Jonathan's blog

From an article of the same title from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's web site:

New landmark research concludes that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal drugs like marijuana or ecstasy and should be classified as such in legal systems, according to a new British study.

Nutt and colleagues used three factors to determine the harm associated with any drug: the physical harm to the user, the drug's potential for addiction, and the impact on society of the drug's use. The researchers asked two groups of experts - psychiatrists specializing in addiction and legal or police officials with scientific or medical expertise - to assign scores to 20 different drugs, including heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, amphetamines, and LSD.

Heroin and cocaine were ranked most dangerous, followed by barbiturates and street methadone. Alcohol was the fifth-most harmful drug and tobacco the ninth most harmful. Cannabis came in 11th, and near the bottom of the list was ecstasy.

Tobacco causes 40 per cent of all hospital illnesses, while alcohol is blamed for more than half of all visits to hospital emergency rooms. The substances also harm society in other ways, damaging families and occupying police services.

While experts agreed that criminalizing alcohol and tobacco would be challenging, they said that governments should review the penalties imposed for drug abuse and try to make them more reflective of the actual risks and damages involved.

Finn's first soccer game was Saturday afternoon. He seemed to have a good time running around. He made a point to tell me that he didn't fall down though once he came close to falling over in the goal. It did seem that one of his main objectives was to adjust his running trajectory to avoid any collisions with many of the other players who were a head taller than he...and with the secondary objective of getting near the ball and kicking it as a nice-to-have bonus. Here are a few photos and a video:

Sunday afternoon Elliot went with a friend to a Great Lakes Loons baseball game. He had a hot dog, popcorn, and a lemonade. They also played some hitting game, ran the bases after the game, etc. Here is a photo:

The Star Wars film festivals continued this week with Return of the Jedi. The Ewoks were a hit with the kids. Unlike episodes 4 and 5, there were moments in 6 where one kid or the other got off the couch and started playing with toys. Not sure if that means they found 6 to be less exciting or if watching a Star Wars movie isn't quite as thrilling by the time you get to the third one. Probably a little of both.

Next Thursday the season finale of October Road airs. It was a short 6-episode first season. Let's hope there's a second. I've really enjoyed it as it has steadily gained momentum. From Wikipedia:

October Road is a drama series that debuted on ABC on March 15, 2007[1] immediately following the popular Grey's Anatomy. The series is being produced by ABC Television Studio. It follows the return of Nicholas (Nick) Garrett to his hometown of Knights Ridge, Massachusetts after leaving 10 years previously.

You can catch up by watching a few episodes on abc.com.