You where offered the chance to buy cannabis legally - on the condition 
that you gave a sample of your dna to the government .

Your dna sample would be stored on the dna database until the day you 
pop your clogs .

Would you do it ? .


(dont most cannabis users say they are law abiding citizens who dont 
commit crime and as such they dont have anything to hide)

"Krustov"  wrote in message 
news:MPG.2148bca3ff5fb00e98ac94@news.newsreader.com...
> You where offered the chance to buy cannabis legally - on the condition
> that you gave a sample of your dna to the government .
>
> Your dna sample would be stored on the dna database until the day you
> pop your clogs .
>
> Would you do it ? .
>
>
> (dont most cannabis users say they are law abiding citizens who dont
> commit crime and as such they dont have anything to hide)

And they are but every group has it's minorities.

If the government suggested this I see no reason why not. Though I don't see 
why the government would need it. Maybe medical researchers looking to see 
if there any long term effects.

Knowing our Government they would probably start claiming it caused DNA 
mutations in future generations.

It's been very quiet recently both good and bad. Just shows how these things 
come in waves.

M.

On Wed, 5 Sep 2007 14:17:12 +0100, Krustov  wrote:

>You where offered the chance to buy cannabis legally - on the condition 
>that you gave a sample of your dna to the government .

I'm not really a great supporter of governments - in our country we
get a lot of our services from the government, and a lot of them are
pretty poor. The provision of the service by the government inhibits
private enterprise in that field - so generally speaking, I don't like
the government providing services. Do I want them to be the only
suppliers, or the licensers of suppliers of cannabis? No. Especially
as it would put more money in their pockets - I think everyone has a
moral duty to keep as much money out of the hands of the government as
possible.

>Your dna sample would be stored on the dna database until the day you 
>pop your clogs .

The use of a universal dna database to solve crime is immense. The
number of *serious* crimes (murder, rape) solved by this is large - it
might be worth the risk. The risk is false positives (it's possible to
have a match with  someone elses dna as they only measure a number of
points), plus, once universal, criminals will start to undermine the
technique by leaving other people's dna around. Also, I have a general
dislike of giving the government power - as they'll often use it for
ill. I'm not sure on this one. 

Part of the problem is that the lack of interest in privacy in the
general population (in the UK) means that the various biometic schemes
aren't very privacy friendly. 

>Would you do it ? .

No.  

>(dont most cannabis users say they are law abiding citizens who dont 
>commit crime and as such they dont have anything to hide)

That's wrong on so many levels - cannabis users are not law abiding
citizens. They break the law. They break the criminal law and so
commit crimes. Using cannabis shouldn't be a crime, but nonetheless it
is. Then the idea that if you're not commiting a crime, you have
nothing to hide is nonsense. I don't commit a crime when I take a
dump, but I don't want to have to give samples of it to the police.
Information is power - why would you want to give power over you to
people who either don't have your best interests at heart, and might,
one day, be even more antagonistic to you? This is the like argument
about nuclear proliferation - the argument about allowing other states
to develop nuclear weapons even if they show no immediate hostility to
us is nothing to do with fairness - you don't give people the power to
harm you if you can help it. 

pj

On Wed, 05 Sep 2007 16:52:12 GMT, "Mark Whiteley"
 wrote:

>
>"Krustov"  wrote in message 
>news:MPG.2148bca3ff5fb00e98ac94@news.newsreader.com...
>> You where offered the chance to buy cannabis legally - on the condition
>> that you gave a sample of your dna to the government .
>>
>> Your dna sample would be stored on the dna database until the day you
>> pop your clogs .
>>
>> Would you do it ? .
>>
>>
>> (dont most cannabis users say they are law abiding citizens who dont
>> commit crime and as such they dont have anything to hide)
>
>And they are but every group has it's minorities.

Minorities aside, the idea that if you are doing nothing wrong you
have nothing to hide is simple nonsense. 

>If the government suggested this I see no reason why not. Though I don't see 
>why the government would need it. Maybe medical researchers looking to see 
>if there any long term effects.
>
>
>Knowing our Government they would probably start claiming it caused DNA 
>mutations in future generations. 

Our government has a very reliable record of passing laws for one
reason and then using them for something else. The Prevention of
Terrorism Act 2005 (or is it hte Terrorism Act 2006) is widely abused
as a basis for random, non terrorism releated searches.

The british have long resisted the idea of a national database of
fingerprints. After listening to the widely varied, and universally
crap arguments for ID cards, I've come to the conclusion that the
government doesn't give a shit about us having ID cards - what they're
interested in is the biometrics database they would acquire as a side
effect.

pj

In article ,
me@privacy.net (Krustov) wrote:

> (dont most cannabis users say they are law abiding citizens who 
> dont commit crime and as such they dont have anything to hide)

I assume you're implying that, being law abiding people, no one could
object to the government holding copies of their DNA. Things aren't that
straightforward, however.

As more is learned about the way DNA influences how individuals develop,
it's highly possible that, amongst other things, fairly accurate
predictions will one day be made as to what genetically-based illnesses
people will develop through their lives.

Given that there's no such thing as an absolutely secure database, it's
inevitable that this information would eventually get into the hands of
commercial enterprises. Mortgage lenders, insurance companies, etc. would
then be able to cherry-pick their clients, preventing some people from
buying a house, getting insurance cover or causing them to suffer any
number of other inconveniences.

Because of issues such as these, I'm totally against the whole idea of a
national DNA database, whatever Lord Justice Sedley might think. Actually,
'think' might be an inappropriate word to use there. It seems to me that
he hasn't thought about it at all.

Jon.

On Wed, 5 Sep 2007 21:53 +0100 (BST), Jon@N0onlySPAMbrowsingTHANX.com
(Jon O'Brien) wrote:


>Given that there's no such thing as an absolutely secure database, it's
>inevitable that this information would eventually get into the hands of
>commercial enterprises. Mortgage lenders, insurance companies, etc. would
>then be able to cherry-pick their clients, preventing some people from
>buying a house, getting insurance cover or causing them to suffer any
>number of other inconveniences.

I remember this argument in "database nation", whoever wrote that...
except that he said as this information would be stored, it was best
that it be stored securely by the government. It seems to me that the
argument's completely backwards - it assumes that commercial entities
are bad, and that governments are good. If the government could create
this database, and prevent anyone else from accessing it (impossible,
as they'd hire the utterly incompetant EDS to do it), it would be a
disaster - massive power concentrated in an organization that pursues
it's own agenda, not mine. Having it freely available would be much
better than having it in the hands of those who dedicate their lives
to seeking positions of power over us. 

>Because of issues such as these, I'm totally against the whole idea of a
>national DNA database, whatever Lord Justice Sedley might think. Actually,
>'think' might be an inappropriate word to use there. It seems to me that
>he hasn't thought about it at all.

his comments about creating the database  I disagree with - but he did
have one very good point - dna is taken from those arrested (whether
or not they are charged with a crime). This means that the database is
very skewed racially. Really if someone is arrested, but not charged
with a crime, then the state should dispose of any data they've
collected about that person - unless they are continuing to
investigate them. A new born baby is considered innocent in the eyes
of the law - so is a black teenager in brixton, arrested and then
released without charge. The way we determine that someone should be
treated differently in the eyes of the law is by taking them to trial.

pj