rights and freedoms of others.

2. Rights recognised by this Charter for which provision is made in the Treaties shall be exercised under the conditions and within the limits defined by those Treaties.

3. In so far as this Charter contains rights which correspond to rights guaranteed by the

Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the meaning and

scope of those rights shall be the same as those laid down by the said Convention. This

provision shall not prevent Union law providing more extensive protection.

4. In so far as this Charter recognises fundamental rights as they result from the constitutional

traditions common to the Member States, those rights shall be interpreted in harmony with those

traditions.

Makes money out of prohibition, a prohibition with a history based in prejudice and economic advantage, a prohibition rooted in moralistic and/or religious crusades, and spread by propagandas not grounded in reason or scientific evidence obtained via scientific technique.

In regard to scientific progress prohibition was able to stifle and retard research, which would have been possible soon, for decades. Discoveries have been in inverse proportion to the ability to conduct research.

But, sensing which way the wind is blowing, and facing a stream of results inimical to the commercial, racial, and moralistic interests of the prohibitionsts, prohibition and its corporate backers have latterly learned how to use the science of micro-issues as a fig leaf to cover its prejudiced macro-decision on prohibition made decades previously.

If someone produces a paper saying marijuana is good for X, ten studies will be designed to find problems with the study or show that marijuana is bad for X, or at least of no therapeutic value according to the parameters selected. Techniques involved include selection of what to research, selection of reference material, selection of the materials and subjects tested, and so forth.

Connection by way of issuance of the warrant - which I shall show was based on inconsistent and prejudiced reasoning, groundless hearsay, statistical myth unsupported by figures, logical fallacies, self-serving motives, and Constitutional ignorance

Possible connection to medical or dental businesses

Posible private connection to xenophobic or religious agitators

And in this regard, anecdotally as it were, I would like to mention the somewhat chequered history of corruption and corner-cutting in Ptuj police, who should be better vetted and better paid. There was for instance a ring making at least 23 fraudulent insurance claims for vehicle accidents which never happened, in some instances making several claims on the same car. Two former officers have been prosecuted for murder and one convicted. And these are the ones I know about.

TRAVA NI DRAMA

reformed criminal

children? living with?

we've met before?

you've been to my address?

you smoke, drink?

what do you smoke?

you can read ok?

the Slovenian alphabet has how many letters, do you know?

do you know the alphabet?

can we hear it please?

what about numbers, can you handle everyday sums?

I'll just pick a couple of numbers at random from these cards

without a calculator, can you [add/subtract/multiply/divide] those?

now I'd like to check on your ability to analyse information - how many of the letters in the Slovenian alphabet are also Slovenian words?

and where have you worked in the past two years?

so when Mr Segula told me that you told him you couldn't meet him about the report you made about him to the police, and about me, because you were at work, what you told your friend was untrue was it?

or perhaps it was the case that you were at work, but on the black?

and you chose this black work over registered work because?

it's ok, Mr T, survival isn't a crime if it doesn't hurt anyone

Now, this pro-vaping propaganda page http://www.ecigarette-politics.com/blog/nicotine-high-toxicity-myth-destroyed.html [56] where it says nicotine has an LD50 of 750mg for a whole person, does that sound right to you?

So that's three quarters of a gram?

If we turn to a perhaps more reliable compendium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose [57] - and I should point out that these numbers are confounded by the toxicokinetics of different species and different routes of administration and I will return to this topic -

the lethal dose for nicotine in humans is given as 0.8 mg/kg - correct?

We have others: heroin (diamorphine) 21.8 mg/kg - yes?

ever been involved in heroin?

and you don't smoke weed

Probably you smoked it as a teenager when you were drunk and it made you dizzy or sick?

or you stayed away from cannabis because you didn't like the people connected with it...?

and what was it about those types of people you didn't like?

Do you smoke tobacco around babies and children at all?

Everybody thinks drugs are bad, except for the drugs they take themselves, isn't that right?

because most people need something to keep them going, even if it's just coffee, right?

and 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine (caffeine) you can see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose [58] has a lethal dose of 192 mg/kg, you see that?

And while we're on that page, can you also see just above where it gives 280 mg/kg as the LD50 for psilocybin?

Can you tell me how many micrograms there are in a milligram?

So for LSD, which is usually dosed in amounts of a few hundred micrograms, the LD50 in rats given intravenously is 16.5 milligrams per kilogram, correct?

And 16.5 milligrams is how many micrograms?

16500 micrograms, correct?

so weight for weight, caffeine is more deadly than psilocybin, is that what it's saying?

whereas MDMA is slightly more toxic than caffeine, at 160 mg/kg

and methamphetamine about three times more toxic again than MDMA, at 52 mg/kg

and cocaine, 96 mg/kgBW?

have you ever had any mental health issues?

other health issues?

alcoholic?

and you see there https://echa.europa.eu/registration-dossier/-/registered-dossier/16105/7/3/1 [59] where the LD50 of ethanol is given as 10470 mg/kg bw?

and methanol, which you might find if you go a few km towards Ormoz in smarnica, or in absinthe, or other crudely distilled alcoholic beverages, a lesser amount, 810 mg/kg

of course the dangers of alcohol are not confined to the direct toxicological effects - research in 2014 shows that when a "drunk" (BAC of over .1) zebrafish is introduced to a group of sober ones, the sober fish will follow the drunk individual as their leader, just like Slovenians. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acer.12432 [60]

Whereas another study testing the behavioral effects of LSD on zebrafish found that zebrafish that were exposed to the substance demonstrated increased inter-fish distance when shoaling, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432810004134?via%3Dihub [61] and, anecdotally, I can report seeing that in a human model too: at psychedelic concerts too, people give each other room instead of compressing into the tiniest space possible like Slovenians. So tripping on LSD may also have some pandemic-related benefits. But in any case already "saved my life" as a teenager. More details on request.

Help the Translator

LSD teaches us that the time is now. Do you want to pay me to help your translator? Not now. Do you want me to be able to eat today, or in five or ten years time when I have passed an exam in Slovene? Obviously in that scenario I won't be alive by the time I am good enough for you to pay me. But you think I'm good enough now to supplement your services. For nothing. Again and again and again. When you don't pay now, you are robbing me, one little bit at a time. That's the problem. Is this what articles 66 and 74 of the Constitution are talking about?

homeless?

what's the address on your ID?

and being homeless you'd have no protection from the weather?

and being homeless you'd have no protection from being assaulted?

and being homeless you'd have nowhere to cook?

so you would have to buy prepared food?

which makes eating more expensive?

your sleep might be shallow, or disturbed?

there could be fear?

you could end up injured, or at least quite smelly?

and so it would round go in circles and your poverty would multiply: having no money for hygiene, clothes, laundry, living on bureks or pizza or whatever you could afford, you wouldn't be of any interest to employers, except perhaps of the most exploitative variety, would you disagree with an of that analysis?

but you could at least go round to Gorazd's flat and play video games?

sports games? football?

war type games?

who are the opponents in these games?

what do they represent to you, the enemy in these games?

and how long would a session like this last?

and he'd let you stay overnight?

and how long did that last?

what was your financial situation at the time of the interview?

incentive?

Did your situation change in these regards after the statement, compared to before?

Did anything happen to you as a result of making this statement?

Did anything not happen to you as a result of making this statement?

How would you compare my situation to yours at the time?

And so you expected that my drug bust for cannabis would result from your statement?

And you expected Mr Segula might be busted too?

And this is something you find rewarding?

Did you feel helping the police might mean they could or should help you, in some other matter?

Did you avoid any punishment by helping the police?

Why rewarding?

And this session here today, that's also rewarding for you?

What else do you find rewarding about it?

Isn't it a fact that not much in your life is rewarding?

So this is a stand out reward for you?

And you stand to gain some kudos from others around you for wasting everyone's time here?

At the time leading up to the making of your statement, were you very reluctant, reluctant, unsure, enthusiastic or very enthusiastic to make it?

Did you make it at the station?

Was fairly close to where you were living or sleeping at the time?

And where was that?

And how far is that from the police station?

And you say more that what is recorded in the statement?

What else did you say?

Is there anything you said that was left out of the statement?

Do you know any police officers or members of the judiciary personally? 

Have you ever slept or stayed at the home of a police officer or member of the judiciary?

Have you ever had sexual contact, voluntarily or involuntarily, with any member of the police force?

Have you ever had sexual contact, voluntarily or involuntarily, with any member of the judiciary?

Now we've never met, you say, so really the information you had about me must have come from a third party, do you agree it would have been impossible for you to have this information unless the information had come from somewhere or somebody else?

The only alternatives to hearing it from a third party I can think of are a) you read something I wrote about myself, b) or you just made it up - which was it?

When you want something, but don't want to break the law to get it, is it a better result for you to pay for it, or not pay for it?

And would you say that's the same for everyone?

Language issue:

According to jealous drunks in Ptuj who still live with mum I'm the womanising gay nigger-loving devil-worshipping communist capitalist jewish gipsy junkie pedo foreign spy and former major British gangster who doesn't like Slovenian food.

Ptuj's village elders' favourite way to whip up hatred is outrage at my not speaking Slovene! Find out more at www.a2z.si/h and how to teach Slovene www.a2z.si/dear

Ali za hitro verzijo vidite http://www.nfl.si/slovene_the_not_funny_language [62]

So a quick summary for Ptuj's drunk philosophers, drunk teachers, drunk bureaucrats, drunk cokeheads, drunk athletes, jealous drunks, drunk drinkers – all of its great variety of language experts: nagging is not teaching; bullying is not teaching; shouting is not teaching; insulting or demeaning the pupil is not teaching and nor is competing to prove that you are better at his language than he is at yours; tut-tutting is not teaching; demanding it must be learned but from some other non-existent person is not teaching; hating anything different is not teaching; sexual jealousy is not teaching; trying to find out whether I can afford to be your "friend" is not teaching; threatening to drive us out of town if we don't learn Slovene is not teaching; blowing carcinogens at us isn't teaching; delivering bloodclots to our brains is not teaching; and not really being quite sure...that sure isn't teaching. You need to settle on a reasonable price for learning Slovene – and pay promptly.

Finally you need to understand the difference between a language school and a pub. Actually, between everything and a pub. I hope you learned something there.

Now we all operate in some kind of social milieu and I wish to examine mine briefly as part of my defence so we can understand the lie of the land. And so for Slovenians who want to practice a foreign language, it would be better for them if they didn't have to pay for it, would you agree?

And for Slovenians, a native English speaker in Ptuj is a kind of rarity, true?

Because just another type of continental European person whose second language is English wouldn't be as reliable a source of language information as a real English, American, Australian, Canadian or New Zealander, would they?

But if that native speaker was skilled at English, knew the parts of speech, how the grammar worked, knew when to put "a" and when to use "the", had a wide vocabulary covering lots of topics, and besides which knew some interesting things, had a lot of life experience, and was accessible at no cost, that would seem for the man or woman in the street in Ptuj, if they could practice their English for nothing, to be not just a good, but a fantastic deal for him or her if they could get that for free, do you agree?

Now because foreigners - at least from the north - are in the opinion of Ptuj people all richer and more interesting that Slovenians, and everyone wants to get something useful without paying, many Slovenians would want to socialise with me, would you agree?

That could be quite overwhelming, do you think, everybody on one like this?

And I wonder if you have ever heard it said about Slovenians, that they are jealous and envious?

Is there a Slovenian alive who hasn't heard that, do you reckon?

And one of the things that people can get jealous of is attention, is that true?

The native English speaker who is getting all this attention for the reasons I've outlined, he isn't able to live behind a paywall, is he?

For instance, I can't say, I'm not going to answer the judge here unless she pays, can I?

Have you heard of the narcissism of small differences?

it's generally regarded as a Freudian theory, have you heard of Sigmund Freud?

it's actually developed from a British anthropologist and sexologist Ernest Crawley, who lived in Lincoln - where I used to live! And Slovenians with whom you exchange views, do you think they have all heard of Lincoln, Crawley, Sigmund Freud and the theory of the narcissism of small differences?

This is succintly put by Christopher Hitchens: "In numerous cases of apparently ethno-nationalist conflict, the deepest hatreds are manifested between people who — to most outward appearances — exhibit very few significant distinctions."

The theory of the narcissism of small differences can be extrapolated down to a local level, the more similar people's situations are, the more intense their jealousies.

And if we sort the Eurostat Gini coefficients http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableAction.do [63] for 2019 we can see in fact that your language cousins Bulgaria are the most unequal in terms of disposal income, and lo and behold, at the other end of the scale is Slovenia, with the lowest inequality.

According to the theory, less inequality means more jealousy. So Slovenians - a homogenous group - get jealous of their neighbour's car, and so on. In fact anybody who has got anything is a target, does that sound familiar to you?

Now as a native English speaker, I'm not very similar, am I?

But I am human, I am superficially similar enough, I'm near at hand, I live in a house, just not with my mother, I get all this undeserved attention, just for being who I am, without much effort - so could jealous Slovenians get jealous of the attention I get, and my chattels, do you think?

Now if you live in Slovenia you have to put up with this sort of thing, and causing your neighbour's cow to die is a staple of the political and justice arenas, with politicians often being accused of having too much money, battles over contracts, and we see an attempt by some of the more cosmopolitan Slovenians to counter this with financial transparency - but somehow this ends up causing more nosiness and envy.

Such a person would be overwhelmed by the demand, with each individual Slovenian thinking - without concern for the welfare or income of the native speaker - maybe chinks started to appear in their world view that Slovenia is the entire world, that there's more to life than counting, drinking and pizza and polka music under a cloud of volatile organic compounds - they'd be queuing up, to exploit this opportunity, don't you think?

And for each individual, because it was only his or her free advantage that mattered, only their own reward system that had any influence upon their behaviour, they wouldn't be looking at the welfare or the financial situation of the native speaker, that wouldn't come into their thoughts at any point, do you think?

And that would be particularly true if the people who wanted to practice their English were genetically or perhaps due to some environmental influence not particularly empathetic with other people in general, yes?

Perhaps if they had never had had a hippy culture, never took acid, never had a big love in, had no variety in their cultural diet, but a social life consisting mainly of being exploited by purveyors of damaging and addictive drugs, drinking themselves into a stupor, cheering at men running around in shorts, worrying about what people will say if they dance, worrying about how it will affect their income if they are defined as drug-takers by barflies, worrying about getting targeted and maliciously stereotyped for doing anything non-mainstream - then that free native speaker would seem even more interesting and that free English lesson would be even more desirable, and the poor victim even more popular, can you picture that? 

Did you ever hear an opinion expressed, that "he thinks he's better than us" (Slovenian people)?

Did you ever hear that I was always chasing women, not leaving them alone, bothering them, getting an unfair amount of attention because I was English, anything like that?

Did you ever hear a story that I'm gay?

Did you ever hear a story that I'm a communist?

Did you ever hear an opinion that I was capitalistic to the detriment of people?

Did you ever hear that I was a gypsy?

Did you ever hear that was a nigger-lover?

Did you ever hear that I was a junkie?

Did you ever hear that I was a pedophile?

satanist?

Did you ever hear that I was a foreign spy?

Did you ever hear that I was a type of British gangster, something like a character in the film Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels?

Did you ever hear that I don't like Slovenian food?

Did you ever hear anything about me concerning Ptuj's air quality?

have I missed anything, some other gossip about me that you heard?

Can you think of any unifying factor in these misdescriptions, something they all have in common?

Do you think they could all be intended to get me attacked by bigoted people?

Do you think there could be anything connecting the bearers of these second-hand accusations?

Could they be connected by being drunk men in bars, connected with the chicken factory?

That's Perutnina Ptuj, the chicken factory owned at that time by Dr Roman Glaser?

The chicken factory my comedy envinmental satire website www.ptuj.co.uk is about?

And what was the main subject matter of the comedy do you know?

Are you aware that Perutnina sponsors an annual cycling marathon?

*Patriotic contributions to the economy of Perutnina Ptuj

Have you heard of http://www.nepremicnine.net? [64]

That's a property site?

Were you aware that in 2013 I had placed my property on nepremicnine.net?

email from nepremicnine.net 23 Oct 2013

Spoštovani!

Oglas je bil vnešen pod referenčno številko 5776009 (160534)

PTUJ, TOURIST CENTRE 300 m2, hiša, zgrajena l. 1668, adaptirana l. 2009, 11 m2 zemljišča, venetian baroque-style house dated 1668 in busy yet tranquil tourist centre of ptuj, slovenia, prodamo. Cena: 211.000,00 EUR +38631555619

Here's another on November 15 2013 about renewing the ad

Spoštovani!

Obveščamo vas, da bo vaš oglas na spletni strani http://www.nepremicnine.net kmalu potekel, vendar ga lahko podaljšate za nadaljnjih 30 dni.

---> št. dni do izteka oglaševanja: 7 (referenčna št.: 5776009)

Things continued uneventfully: we have more renewals on December 17 2013, 9 Jan 2014, 22 February, 17 March, 9 April, 2 May, 25 May, and then suddenly on Jun 16 2014, the following interesting exchange

Pozdravljeni!

Obveščam vas, da smo vaš oglas z referenčno številko 5776009 deaktivirali za oglaševanje. Vpis cene nepremičnine je obvezen podatek za oglaševanje. Naprošam vas za popravek cene, ter opis v Slovenščini, v polju dodatnega opisa za internet.

Angleški opis se vpiše le v polju, namenjenemu angleškemu opisu, ki se oglašuje na angleški verziji spletne strani.

Naprošam vas za popravke, o popravkih pa me obvestite, da vam oglas lahko čim prej ponovno aktiviramo.

Lep pozdrav,

Alenka Bedrač

administrator

Opis: logoNep

Meganet d.o.o.

Narof 10, 1411 Izlake

Tel.:        +386 (0)3 567 91 10

Fax:        +386 (0)3 567 91 11

E-mail:   alenka@nepremicnine.net

Web:       http://www.nepremicnine.net

...

[Message clipped]  View entire message

Julian Bohan <ptujwifi@gmail.com>

Attachments

Jun 16, 2014, 5:11 PM

to Nepremicnine.net

Hi Alenka!

So here we are a day after I gave the link to Dr Glaser's gofer at the Ptuj sausage-and-cycle-fest...Slovenian gods move in such predictable ways.

The price of the house is 1000 euros, like it says.  Ok, there are conditions, but that has nothing to do with the value of the house. The property and old town is of course blighted by Dr Glaser's stink.

As for the Slovenian bit, why would a Slovenian want to own a UK domain name, or arrogantly oversee the amateurish advertising of a town?

If you refuse to believe the part about the price, there's not much point me wasting my time translating the second part.

You were not paying me to drive traffic to your website from Google+ and www.241.si

Now you are not paying me to drive traffic to your website and I am not driving traffic to your website. It's another Slovenian victory, in the Jankovic style!

I am not quite sure what your motivation was in letting me use the site anyway, but I can just as easily recreate the details on a page of my own, without it being connected to your annoying adverts or other properties for sale.

So please let me know if you now understand the situation and will resume the ad.  For my own part I am taking a less mean-spirited and jealous, and more constructivist, approach and I hope you like the poster. Thanks.

Attachments area

Nepremicnine.net <alenka@nepremicnine.net>

Jun 19, 2014, 8:37 AM

to me

Hello!

When the ad was activated, the price set was 211.000 EUR?

Lep pozdrav,

Alenka Bedrač

administrator

logoNep

Meganet d.o.o.

Narof 10, 1411 Izlake

Tel.:        +386 (0)3 567 91 10

Fax:        +386 (0)3 567 91 11

E-mail:   alenka@nepremicnine.net

Web:       http://www.nepremicnine.net

Julian Bohan <ptujwifi@gmail.com>

Jun 19, 2014, 1:29 PM

to Nepremicnine.net

Hi!

When the ad was activated, the price for the domain and the house was 211,000.  But your site isn't a site for advertising domains, only houses.  As soon as I realised this I stated the price of the house correctly.  As only a relatively small number of people can buy the house (1) the price was the smallest value your software would allow, otherwise it would have been 1 euro.

So?

www.aaa.si

Nepremicnine.net <alenka@nepremicnine.net>

Jun 19, 2014, 3:56 PM

to me

Hello!

Our portal Nepremicnine.net is the leading real estate advertising medium in Slovenia. We are a serious portal, and we try to ensure the visitors to get the correct information. We cannot publish ads with unrealistic price, we publish only ads, that provide people the correct information.

So, on our portal, the information about the price is an obligatory information. If you wish to advertise on our portal, you have to publish the actual price, at least the approximate price. Then, in the additional information, you can add that the price set is open for discussion.

Also, please put your English text in the ad only in the place provided for English description. English text has to be put only in the place provided for English description (for our English version of the site), in all other places it has to be in Slovene.

Best regards,

Julian Bohan <ptujwifi@gmail.com>

Jun 19, 2014, 4:26 PM

to Nepremicnine.net

Yes 1000 is the actual price for the house.  If you restore the ad I'll see about the Slovene part.  But like I say, I can't see any Slovenian people being interested. In fact seeing it there in Slovene would probably put most people off...

So yes or no?

Julian Bohan <ptujwifi@gmail.com>

Jun 23, 2014, 3:43 PM

to Nepremicnine.net

So?

Nepremicnine.net <alenka@nepremicnine.net>

Jun 23, 2014, 3:57 PM

to me

Hello!

I'm sorry, but we have our conditions that you have to respect if you want to advertise.

Contitions are for all users the same.

Your ad doesn't have any corrections yet.

Julian Bohan <ptujwifi@gmail.com>

Jun 23, 2014, 4:00 PM

to Nepremicnine.net

So, do you agree the price is 1000 euros?  I like your idea about the ad being incorrect because it's not in Slovene.  And how can I "correct" it if it isn't there?

...and the exchanges continued - in English and some kind of Slovene - but without the situation being resolved.

Now it is true that initially the price shown was 211,000 euros. But by no later than December 11 2013 the site had been altered to show a price of 1000 euros. There was no description in Slovene, because the ad wasn't aimed at Slovenian buyers. As everyone in Ptuj knows, all foreigners are rich. I thought advertising in Slovene was a waste of time. I thought it would put foreign people off. I thought the ad would stand out if it was in English.

So you were probably unaware I had decided to make some little flyers with a link to the advert for my house, to distribute to visitors attending the marathon?

You recall that at the time Dr Glaser was the head of the Starerska Chamber of Commerce?

so that was Jun 16, by which time the ad had been running without comment for eight months. The ad invited the reader to visit www.241.si for more details. At that time www.241.si was my domain and was entirely devoted to the sale of this house, and its contents were completely identical to the present domain www.mavs.si

These domains, in succession, offered the house for the ridiculously low price of 1000 euros. This was partly because the property is blighted by the Town Smell, and partly a ploy to take advantage of the price sorting facility at nepremicnine.net - anybody sorting on price, low to high, would get my ad at the top of the list. And this went unremarked, as I have said, for eight months.

241.si and now mavs.si offered the house for 1000 euros, but there was a catch!

To buy the house for 1000 euros you had to be the owner of the domain www.ptuj.co.uk. And I of course owned that domain and the price was anything from 209,999 down to 199,999 - in fact it was dependent on the time provided between the domain transfer and the key transfer to the purchaser. First the purchaser had to buy the domain, then they could buy the house for 1000 euros. That was the deal. The time period shown is between 10 and 24 weeks, and the scale was designed to reflect the fact that it is more expensive to move house in a hurry than at a leisurely pace.

Of course the site linked to www.ptuj.co.uk so the buyer would not be deceived about the air, as I and all of Ptuj's tourists are deceived, so it would genuinely be of interest to someone interested in investing in the town, this domain, with a cheap house thrown in.

So the ad was pulled on Jun 16 2014. Do you have any recollection of an event in Ptuj on Jun 15 2014, the day before?

Did you know I encountered Dr Glaser in the vicinity of the Upravna Enota giving a video interview?

Did you know I gave a flyer to the young man, probably a media intermediary, standing there while Dr Glaser was giving his interview to camera?

So by the day of the marathon, the ad had run, in English, for 235 days, uneventfully, and at least 187 days with the link to the website 241.si with the 1000 euro house and www.ptuj.co.uk domain offer.

And on the day of the marathon the gofer at Dr Glaser's video interview received the flyer.

And so on the 236th day since the placement, and not less than 188 days since the link to the www.ptuj.co.uk offer, I received an email from nepremicnine.net advising me that the advert did not meet their terms. Do you think that's a coincidence?

You don't think Dr Glaser was responsible for that?

And does not mentioning the Dr Glaser's smell - as it then was - actually mean the Town Smell doesn't exist?

Does the Town Smell seem to you to in accordance with the injunction of Article 72 of the Constitution for the state to "promote a healthy living environment"?

Article 72 also mentions compensation to be provided by persons who damage the living environment. To the best of your knowledge, has Perutnina Ptuj or Dr Glaser at any time been asked for, or in fact paid, any such compensation in respect of the Town Smell?

Ptuj has some cultural monuments and natural sites of special interest, correct?

And some rarities?

Does the Town Smell seem to you to be in line with the obligation "in accordance with the law to protect natural sites of special interest, rarities, and cultural monuments" per Article 73?

The state and local communities shall promote the preservation of the natural and cultural heritage". Does having a Town Smell from Perutnina promote these, do you think?

Now I've noticed you're breathing. In your opinion as a person who breathes, does Ptuj's Town Smell represent an effort, in the words of Article 66 of the Constitution, to "create opportunities for employment and work"?

It could create some work getting rid of it, no?

That would be short term work, installing some Venturi scrubbers or electrostatic filters, or charcoal, I don't know about the latest rendering odour technology - they'd just install it, maybe come back to maintain it now and then, but not a substantial amount of work for people in Ptuj, would you agree with that?

But left to stink away for all the time I've been here and assuredly years before that, has it do you think "created opportunities for employment and work" in tourism?

Glass of wine, fish dinner at the Ribič, better with a fog of boiled up chicken guts?

Concert in the square, more inviting if you add a poultry waste rendering smell?

Cycling marathon, more sporty if the air is thicker?

Do you think tourists, having visited and enjoyed the Town Smell, will be counting the days until they can come back and experience it all over again?

Or do you think they might be put off by the Town Smell, perhaps leave early, and never return?

So would that be creating opportunities for employment and work, or destroying it?

And yet nothing's happened except Dr Glaser or someone ordered by him has rung nepremicnine.net and told them to tell me to alter the ad, referring ultimately to my website about the house, the domain, and the smell, which entry in fact by that time could not be altered to include Slovene or exclude the smell because it's been removed completely, correct?

And does preventing the sale of my house and this domain - which might have happened - increase or decrease the chances of the Town Smell continuing, would you like to hazard a guess?

Because if somebody had bought the domain they could have removed all references to the smell and replaced them with pretty pictures of Ptuj and kurent and people drinking wine, could they not?

So all in all, if Dr Glaser had anything to do with this, it would have been a pretty dumb move, would you agree?

And economically, culturally, reputationally with or without my help, the Town Smell would also be a pretty dumb move for a town trying to build its economy on tourism rather than just chickens, would you agree with that also?