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Nuno Miranda has been parking cars for thirteen years, most of them in a lot just below Belém National Palace, the eighteenth-century estate that serves as the official residence of the President of Portugal. Miranda, who is thirty-seven, is a lanky, amiable man, dressed in the style of hipsters the world over: a few layers of untucked shirts and skinny black jeans tucked into well-worn work boots. His dishevelled hair falls just below his collar, and by 11 A.M. one day recently the sun was bouncing off the thin gold chain around his neck.
Miranda's "job," like that of the now-banished squeegee men of New York, falls into the poorly defined space between labor and harassment. Nobody is required to pay Miranda, but he rarely earns less than fifty euros a day—a passable sum in one of Europe's poorest countries. There is no fighting for turf, nor have the police ever tried to shoo him away. "I serve a purpose," Miranda told me, waving a metallic-blue Volkswagen Passat into an open slot. "But I know I am lucky. I could have died long ago."
Miranda is a heroin addict. Fifteen years ago, overwhelmed by depression and anxiety about the future, he turned to drugs. "Everyone did it then," he said. "It was something I had to try. It made my life bearable—it still does. Though it can ruin people, too. I have seen that. When we started, we had no idea of the consequences."
By the nineteen-eighties, drug abuse had become a serious problem in Portugal. The Lisbon government responded in the usual way—increasing sentences for convictions and spending more money on investigations and prosecutions. Matters only grew worse. In 1999, nearly one per cent of the population—a hundred thousand people—were heroin addicts, and Portugal reported the highest rate of drug-related AIDS deaths in the European Union.
In 2001, Portuguese leaders, flailing about and desperate for change, took an unlikely gamble: they passed a law that made Portugal the first country to fully decriminalize personal drug use. (Other nations, such as Italy and the Netherlands, rarely prosecute minor drug offenses, but none have laws that so explicitly declare drugs to be "decriminalized.") "We were out of options," João Goulão told me. Goulão is the president of the Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction, a department of the Ministry of Health that oversees Portuguese drug laws and policy. "We were spending millions and getting nowhere." For people caught with no more than a ten-day supply of marijuana, heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, or crystal methamphetamine—anything, really—there would be no arrests, no prosecutions, no prison sentences. Dealers are still sent to prison, or fined, or both, but, for the past decade, Portugal has treated drug abuse solely as a public-health issue.
That doesn't mean drugs are legal in Portugal. When caught, people are summoned before an administrative body called the Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction. Each panel consists of three members—usually a lawyer or a judge, a doctor, and a psychologist or a social worker. The commissioners have three options: recommend treatment, levy a small fine, or do nothing. Counselling is the most common approach, and that is what Nuno Miranda received when he appeared, in 2002, before the commission in Lisbon. "I was using drugs for five or seven years before that law passed," he said. "Since then, everything has changed. Everything."
In most respects, the law seems to have worked: serious drug use is down significantly, particularly among young people; the burden on the criminal-justice system has eased; the number of people seeking treatment has grown; and the rates of drug-related deaths and cases of infectious diseases have fallen. Initial fears that Portugal would become a haven for "drug tourism" have proved groundless. Surprisingly, political opposition has been tepid and there has never been a concerted repeal effort.
Yet there is much to debate about the Portuguese approach to drug addiction. Does it help people to quit, or does it transform them into more docile drug addicts, wards of an indulgent state, with little genuine incentive to alter their behavior? By removing the fear of prosecution, does the government actually encourage addicts to seek treatment? Unfortunately, nothing about substance abuse is simple. For instance, although many people maintain that addiction would decline if drugs were legal in the United States, the misuse of legally sold prescription medications has become a bigger health problem than the sale of narcotics or cocaine. There are questions not only about the best way to address addiction but also about how far any society should go, morally, philosophically, and economically, to placate drug addicts.
For Miranda, however, and for thousands of others who find themselves participating in civil life rather than disrupting it, such questions don't matter. He has a wife and a sixteen-year-old son, and adores them both. "My wife would never let me use heroin at home," he said. "I am not even allowed to smoke cigarettes in the house." With a stable family, a regular dealer, and his spot in the parking lot, Miranda's life has become orderly, almost routine. "This is because of the law," he said. "We are not hunted or scared or looked upon as criminals," he added, referring to the country's addicts. "And that has made it possible to live and to breathe." I asked if he had ever tried to overcome his addiction. He shrugged. "I guess I should," he said. "I know I should. But I'm not sure I can, and it isn't really necessary. I am lucky to live in a society that has accepted the fact that drugs and addiction are part of life."
In 1974, after decades of authoritarian rule, a left-leaning faction of the Portuguese military led a coup that subsequently became known as the Carnation Revolution. Suddenly, a closed society became a boisterous democracy, and Portugal began to face enormous social, economic, and political challenges. As one of its first acts, the new government granted independence to Angola, Mozambique, and other colonies. Hundreds of thousands of Portuguese citizens returned from abroad, adding to the social tumult. "We had a tough regime for forty-eight years and we were a closed society, and this was particularly true for young people," Goulão said as we sat in his airy Lisbon office. Pictures of foreign dignitaries lined the walls. "We were completely isolated from other parts of the world—the hippies in San Francisco, the students in France in the sixties. Faint echoes reached our shores, but nothing really sunk in."
In the United States, as in many European countries, the acceptability of drug use—and its consequences—had been debated extensively. But in Portugal, Goulão said, "the issue was never discussed." As international drug traffickers discovered a new market in Lisbon, they also realized that the Iberian Peninsula was an ideal gateway to Europe. Portugal became a transit point for the distribution of cocaine from South America, heroin from Spain, and hashish and marijuana from Morocco and other African countries. (That has not changed. Goulão's institute estimates that seventy-seven per cent of the drugs seized in Portugal are destined for other countries.)
"It spread very fast," Goulão said. "We had an extremely low prevalence of drug use compared with other countries, but then all at once the gap between occasional users and people with a problem began to disappear." By the nineteen-eighties, after the initial years of openness and experimentation, the government panicked and began running extremely harsh advertisements on television equating drug use with madness, evil, and crime.
In those days, Goulão ran a clinic in the Algarve. "It was a disaster," he said. "Such widespread heroin abuse fuelled the AIDS epidemic. It was difficult to find a single family without a drug problem."
Every effort to increase drug penalties, to add police officers, or to build neighborhood consensus seemed to end in failure. Prohibition and its enforcement appeared to intensify the harm they were trying to address. (That was most obviously true with the H.I.V. epidemic; H.I.V. spreads rapidly among people who share dirty needles.) In addition, banning some addictive substances while permitting and taxing others has proved difficult to defend, particularly considering the relative impact of the substances involved. There is no country where illegal drugs kill as many people as legal addictive substances. The World Bank estimates that tobacco will kill five hundred million of the present global population.
It has been exactly fifty years since the United Nations adopted the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the first truly international effort to prohibit the growth, production, and sale of narcotics, cannabis, and other illegal substances. Since 1961, however, Western nations have struggled with rising rates of drug abuse. Law-enforcement officials, politicians, and public-health leaders have debated their alternatives frequently—and frequently disagreed about what to do. That debate has never ended, and there are still essentially two approaches to substance abuse: rehabilitation and incarceration. In Portugal, though, a consensus quickly formed, even among law-enforcement officials, that devoting ever-increasing resources to drug interdiction had little or no effect. And neither did relying on the criminal-justice system to address the problem.
Eventually, the Portuguese government moved responsibility for drug-control issues from the Justice Department to the Ministry of Health. It was a striking decision; in other countries, drug abuse has remained primarily a matter for law-enforcement agencies. In the past forty years, American police officers have arrested millions of nonviolent drug offenders, and hundreds of thousands have been prosecuted. Rather than try to eliminate drug abuse, Portugal's approach, commonly known as "harm reduction," attempts to minimize the negative consequences for society. In recent years, those consequences have become both more obvious and more significant.
"The prevailing approach in the rest of the world ignores scientific reality and squanders resources on things that have been shown again and again to fail," said Miguel Vasconcelos, the chief psychiatrist at the Taipas treatment center, the largest in Lisbon, with eighteen hundred patients. When Vasconcelos began working at the clinic, more than twenty years ago, there was no attempt at harm reduction. "The goal was to get people off drugs," he said. "And for many patients that is still the goal. But there are people for whom it is hard and some for whom it is not possible. This is an alternative that does get people off the streets, reduces the rates of H.I.V. infection, and lowers crime. It is humanistic but also pragmatic."
The relationship between crime and addiction has long been clear. In the United States, more than seventy per cent of inmates test positive for illicit drugs when they are arrested; substance abuse is by far the most common reason for parole violations. The attempt to support a habit frequently leads to criminal behavior—drug sales, theft, prostitution. Vasconcelos pointed out that punishment is not a deterrent: "The prisons are full, but that has not helped lower the rate of drug abuse. Our law does not permit drug use; that is important. Harm reduction is like a lure in fishing. It is the thing we can do to talk to people and tell them there is a way to stop."
Statistics associated with drug abuse are not easy to parse. Laws, approaches, and customs vary widely among countries, and they change over the years. In the nineteen-eighties, the prevailing trend in most of the world was toward harsher treatment of even casual users. Today, policy officials in many countries are trying to change that pattern, but there are many goals in the war on drugs, and it is hard to choose the most meaningful among them. Is drug use increasing? Has it become socially and economically ruinous? What drugs are being used and by whom? How much violence is associated with drug addiction? How old are those with the biggest problem and why do they have that problem? Poverty is often the answer to the last question, and in 1999, before Portugal introduced the new regimen, the country had a high level of poverty compared with other European nations, many heroin addicts, and a serious problem with H.I.V. Thirty-seven per cent of injecting drug users were receiving methadone to manage their addiction; ten years later, that figure was sixty-seven per cent. The number of people convicted of drug offenses fell from forty-four per cent of the prison population, in 2000, to twenty-one per cent, in 2005; the percentage of people using heroin in prison also fell sharply.
"I used to be the biggest believer in locking up the bad guys," João Figueira, the chief inspector of the Judicial Police crime squad and its drug division in Lisbon, said. He told me that he was unhappy when the law was introduced, and he struggled with it morally. Within a year, he had changed his mind. "In the last years before the law, consumers were arrested by police," he continued. "They were fingerprinted and made statements and took mug photos and were presented to court. And always, always, always released. It was a waste of everyone's time. It didn't stop drug use or slow down the dealers. So the idea that somehow people are getting away with what they did not get away with before is silly."
Elisabete Moutinho, a clinical psychologist, who works for one of the drug outreach programs funded by the Ministry of Health, stood on a cobblestone plateau above the slope that leads to what was once the center of Lisbon's Casal Ventoso neighborhood. She looked across a nearby highway at a housing development of the type that often seems to rise along the ring roads that circle the world's capitals. It was utilitarian, and utterly lacking in charm. "That must be a dull place to live," I said. She smiled and replied, "There are worse things than dull. In this area, dull is an improvement."
Twenty-five years ago, Casal Ventoso was essentially a giant shooting gallery, and, every day, thousands of people would line up to buy heroin, then they would fade into the dense warren of homes and kiosks that covered a series of connected hills. Walking through the squalid neighborhood meant weaving around piles of used, often bloody needles and, on occasion, stepping over a dead body. Casal Ventoso was a daily catalogue of human misery. In 1998, the government brought in a fleet of bulldozers and razed the neighborhood.
Moutinho, who is thirty, is a charismatic and idealistic woman with a demeanor that invites people to tell her their problems. "We are not here to judge or scold," she said. "This is purely a public-health initiative. We want these people in the system, unafraid, able to come to us if they are in need. And in turn we test them for diseases, treat them when they are sick. This is a better outcome for them than taking them to the hospital or the morgue. And it is a better outcome for the people of this country."
She and her team had arrived in a station wagon filled with drug paraphernalia: tinfoil, for people who smoke heroin rather than shoot it (which is often the only way for longtime addicts to get their fix, since years of injections have ruined their veins), and stacks of clean syringes, sterile wipes, and other accessories required to inject heroin safely. The exchange policy is simple: bring in a used needle and get a new one. "There is no limit," Moutinho said, as a man approached clutching nine syringes in his fist. She chatted with him as he deposited the needles, one by one, into a container she had placed in the center of the platform. "How is your arm?" she asked, noticing what appeared to be significant ulcerations along the inner part of his left arm. He shrugged and told her that he had been at the doctor's office two days earlier; in order to receive methadone, people must agree to periodic checkups and blood tests. When the man had deposited the last of his refuse, Moutinho counted out nine new pouches for fixing heroin, along with nine syringes, and handed them over. He nodded and moved on.
As people straggled up to the team, Moutinho explained, "We are here the same time every day, and people can count on that." I asked if she had any qualms about aiding people in their quest to satisfy addictions. "That is the wrong way to think about what we do," she said. "Of course, you can come here and still buy heroin. The dealers know where we are and when we are here. People exchange syringes and then go buy drugs.
"I know that is not easy for everyone to accept," she continued. "But they don't get AIDS from a dirty needle, or hepatitis. They are not beaten by gangs or arrested or put in jail. There is no police corruption, because there is nothing to get rich from. It is a program that reduces harm, and I don't see a better approach."
Later that afternoon, in the Alcântara section of Lisbon, I visited the Centro de Acolhimento, a short-term residency for drug addicts who need a place to begin new lives. The building, near the docks, is on both the seedy side of town and the cool side, and could easily have been the headquarters of an adventurous industrial designer. The floors—unbroken expanses of concrete—and the soaring windows made the room feel accessible and spacious. A few dozen people sat quietly eating at picnic-style tables arranged in the middle of the room. Francisco Chaves, the psychologist who has run the center since it opened, in 2009, admitted that he had mixed feelings about Portugal's approach to drug addiction. He is a religious activist who believes in rehabilitation and moral tenacity. To him, "harm reduction" offers little of that. "This law takes away all pressure to stop using drugs," he said. "Nobody stops without pressure. That's not the way humans are built. When you promise methadone to anyone who wants it, you are going to get people who say there is no reason to stop. This idea that everybody has a right to take drugs is wrong. Morally, I don't agree. I worry because are we not simply creating a society that is completely socially dependent?"
That view is echoed by Manuel Pinto Coelho, a physician who has treated addicts for many years, and is the president of the Association for a Drug Free Portugal. He has emerged as perhaps the most vigorous Portuguese critic of decriminalization, and when we met, in Lisbon, Pinto Coelho had just returned from Vienna, where, before the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, he had spoken passionately against easing drug penalties. "Medicalization of this deviant behavior has provided powerful support to the idea of expanding the concept of addiction as a disease," he told me. "That convinces most addicts that they have to remain dependent on methadone rather than struggle to become independent. It is a service neither to them nor to society." He is particularly offended by the notion that supporting human rights implies supporting greater investment in harm reduction: "Is it really a human right to remain in chemical chains?" Pinto Coelho argues that the system has been tilted in favor of those who don't even try to quit. "I have treated many addicts in my life," he said. "It is very hard to quit, and some people fail. But many succeed, and society should reward their success, not make a statement that the effort is unnecessary. We shouldn't be making life easier for people who decide to use drugs—we should make it more difficult."
Richard Nixon declared a "war on drugs" in 1971. For the next fifteen years, though, instead of battles there were mostly minor skirmishes. Then, in 1986, Ronald Reagan signed National Security Directive 221, which turned the war into a national-security priority. The reasons were clear: cocaine from South America, where drug cartels fought openly, had displaced Southeast Asian heroin as the major drug threat to the United States, and violence associated with drug sales escalated rapidly. Federal spending on drug control rose just as sharply, from $1.5 billion, in 1980, to $6.7 billion, in 1990. The number of arrests for drug offenses nearly quadrupled, to more than four hundred thousand per year.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, by the mid-nineteen-nineties trafficking and sales of illegal drugs had become a four-hundred-billion-dollar-a-year industry—ranking it with the oil companies and the worldwide (and legal) arms trade. In the United States, tough words on drugs became a required part of any politician's rhetoric. In 1996, President Bill Clinton named Army General Barry McCaffrey as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and increased its staff significantly. Later that year, Clinton announced a new National Drug Control Strategy. The first priority, according to the President, was "to get young people to reject drugs." The problem had become acute, and many policymakers wanted to solve it no matter the cost.
By June, 1998, the sense of urgency had reached the United Nations. That month, delegates gathered in New York for a special session devoted to the world's growing drug problem. The session even had a slogan, "A Drug-Free World: We Can Do It." The purpose was to produce a plan that the international community could use to fight, and win, the global war on drugs. The United States took the lead in writing early drafts of the proposal, which called for a complete end to illicit drug use by 2008. Later, after lobbying from Latin-American delegates, who were more realistic, the wording was amended to include the phrase "eliminating or significantly reducing."
Nobody questioned the severity of the crisis, but many politicians, scientists, and criminal-justice officials doubted that relying so heavily on law enforcement—and abolition—would work. There was already strong evidence that drug addiction was a biologically and psychologically complex illness—one far more amenable to preventive efforts and medical care than to punishment. On the first day of the special session, hundreds of the world's leading statesmen and political officials published an open letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the New York Times. The signatories included former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, former Secretary of State George Shultz, Walter Cronkite, former Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, many Nobel Prize winners, and elected officials from around the world. "We believe that the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself," the letter began, and pointed out that U.N. conventions, focussed largely on crime and punishment, made it difficult for countries to devise effective local solutions. Despite increasingly harsh sanctions, the drug industry "has empowered organized criminals, corrupted governments at all levels, eroded internal security, stimulated violence, and distorted both economic markets and moral values."
The letter concluded by warning that "realistic proposals to reduce drug-related crime, disease and death are abandoned in favor of rhetorical proposals to create drug-free societies."
The leadership at the United Nations ignored the message completely. But conservatives, who objected to any shift from punishment to rehabilitation, responded sharply. In the Times, A. M. Rosenthal, the paper's former executive editor, praised the U.N. meeting and described harm reduction as nothing more than the first step on the slippery slope to legalization. Bill Clinton seemed to agree. In 1993, his Surgeon General, Joycelyn Elders, had been quoted on the subject of prosecuting drug users. "I do feel we would markedly reduce our crime rate if drugs were legalized," she said. "But I don't know all the ramifications of this. I do feel that we need to do some studies." Elders never advocated legalization or even the removal of criminal sanctions; she wanted more research. The White House had other ideas. "The President is firmly against legalizing drugs," Clinton's press secretary said at the time. "And he is not inclined in this case to even study the issue." Attitudes under George W. Bush were no different.
"This is an extremely complex issue involving producers, suppliers, distributors, local salespeople, and consumers, and we are into absolute simplicity," said Alan Leshner, the chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. He added that Americans tend to see these issues in stark terms; people are either for legalization or against it. "Those kinds of positions help no one," he said. "We need to use law enforcement. But, if there is one thing about this issue I can promise you, it is that we are not going to arrest ourselves out of this problem.
"Yet we live in an ideologically fraught society," he continued, "a society that can pretend that drug use will go away if we just fight hard enough, if we 'just say no.' What politician will vote to reduce funds dedicated to the war on drugs?"
In the United States, the penalty for using a particular drug has rarely had any relationship to its inherent danger. As Arthur Benavie pointed out in "Drugs, America's Holy War," in 2009, the American approach to illegal substances has as much to do with who takes the drugs as it does with the drugs' putative effects on people or society. In the late nineteenth century, doctors often prescribed opiates with abandon—"The typical opiate addict was a chronically ailing middle- or upper-class woman who had been addicted by her doctor," Benavie wrote. Mary Tyrone, a character in Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night," believed to be modelled on his mother, was that kind of addict. Most cocaine addicts were doctors. Nobody talked about sending them to prison.
By 1915, however, the demographics of addiction had changed and so had American attitudes toward drug users. Cocaine had come to be seen as a drug taken by lower-class, urban men, who were often looked upon with fear and disdain. Opium had been tolerated in the United States for more than a century—until Chinese laborers began to compete with Americans for jobs. Since then, the more directly a drug has been perceived to be associated with minorities and the poor, the graver the danger it is seen as posing to society. Until last year, when President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, penalties for possessing or selling crack cocaine, used heavily by minorities, were a hundred times more severe than those for powder cocaine, a form of the drug often consumed by prosperous white people.
"There has been, since the dawn of man, the desire to get high," Thomas McLellan, a longtime expert on addiction, told me not long ago. "Some of the first crops raised by humans were not meant to eat or to feed livestock. They were for fermentation. To drink." McLellan recently returned to academia after serving for two years as the deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School for thirty years and runs the Center for Substance Abuse Solutions, in Philadelphia, which promotes science-driven reform of substance-abuse policy. He had never served in the government until he was appointed the Administration's leading spokesman on prevention and treatment options. McLellan said that he wasn't eager to accept the job, but did so for personal reasons.
In 2008, a few months before he assumed his position, McLellan's youngest son, who was thirty, died of an overdose of anti-anxiety medication mixed with alcohol. McLellan's wife is a former cocaine addict. "My entire family is in recovery," he said. "I thought, Maybe there's a way where what I know plus what I feel could make a difference." Together with Gil Kerlikowske, the U.S. drug czar, who is a former Seattle police chief, the Office of National Drug Control Policy has attempted to shift the focus in the war on drugs from combat to treatment.
Under Kerlikowske and McLellan, the Obama Administration has placed a new emphasis on medical solutions to drug abuse. The Affordable Care Act, passed last year, requires for the first time that substance abuse be considered a chronic disease, like diabetes or hypertension. Beginning in 2014, insurers may no longer deny coverage based on known substance-abuse problems. "For approximately twenty-three million Americans, substance use progresses to the point that they require treatment," McLellan told Congress last year. "This is roughly the same number of American adults who suffer from diabetes. In the U.S., the only disease that affects more people is heart disease." Yet currently available medicine is rarely relied upon in drug programs. The Obama Administration has pushed for wider adoption of treatments that help manage withdrawal symptoms as well as those which reduce cravings for drugs. The drug-control office has also initiated programs that help health-care workers spot problems early.
"I think for some folks radical change will be their only measure of success," Kerlikowske has said. "I don't think we'll see that. I think we'll make a lot of progress, we'll slow the freighter down and start turning it in the direction of the more balanced view." Federal health officials have estimated that every dollar spent on substance-abuse treatment saves the United States seven dollars that would be spent on prison, police, and courts. "I understand the desire to wring somebody's neck when you find out they are using drugs," McLellan told me. "If you imagine that addiction is the willful act of an antisocial person who needs to learn his lesson, you ought to lock him up. But we have tried that and I don't see many people learning their lesson."
Nonetheless, McLellan does not favor a Portuguese approach for the United States. "It's not an ideology with me," he said. "If you make any attractive commodity available at lower cost, you will have more users. Anything like legalizing drugs is preposterous—no less ridiculous than trying to lock up every offender." As evidence, he points to the epidemic of prescription-drug abuse. "These drugs are created, controlled, and distributed in the most careful possible way," he said. "It doesn't prevent abuse."
Many people argue that because nobody is forced to take drugs the burden of addiction should not be borne by society. "It is true that you don't have to start," McLellan said. "But once you do, and once you become an addict, then a certain series of biological changes take place and you are no longer able to simply stop." Nearly all addicts believe they can overcome their dependence without help. The overwhelming majority do not succeed. Research has shown that long-term drug abuse results in changes in the brain that persist after a person stops taking drugs. Often, the first time somebody abuses drugs, he experiences particularly intense feelings of pleasure. The brain has activated circuits that make him feel good, and that message is carried by the neurotransmitter dopamine. As the brain starts to become used to those pleasures and demand them, neurons, sensing a surplus, begin to make less dopamine. The chemical begins to lose its ability to activate the pleasure circuits. As that happens, people start to need drugs just to bring dopamine levels back to normal. To feel good, or to get high, requires more and more dopamine—which requires more and more drugs.
"Addiction is a disease you have for which there is no cure, and which fits the model of chronic illness," McLellan said. "It will be a problem for the rest of your life. So you don't want a thirty-day program. It won't help. There are no thirty-day diabetes programs or twelve-visit hypertension clinics. The name for that is malpractice.
"Imagine we had an insurance program for diabetics along the lines of the programs we have had for substance abuse," he went on, noting the American inclination to treat chronic diseases after they have already caused irreparable harm. "Do you want to tell people who ate too many doughnuts that the American health-care system can't accommodate their illnesses? It is nobody's idea of the best use of a forty-two-thousand-dollar cell to house a person who has committed a minor crime or a parole violation associated with drug abuse. We all know that. And we are a better country than that."
Nobody can say with certainty whether Portugal's decriminalization program is helping persuade people to seek treatment, since those facilities became far more accessible just as the new law was passed. There are also questions about whether the benefits that Portugal has seen since 2001 reflect evolving patterns in European life and not the success of its program. Between 1998 and 2008, even though the number of addicts in Portugal enrolled in treatment jumped by sixty-three per cent—from twenty-three thousand to more than thirty-eight thousand—that could have potentially happened, critics say, without decriminalization or the expansion of clinics. "We know Portugal decriminalized drugs," said John Carnevale, a former director of planning, budget, and research at the Office of National Drug Control Policy under Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. "But we don't know the effects of that decriminalization."
People who favor policy reform say that Portugal's experiment shows, if nothing else, that decriminalization has permitted the Portuguese criminal-justice system to focus on more significant criminals and more dangerous crimes. But what works in a small seaside nation in Southern Europe is not necessarily likely to work in a place that is larger, richer, and more heavily plagued by drug abuse. And, though about half of American adults believe that marijuana use should be legalized, there has been no serious discussion of making all drugs legal in the U.S.—or in any other country. Still, if prison were no longer a common penalty, there would clearly be more money available for treatment programs. And, if the Portuguese pattern held true, there would be fewer crimes to punish.
"It is never easy to draw a lesson from complex experience," Brendan Hughes, of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, in Lisbon, said. "But here we are in Lisbon thirteen years after the U.N. vowed to abolish illicit drugs in a decade. Has anybody here seen a drug-free world?" he said, noting that the annual United Nations World Drug Report usually runs to about three hundred pages. During the ten years following the 1998 declaration, when eradication was supposed to have been accomplished, the number of people using opiates throughout the world grew by thirty-five per cent; the number of cocaine users grew by nearly thirty per cent.
Expenditures, particularly those associated with the criminal prosecution of drug abusers, have also risen dramatically, as has the size of the correctional system in the United States. Since the late nineteen-eighties, most of that growth can be attributed directly to drug abuse. The cost of running the state-prison systems has grown by four hundred per cent, and it is expected to grow even more rapidly in the next decade. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, those costs represent at least ten times the amount of money spent on treatment, prevention, and research. In Portugal, where drug control is funded in part by lottery receipts and money seized from traffickers, the ratio is the opposite: more than ninety per cent of costs are now devoted to treatment, not punishment.
Before I left his office, Hughes suggested that I take a close look at the 2009 World Drug Report, in part because it was issued by the same agency that, little more than a decade before, had called for the worldwide elimination of drugs. It, too, expressed the need for a radical reassessment of the war on drugs.
Perhaps the strongest case against the current system of drug control has less to do with its costs, or even its effectiveness in reducing the availability of drugs, than with the violence and corruption associated with the black market. The prevailing approach has had the perverse effect of enriching criminals who kill and bribe their way from the countries where drugs are produced to the countries where drugs are consumed.
It is common in the U.S. to judge drug addiction morally rather than medically, and most policy flows from that approach. By now, however, the data showing that the war on drugs has failed are not in dispute; Obama Administration officials do not even use the phrase. Yet one has only to look at the American health-care system to be reminded that neither science nor evidence necessarily drives public-policy decisions. More money, per capita, and a greater percentage of income, is spent on health care in the United States than in any other nation. Nevertheless, the U.S. lags behind most of the rest of the Western world in health outcomes. If anything, the war on drugs is more complex; while it is clear that a purely punitive approach cannot succeed, it is far less obvious what might. While it would make no sense to base American policy on a decade-long Portuguese experiment, it seems even more foolish to ignore results that call so clearly for an increased focus on treatment, not jail time.
"You started by asking if I thought Portugal was on the right track," Hughes said. "That's not really a question I feel competent to answer. But if you look at enough of these reports, and study the data behind them, you can't help but feel that the country can't be on more of a wrong track than the rest of the world."
Night had begun to fall at the underpass near Lisbon's Praça de Espanha metro station. Two methadone vans, which cruise the city with the eerie regularity of ice-cream trucks, pulled into a cul-de-sac under the motorway. People were starting to gather for their daily doses. An outreach team arrives every day at 6 P.M. and stays for an hour and a half, and often another van appears, carrying a doctor who is available to conduct checkups. "This is a strategic location," one of the physicians told me. "People need to take their methadone every day, and this place is near the metro and just off the roadway. If you are in a car, you can stop off without being conspicuous. If you need to get here on the metro, we are easy to find."
This van serves about six hundred people a day, and the economic status of the clients is not always easy to determine. Several people drove up in Fiats, but a couple of Mercedes sedans were also parked at the side of the road. A nurse sat with a laptop, a bottle of methadone, and a few hundred Dixie cups. Each person presented an I.D., and the nurse checked his or her dosage on a database, then gave the person a cup and a bottle of spring water to wash it down. Several cops walked by and smiled. The vans make five stops a day between 8:30 A.M. and 7:30 P.M. Everyone does his business briskly and walks away. There are no chats or knots of people who hang around at the methadone truck after work. It was a ghostly assembly, an effect no doubt enhanced by the failing light. You don't see a lot of smiles or laughter in lines like these. You don't sense a lot of promise, either. I told the doctor I was with that the entire program seemed strangely methodical.
He laughed and replied, "Thank you. We like methodical. It is better than frantic, or desperate, or dangerous. I admire these people exactly because they are methodical. They are trying. Every day, they get up and try. The main complaint about our approach, as far as I can tell, is that they ought to try for something harder. They all ought to stop using drugs.
"I think what's hard is to acknowledge reality," he continued. "These people are living in the real world. If they are boring, or live with narrowed vision or limited ambition, I am happy. I am proud. Because I know what the other side looks like. It is ugly. Perhaps it is a national failing, but I prefer moderate hope and some likelihood of success to the dream of perfection and the promise of failure." ♦


text:
The Irish Film Board (IFB) and the Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA) have announced the Rising Star Award nominees for 2012.
The nominees are:
Chris O'Dowd - Actor ("Bridesmaids")
Emmett Scanlan - Actor ("Charlie Casanova")
Rebecca Daly - Writer/Director ("The Other Side of Sleep")
John Michael McDonagh - Writer/Director ("The Guard")
The Rising Star Award is a unique IFTA Award in that it aims to highlight exceptional new and breakthrough talent working in all areas of the Irish film industry.
John Michael McDonagh wrote and directed "The Guard", starring Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle. "The Guard" is officially the highest grossing Irish independent film of all time at the Irish box office. He has been shortlisted for Best Original Screenplay at this year's BAFTA Film Awards, in addition to "The Guard" receiving nine Irish Film & Television Awards nominations.
McDonagh also wrote the screenplay for "Ned Kelly" (2003), starring Heath Ledger, for which he was nominated for AFI and Australian Film Critics' Circle Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The director and writer said he plans to be "pathologically competitive" about the award. He said "this nomination will mean nothing to me if I don't win. All opposition must be crushed. Especially Chris O'Dowd, who will be starring with Brendan Gleeson in my next film later this year. If he wins, his role with have to be recast. I'm that vindictive."
Being equally mature as McDonagh about the award, O'Dowd, who was catapulted to Hollywood fame by his role in "Bridemaids" said, "Thank you so much people of IFTA for including this shy country boy in your glorious shindig in the big schmoke. Can't wait for the night. Can I meet Bosco?"
O'Dowd made his TV debut in the RTÉ drama series "The Clinic" followed by a role in the hugely popular Channel 4 comedy series "The IT Crowd". His other credits include "The Boat That Rocked', "Gulliver's Travels", "Dinner for Schmucks", "Festival" and "Showbands".
This year he will star alongside Megan Fox in "This is Forty" and "The Sapphires". O'Dowd is currently filming comedy series "Moone Boy" at Ireland's Ardmore Studios.
Read More:
'Bridesmaids' star Chris O'Dowd proposes to girlfriend Dawn Porter
JJ Abrams beings shooting 'Star Trek 2' with Chris Pine - VIDEOS
New York's Irish Arts Center launches fall season
Emmett J. Scanlan is nominated for his role in "Charlie Casanova". The movie has previously won the Best First Feature Film Award at the Galway Film Fleadh in addition to Best Film at the DMV International Film Festival in Washington Awards at festivals in Washington. Scanlan has also already won the Best Actor award for his leading performance in "Charlie Casanova" at the 2011 European Independent Film Festival Awards in Paris.
Rebecca Daly, writer and director of "The Other Side of Sleep" made her first short film "Joyriders" (Best Irish Short - Galway Film Fleadh 2006, Best Short - Irish Film and Television Awards 2007) and "Hum", as part of the Berlin Today Award. In 2008, she was selected for the Cannes Cinéfondation Residence du Festival in Paris where she developed and co-wrote "The Other Side of Sleep", her debut feature film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011.
Last year, the award was won by actor Domhnall Gleeson, who has worked on the feature films "Shadow Dancer", "Anna Karenina" and "Dredd" in 2011. Tomm Moore, writer/director of the Oscar nominated feature animation "The Secret of Kells" won in 2010 and Tomm has since began working on his second feature length animation, "Song of the Sea". In 2009, "Shame" and "Hunger" actor Michael Fassbender received the award and in 2008, young actress Saoirse Ronan had the honor for her breakthrough performance in "Atonement".
The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony on 11th February 2012.
For more information visit IFTA.ie.
"Bridesmaids" trailer:
"The Guard" trailer:
"Charlie Casanova" trailer:
"The Other Side of Sleep" trailer:

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Dossier - The Assassin part 4
Walkthrough - Dossier - The Assassin part 4
After regaining control, turn around and head back towards the elevator door. While you don't want to go back to the elevator, you'll want to take either door to the left or the right of the elevator to continue (it doesn't matter which one). Be absolutely certain you take the datapad on the ground en route, as it leads to a side quest called Illium: The Assassin: Salarian Family Data (more on that side quest can be found in the Side Quests section of the guide). When you enter the next room, which is in essence a huge hangar-like area, you'll be greeted by about six or eight mercenaries and mechs. These guys can be felled rather easily, especially considering the size of the room and the small enemy force. When that threat is nullified, you can then begin to explore the room itself. On the far left end of the room, you can find some heavy weapon ammunition in a crate, as well as a computer terminal. Examining the computer terminal will give you direct access to the screaming mercenary leader, who you can then talk a little passive-aggressive smack to.
On the left end of the room, you'll also find another sealed door. Upon opening it, you'll find a familiar scene, especially if you're following this walkthrough to a tee. On the floor below you, you should have found a sealed room with three Salarian workers within. Those guys were placed there, presumably to keep them safe, by the assassin we're seeking out. Well, there are two more Salarians in here, and they are in the same situation. The difference is, one of them pulls a gun on you. Paragons can talk them down, while Renegades can encourage them to shoot. Renegades will even have an optional quicktime event, which will outright kill the gun-toting Salarian. However, if you keep them both alive, you can garner more information from them about what's going on here. Seems that the assassin killed the mercenary in the room with them, then sealed them within the room before heading on his way. When you regain control, you too should head on your way, but not before examining the mercenary's body in the room. His PDA, if successfully hacked, will sacrifice a heavy dose of credits.
There should be a ramp leading up and to the left from the computer terminal we used earlier. Once on the next floor, you'll find a U-shaped room that you'll have to traverse to continue. Naturally, this room is occupied by another wave of enemies, though they it's a scarcely-populated group, when you consider the size of the room and the gravity of the situation. The mechs here will fall quickest, as usual, while the biotic-powered mercenaries will take a more concerted effort to fell. As you push through the far end of the room following the conflict, be sure you grab the Element Zero stash on your left. Then, head outside to your right -- there's a weapons locker there if you need to swap out your gear, though you should be fine with what you have if you've gotten this far.
As you wrap around outside, you'll find a bunch of mercenaries working on some sort of device. As long as you don't get too close to them, or act in an otherwise obvious manner, you should be able to easily initiate hostilities with the enemy force. Do so, and then take cover as you deal with the repercussions. The device they were all working on seems to be of the explosive variety, so pummeling it with enough fire power should force it to detonate, hopefully taking some enemies along with it. The only foe of consequence here will be the Eclipse Commando, a powerful enemy with biotic powers, a barrier, a shield, and quite a bit of firepower. Keep that enemy at bay if you can, while you deal with all of the lesser, residual foes. Then, once the Eclipse Commando is the only enemy left to deal with, you and your party can gang up on him to fell him quickly. Move through the area where the conflict then took place, and as you turn right, scour the mercenary corpse for a PDA (for credits), as well as ammunition and a medical kit lying on the floor. You can also scan the submachine gun there, which will help you with upgrading your weapons later on.
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text:
Discussion in 'CZ Support Zone' started by TheHustler, Apr 25, 2004.
do the rest of us get avatars?
You may have to wait a little while on that one.
Many things to work on to get this site at 100%
We are all learning as we go.
How do we get one?
Read above your post.
Man, this site has really gone down the tubes...
No avatars, new mods (gimme a break), making things harder than they really are aren't we fellas?
RW31 blames you!
thanks for the info. nice sig.
i used VB all the time, activating avatars is simply the click of an on/off button.
Yeah well, this is apparently a union-shop
I think the problem is to find a way to remote link avatars from other sites (from your own server or from another internet site).
Thanks - hopefully they'll get it working soon - I feel so anonymous without it.
Dont hold your breath. =)
Remote linking Avatars is not supported in VB. You either have them on and plugged into the SQL db or you dont turn them on at all. Good luck.
Actually, I'm going to write a mod for vb3 to support off-site linking of avatars. It's not that hard .. I just haven't had time due to work.
I thought this was your work
Are we going to get animated emoticons, too? I miss the old zzz, lol, and butting-head-against-wall ones.
I thought this was supposed to be the same type of software used by extremeskins.com, and they have all kinds of animations (and avatars)...
I am not sure if we will get more emoticons or not....I know you can remote link them from other sites....here is one site you can use..
^^ Found that one at the site I linked...thought it was kind of funny.
This is the same type of software (Vbull) However it is a newer version and not all of it is the same. One more thing to consider with this software is that any avatars (at this point) can not be linked from another web site....it would be from our own computers and uploaded to the server that we are currentl using...which means it would be adding files and taking away space on the sites server.
Also in many ways the skinz site gives avatars to users similar to what was being done on the old site....where you have standard avatars that may change due to post counts....reason that is done is to cut down on the space that each user would take up by uploading his avatar to this server.
Not sure if I make any sense to you or not....but Reality is working on a way to change the software (VB3) to allow remote linking for the avatars like the old site had....that way you can store your avatar on your own server or take it from a web page...instead of having it stored on this server.
I'm sure we will get all of that and then some. Remember, they rushed just to get this site up in time for the draft.
Hot Linking really sucks.
Serving up images for folks off your own site is an easy fix. It can suck alot of your BW monthly.
Not a fan of doing this as BP suggests. Its really frowned upon.
I actually use the space I am provided...and I also have other peoples sig lines (and in the past avatars) on my own space.
However it was done by many before because it was either find your own web space to link from, ask someone to do it for you, or link from another page.
Today many can get a photobucket account and store their images there and link from that site.
In the long run IMO it is better to have avatar or sigline images that are NOT stored on the host site (this site).


text:
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Phase 1 of a growing Land Assembly in the Joyce-Collingwood area. Just blocks away from skytrain & amenities such as schools, parks, shopping & much more. Land is scarce in Vancouver & here is an investors dream to lock up prime real estate that already has all the infrastructure in place. A 2018 forecast states that just 11,064 units will be available to purchase. There are estimates of 50,000 people moving to Vancouver each year & the math just doesn't add up. The only answer is to build more units adding higher density & generate the best use of land. This is a perfect opportunity for an investor/developer who has a vision & can see where Vancouver's future housing market is heading in the years to come.
Taxes (2017): $4,302.58


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text:
So long...and hello again
It's with a heavy heart and a deep breath that I rejoin my blog after more than 18 months. As you may have guessed, things got a bit crazy when L. (and all of my possessions) moved to San Francisco. We were forced to shut Loosecubes down in November after building an amazing team and wonderful community. I've learned quite a bit over the last while to share with you. It's been almost 2 months, a hurricane, a wedding, and a restorative trip to Africa since the shut down. I'm finally ready to be back.
So many people made this journey possible and I'd like to say thanks to a few. I wouldn't be worth a dime without Anna Thomas' relentless positive energy, magical foresight, and organizational skills. To Pete, Yanda, Sep, Luke, James, and Lisa, thank you for encouraging me and for teaching me the ins and outs of this crazy industry. To Brian, Theresia and all of our wonderful angels who took a chance on me in the beginning when very few people even knew what coworking was – thank you. It's been an exciting, exhausting, hilarious, wild ride.
Most of all, thank you to Team Loosecubes who worked day in and day out to bring our community a product they could be proud of and a service they could rely on. You made me laugh every day – from nerf gun target practice, to fireside chats at SXSW, lunches at Foragers and pop up Loosecubes around the city, talking to TV crews (or programming for them), maintaining a positive attitude and bringing your all every day to work. You guys are the real deal and I've never before worked with such a talented yet humble group of people. I will be forever indebted to you for all that you have taught me.
And last but not least, to L., my partner behind the scenes, my advisor, my confidante, and the love of my life. Thank you for keeping me sane and for always reminding me to stay close to my center. Here's to the next chapter. Tomorrow is a new day – let's make it count.


text:
Stay Puft Marshmallow Man
|The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man
Stay Puft Marshmallow Man destroying New York in Ghostbusters (1984).
|First appearance
|Ghostbusters (1984)
|Last appearance
|Ghostbusters (2016)
|Created by
|Dan Aykroyd
(original concept)
Bill Bryan
|Portrayed by
|Bill Bryan
(suit actor)
|Voiced by
|John Stocker
Frank Welker
The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is a fictional character from the Ghostbusters franchise, which sometimes appears as a giant, lumbering paranormal monster. It is the main antagonist in the film Ghostbusters (1984) and first appears as a picture logo on a prop package of marshmallows in Dana Barrett's apartment, on a graffiti advertisement on the building next to the Ghostbusters' HQ, and then in the climax of the film as the physical manifestation of the Sumerian deity Gozer. Subsequently, it has been incorporated into many other Ghostbusters media, including the animated series The Real Ghostbusters, comic books, a stage show, and video games.
In the Ghostbusters universe, it is the mascot of the fictional Stay Puft Marshmallow Corporation, much like Michelin's Bibendum (also known as the "Michelin Man") and the Pillsbury Doughboy (both of which it resembles). Within that universe, it is also the subject of a Marshmallow Man cartoon series.[1]
Appearance and character[edit]
Stay Puft is a large white humanoid figure made of conjoined marshmallows. He wears a white sailor cap with a red ribbon attached on top, and a blue hatband. Around his neck is a blue traditional sailor's collar and a red neckerchief.
After images of him are seen on a billboard and a bag of the marshmallows earlier in the film, he is then seen in the climax of Ghostbusters as one of two physical bodies of Gozer, a god who is defeated when Stay Puft is destroyed. Stay Puft's exact to-scale height in the movie is 112.5 feet (34.3 m) tall,[2] while his height in the novelization of the movie is given at 100 feet (30.5 m).
He is then recreated and subsequently captured a number of different times by the Ghostbusters. Although mean and destructive at first, he later befriends Slimer and the Ghostbusters in the animated series The Real Ghostbusters, and helps them out with various problems.
Concept and debut[edit]
Dan Aykroyd conceived of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man for his initial script for Ghostbusters the movie. He created the character to show that "it seems harmless and puffy and cute—but given the right circumstances, everything can be turned black and become evil".[3][4] Stay Puft was only one of many large-scale monsters in this early draft of the script, but after Aykroyd worked with co-writer Harold Ramis and director Ivan Reitman, the team scaled back the intended sequence until only Stay Puft remained out of the original large-scale monsters.
The likeness of Stay Puft was inspired by Peter O'Boyle, a security guard at Columbia Pictures whom Reitman met while filming his previous movie, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983). According to Sam Delaney of The Guardian, "Stay Puft's familiar mascot combined elements of real-life brand ambassadors the Pillsbury Doughboy and Bibendum (a.k.a. the Michelin Tire Man)."[5]
Stay Puft is seen only briefly in the movie. He is "conjured up"[6] as a new form for the Sumerian god Gozer, who previously arrives atop an apartment building at 55 Central Park West in New York City in the form of an androgynous woman with metallic skin and eyes. After a quick battle with the Ghostbusters she vanishes, and then as a disembodied voice Gozer tells the Ghostbusters that the next thing they think of will be the form it will assume to destroy their world. Ray Stantz (Aykroyd) instead makes the decision to think of this marshmallow mascot when the Ghostbusters are given a choice as to which physical form Gozer will conquer the world in.
As he explains, "It just popped in there", and that he "tried to think of the most harmless thing", describing Mr. Stay Puft as "something that could never possibly destroy us". Moments later, a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is seen walking towards the apartment building. The Ghostbusters shoot at Stay Puft with their proton packs, setting him on fire, but do not succeed in stopping his advance. They then get the idea of shooting at the portal through which the god emerged, by crossing the streams of all four of their packs. The plan triggers an explosion that destroys the gate and Stay Puft, reducing the latter into molten marshmallow cream that rains down onto the roof of the skyscraper and bystanders on the street below.
Special effects[edit]
The character as seen in the movie was created by Linda Frobos[7] by using miniatures and optical compositing with Billy Bryan himself in a latex suit.[8] The suit was made of two layers, an outer flammable layer and inner fire-proof layer.[9] Some of the finished movie's most noticeable errors appear in the Stay Puft scenes: he is seen with and without his bow tie, while in other scenes the optical rendering was so poor that he passes through a church rather than crushing it.[10]
- In Activision's Ghostbusters (1984), designed by David Crane, small ghosts terrorize the city and gather together in front of the "Zuul Building" and occasionally other locations, where after enough of them have collected they would form the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, who could destroy some of the nearby buildings. After enough ghosts have entered the Zuul Building, the player could then go to it and find Stay Puft moving back and forth blocking the entrance. If the player could pass him without being squashed, the player would then climb the stairs and either win the game or find the final boss Gozer at the top of the building, in the form of a woman. On the NES version, Stay Puft is seen again from the roof on a screen just, below the final boss. He is climbing the building and acts as a counter: if he reaches the top of the building the game ends.[11]
- In Ghostbusters (1990)[12] for the Sega Genesis, "Stay Puft" appears outside a highrise building punching inward as the player progresses through the level and then appears as a boss at the top of the building, but is not related to Gozer. Here he claims to have eaten too many marshmallows, then realizing he had become the Marshmallow Man. In addition to trying to punch the player from the left and right sides of the screen, he also uses special powers such as breathing fire and shooting laser bolts from his eyes.[13]
- In TT Games' Lego Dimensions, he is a playable character in the game, with archive audio from the first film for his dialogue. He comes in his own Fun Pack, with a terror dog as his personal vehicle. He is also a boss in the Ghostbusters Level Pack and the Answer the Call Story Pack in brick built form.
Stage productions[edit]
- In the Ghostbusters Spooktacular stage show (1990-1996) at Universal Studios, Florida, the ending battle with Stay Puft has the Ghostbusters destroying him directly, rather than firing at the portal to close the dimensional gateway.[14]
Post-movie appearances[edit]
Following the original film, the television series The Real Ghostbusters brought Stay Puft back; in fact Joe Medjuck, the executive producer of the show, states that Stay Puft was in the first script they received from Dan Aykroyd on the series.[15] In the episode titled, "Mr. Sandman, Dream Me a Dream", a spectral Sandman creates versions of anything which a person is dreaming of – in this way a new version of Stay Puft is created – however, whatever is created disappears when the person awakens. In the episode "Dedcon 1", Stay Puft appears as a guest of honor at a ghost convention. After another episode, "Cry Uncle", he is accidentally freed from the Ghostbusters' containment system and later recaptured. He reappears in episode 65, "The Revenge of Murray the Mantis", where he is "released" from the Ghostbusters' containment unit to help defeat a giant mantis too powerful for the Ghostbusters to fight on their own. Stay Puft is controlled with the help of Slimer (a green blob-like creature). After defeating the Mantis, Stay Puft floats behind the Ghostbusters in a parade. He later helps them again in the episode "Sticky Business" number 85, when the president of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Company asks the Ghostbusters if he can use their large Stay Puft in a television commercial. Once again Slimer goes into the containment unit to bring Stay Puft out. An episode[which?] explains that Egon took a sample of the marshmallow ectoplasm and positively charged it, thus creating a friendly version of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man that would assist the Ghostbusters when needed. When questioned by a policeman in the series about the abrupt personality change, Peter replied that Stay Puft was "all better now". The character was voiced by John Stocker, and later by Frank Welker in this series.
Set two years after the events in the film Ghostbusters II (1989), the Atari game Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009) brings back the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man to ravage Times Square while searching for Dr. Ilyssa Selwyn. Stay-Puft has the ability to spawn tiny marshmallow monsters which do his bidding. Peter, Ray, and a new rookie escort Dr. Selwyn to the roof of a tall building. In pursuit, Stay Puft climbs the side of the building while Egon at street level preparing a large trap. The rookie burns Stay Puft's face with "Boson Darts" from an upgraded proton pack, causing Stay Puft to fall to street level, where he exploded upon impact, scattering his marshmallow body all over Times Square and his hat, which hangs from one of the neighboring buildings. Towards the game's climax, the characters realize that Gozer assumed the form of Stay Puft again because he can only have one destructor form for each dimension he enters; he was locked into the form of the Marshmallow Man when summoned back to the Earthly plane. This causes Ray to admit he had not selected such a bad destructor after all.[16] In the realistic version, the player can listen to one of the in-game answering machine messages from an upset member of the fictional company that owns the Stay Puft Marshmallow brand (voiced by Chuck Huber), who is unhappy with the recent Gozer/Stay Puft attack believing it was a publicity stunt by the Ghostbusters. A Stay Puft Figurine appears as one of the collectible paranormal objects found in the game; it is found in the kitchen area of the Sedgewick Hotel and, after being collected, will appear in the Ghostbuster Firehouse's bunkhouse.
Along with the original 1986 Kenner line of Ghostbusters toys,[17] Stay Puft has been included in:
- McDonald's Happy Meals[18]
- Specialized monster kits such as those by Tsukuda, who made models of both Stay Puft and the Terror Dog from the first movie.
- In 2009, Diamond Select Toys released Stay Puft in 2-inch Minimates mini-figure form[19] as well as 11-inch vinyl bank form.[20] The bank received an angry version at Comic-Con that same year, and glow-in-the-dark versions of both were released in 2010.[21]
- In 2010, and then (redesigned) in 2012, the Stay Puft Quality brand of gourmet marshmallows were released as official Ghostbusters merchandise with packaging prominently featuring the title character.[22]
- Stay Puft was not present in Mattel's 2009 Ghostbusters toy line,[23] however, Mattel released him as an exclusive collectable for San Diego Comic-Con 2011 and on MattyCollector.com after the show. This was the biggest version of Stay Puft to date; he was 20 inches tall, and covered in a soft foam covering.[24]
- In 2011, Rubie's Costume Co. released an inflatable Stay-Puft Halloween costume as a companion piece for the Ghostbusters jumpsuit costumes they had previously created.[25]
- In July 2011, Diamond Select Toys (DST) released a seven-inch light-up statue version of Stay Puft.[26]
- Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is playable in Lego Dimensions. He was released in a fun pack with a Terror Dog vehicle/gadget on March 15, 2016.
- Several POP! Vinyl figures of Stay Puft Marshmallow Man were released by Funko.
- In June 2016, Build-A-Bear Workshop released a stuffed version of Stay Puft Marshmallow Man as a part of their 2016 Ghostbusters collection.[27]
- Circa 2017, Playmobil created a version apparently similar to the 1980s "The Real Ghostbusters" action figure version.
- ^ "Episode 90: Interview with the executive producer of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, Brendon Goss, where he talks about the game and the "Stay Puft Marshmallow Man" cartoon within the Ghostbusters Universe". Gameweasel.com.
- ^ "– In the 15th Anniversary EditionGhostbusters DVD interview with the SFX team, Mark Stetson (the model shop supervisor for the film) states that the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is exactly one hundred and twelve and a half feet tall". Theraffon.net. Retrieved 2012-06-09.
- ^ Goldberg, Jonah (February 3, 2003). "Incredible, Unstoppable Titan of Terror!". National Review. Retrieved August 13, 2007.
- ^ Akroyd, Dan. "Commentary". Ghostbusters: Special Edition DVD.
- ^ Delaney, Sam (July 26, 2007). "Brand designs". The Guardian. London. Retrieved August 13, 2007.
- ^ Richard Mueller, author of "Ghostbusters, The Supernatural; Spectacular, page 240, Tor Edition
- ^ "Linda Frobos". IMDb. Retrieved 2019-06-14.
- ^ Vince Lambolito (3 February 2003). "Our Top 20 FX Suits!". Cardboard Monocle. Archived from the original on 16 July 2007. Retrieved 13 August 2007.
- ^ Hutchison, David (October 1984). "The Haunting Special Effects of Ghostbusters". Starlog (87).
- ^ "Commentary". Ghostbusters DVD (15th Anniversary ed.). Italic or bold markup not allowed in:
- ^ Sandler, Corey & Badgett, Tom. Chapter 5: NES Golden Oldies (Ghostbusters section). Ultimate Unauthorized Nintendo Strategies, Volume 2.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
- ^ Sega Genesis. Ghostbusters. Sega. ASIN B000035XJB.
- ^ DeMaria, Rusel & Meston, Zach. Chapter 5, Ghostbusters (High-Rise Building section). Sega Genesis Secrets, Volume 2.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
- ^ "Video archive footage of "Ghostbusters Spooktacular" stage show". Theuniversalevolution.com. 1992-03-12. Retrieved 2012-06-09.
- ^ The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection (Interview). Fairfax, Virginia: Direct Holdings Americas, CPT Holdings. 2008. 80083-Z.
- ^ Ghostbusters: The Video Game Official Guide Book (Prima Games, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC version ed.).
- ^ "History of Kenner toys in a year by year description of toy series". Web.archive.org. 9 March 2005. Archived from the original on 9 March 2005. Retrieved 9 June 2012.
- ^ Losonsky, Terry and Joyce. McDonald's Happy Meal Toys in the U.S.A.
- ^ Chuck Terceira (16 October 2009). "Your Ghostbuster Minimate Collection Isn't Complete Without…". ArtAsylum.com. Archived from the original on 22 October 2009. Retrieved 16 October 2009.
- ^ Chuck Terceira (15 September 2009). "Stay Puft is So Misunderstood!". ArtAsylum.com. Archived from the original on 17 September 2009. Retrieved 15 September 2009.
- ^ Chuck Terceira (31 July 2010). "Aww, Stay Puft is so cuuuuuuute….wha the? OMG! He's on FIRE!". ArtAsylum.com. Archived from the original on 5 May 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2010.
- ^ "Stay Puft Marshmallows Website". staypuftmarshmallows.com.
- ^ "Mattel Set to Launch Collectible Line for Classic Comedy Blockbuster "Ghostbusters" - Mattel". ToyNewsI.com. Retrieved 2012-06-09.
- ^ Joe Moore (18 July 2011). "Full List Of All Mattel San Diego Comic-Con 2011 Exclusives". ToyArk.com. Retrieved 18 July 2011.
- ^ "Rubie's Costume Co. Page for SPMM Costume". Archived from the original on 26 May 2012. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ Julius Marx (18 July 2011). "Ghostbusters Stay-Puft Statue Coming in July; Statue of Liberty in October". Action Figure Insider.com. Retrieved 18 July 2011.
- ^ "Ghostbuster's Stay Puft Marshmallow Man". Archived from the original on 1 September 2016. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
Further reading[edit]
- The Making of Ghostbusters, edited by Don Shay
- The Return of Mr. Stay Puft, by John Carnell
- The Encyclopedia of Monsters, by Jeff Rovin
- Animated series villains
- Fictional avatars
- Fictional brands
- Fictional characters introduced in 1984
- Fictional demons and devils
- Fictional food characters
- Fictional ghosts
- Fictional giants
- Fictional humanoids
- Fictional monsters
- Fictional shapeshifters
- Food advertising characters
- Ghostbusters characters
- Kaiju
- Marshmallows
- Metafictional characters


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Welcome to the IMIS
The Institute for Multimedia and Interactive Systems (IMIS) was founded on February 1, 1997. It is part of the Computer Science and Engineering section of the University of Luebeck.
The research staff and methods of the IMIS are strongly interdisciplinary. In addition to the foundations in computer and information sciences, the emphasis is on psychology, pedagogics, social sciences as well as design and art aspects of digital media.
Institute for Multimedia and Interactive Systems
University of Luebeck
Ratzeburger Allee 160, Bldg. 64
D-23562 Luebeck, Germany
Tel.: +49 451-3101 5101
Fax: +49 451-3101 5104
E-Mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Use the form on the right to contact us.
You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right.
8635 Callaghan Road
San Antonio, TX 78230
Welcome home! Destiny Church in San Antonio Texas is first and foremost a family on a mission to tell everyone we can about the good news of Jesus. Come and enjoy the warmth of genuine relationships and be inspired as we learn from the Bible.
Destiny Church is a nondenominational, multi-generational and multi-cultural church where everyone is welcome to experience the love of God and freedom we have in Jesus.


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|Harvard Library's Reading Room
|You can donate to help the Oxford Library digitise Shakespeare's plays
|Marwell Hall, once owned by King Henry VIII
|A view of where the secret airstrip was at Marwell Hall
|Rex Hoyes, far right
General Syed Ahmad El-Edroos, I soon discovered, was the Commander in Chief of the Hyderabad State Forces. General El-Edroos led the stand against India for the last Nizam of Hyderabad, in 1948 before Hyderabad surrendered to the Indian Army.
|Sidney Cotton loading the last flight out of Hyderabad
|Front cover of the photo-copied Memoirs of General El-Edroos
|A Halifax bomber
|The Lancaster Aircraft
I plan to tell this entire story in much more detail in the future when my research is completed. My great uncle was in the employ of the Nizam of Hyderabad as an Air Advisor during this period of 1947-1948. There was a plan formed for the Nizam's escape on the last plane out of Hyderabad, however, the story has been told that he missed the flight because he refused to leave without all of his jewels and riches and slowed down by the weight of the many jewels he insisted upon taking with him, the flight took off without the wealthiest man in the world. El-Edroos described in his memoirs an incident which occurred whilst he was attending a function in London with Lord Mountbatten who knew of his mission for arms and who 'winked at me.' It appears that although the British Government publicly disapproved of this secret activity, it may have privately turned a blind eye to the illegal aid given to Britain's war time ally, Hyderabad.
On a good though puzzling note, great uncle Rex appears to have bounced back from this setback, however, as he died in the 1980's under the illustrious title of Viscompte Fessenden C. R. Morey-Morley De Borenden. But that is also another story......


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Within the past few years, "worldview" has become a mainstream topic for discussion and application inside the evangelical Christian movement in the United States.
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Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.


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In Five Years, Not A Single Prisoner Convicted of An Illegal Act
WASHINGTON - Today on the the fifth anniversary of the first delivery of detainees to the U.S. detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (MD) pledged to scrutinize the administration's record on prisoner (detainee) treatment. Hoyer stressed that it was important for the U.S. to "abide by the democratic principles, including the rule of law and respect for basic human rights." Hoyer pointed out that in five years, only ten indictments have been secured and not a single prisoner has been found guilty of a crime. He also expressed concern about how prisoner abuse has "harmed our nation's credibility and reputation."
Hoyer's complete statement is printed below:
"Many Members of Congress originally supported the detention of terrorist suspects at Guantánamo, in accordance with our commitment to deter and bring to justice terrorists who seek to harm us. Indeed, it is our highest duty to ensure our national security, to protect our homeland and to defend our people. However, we also have a duty to abide by the democratic principles - including the rule of law and respect for basic human rights - upon which this great nation was founded.
"Grave questions about our treatment of detainees at Guantánamo have been raised repeatedly over the last five years. While the Administration has brought a handful of cases to trial and secured 10 indictments to date, not one single Guantánamo detainee has been convicted of any illegal act. Of the almost 400 detainees remaining in Guantánamo, Administration officials now say only 60 to 80 will be brought to trial, and the rest presumably held indefinitely.
"Making matters worse, reports of physical and mental prisoner abuse continue to emerge from the facility. These reports have been insufficiently investigated, in my view. And, such reports, when coupled with news of 'extraordinary renditions' and CIA secret prisons, have harmed our nation's credibility and reputation. This is unacceptable, and it is dangerous.
"As the world's leading advocate for democracy, the rule of law and respect for basic human rights, the United States must demonstrate an unflinching willingness to scrutinize our own conduct - however painful that may be. In the 110th Congress, the new Democratic Majority has every intention of conducting vigorous oversight on these issues and getting answers on the Administration's detention practices. The Administration has said it hopes to close the facility at Guantánamo, an objective that I share. I encourage the international community to cooperate in repatriating detainees, so that the Administration's objective can be obtained."


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We look forward to seeing you this weekend at our Sunday morning service at 10:30 AM! Being a part of a church is like being a part of a family, and we would love for you to come visit ours!
Back to All Events
Earlier Event: September 23Youth Group
Later Event: September 27Alpha


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In Which We Upgrade And Or Totally Ruin Your Next Social Gathering
Black Swan: The Party Game
by MOLLY LAMBERT with contributions from TESS LYNCH and SARAH JOHNSON
In case you haven't seen Black Swan, reading this reveals and ruin nothing. The party game is simple; all things can be paired up and divided into white swans and black swans. White swans have technique but black swans have essential style. The white swan is the brain, the black swan is the crotch. Not every facemash splits this way but it sure wasn't hard to come up with like a billion of these in ten minutes with friends.
As with Fuck Marry Kill, the thing about this game is that it becomes dangerous as soon as you start directing it to people's personal black swans, which inevitably always happens. Drunk people have a tendency to be more honest than they really intended to. As soon as you start talking about people in the room at the party you are fucked.
But aren't all parlor games kind of dangerous/purposely meant to encourage relational transgressions? Isn't that also why people drink? God knows spin the bottle is built for destruction. It's easy to be the black swan that pushes other people into playing. Who wants to go to a party where nothing happens? What, you never rolled before?
White Swan/Black Swan
Madonna/Debbie Harry
Debbie Harry/Chrissie Hynde
Diana Ross/Donna Summer
Michael Jackson/Prince
Prince/Rick James
Luke Skywalker/Han Solo
Judd Apatow/Adam Sandler
Jackie O/Marilyn Monroe
Seth Rogen/Jason Segel
Jonah Hill/Danny McBride
Elvis/Little Richard (original black swan queen)
Joe Strummer/Joey Ramone
Belinda Carlisle/Cyndi Lauper
Emmylou Harris/Linda Ronstadt
Rachel Weisz/Marion Cotillard
George Clooney/Jon Hamm
the 60s/the 70s
Thomas Pynchon/Kurt Vonnegut
Steven Spielberg/Joe Dante
Joni Mitchell/Carly Simon
American Idol/X Factor
Debbie Gibson/Tiffany
Lily Allen/Katy Perry
Drake/Lil Wayne
Taylor Swift/Miley Cyrus
Selena Gomez/Demi Lovato
Gwyneth Paltrow/Winona Ryder
Blair Waldorf/Serena van der Woodsen
Jack Kerouac/Neal Cassady
John Mayer (musician)/John Mayer (celebrity)
Adam Trask/Charles Trask
Kathleen Hanna/Courtney Love
David Bowie/Iggy Pop
John Cale/Lou Reed
black and white/color
Dakota Fanning/Taylor Momsen
David Byrne/Bryan Ferry
Philip Glass/Brian Eno
Sean Penn/Robert Downey Jr.
Brad Pitt/Johnny Depp
Oprah/Martha Stewart
The OC/Gossip Girl
Elton John/Jeff Lynne
TRL Xtina/TRL Britney
TRL Britney/Pink Wig Britney
Fat Joe/Big Pun
Green Day/Blink 182
David Foster Wallace/Jonathan Franzen
Bernard Malamud/Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow/Philip Roth
John Cheever/John Updike
Steve Martin/Chevy Chase
Dan Ackroyd/Bill Murray
Bill Murray/Andy Kaufman
Lindsey Buckingham/Don Henley
Robert Redford/Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty/Jack Nicholson
Gregory Peck/Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando/James Dean
The Graduate/Carnal Knowledge
Pacino/De Niro
John Malkovich/Christopher Walken
Emilio Estevez/Charlie Sheen
Meryl Streep/Susan Sarandon
Angela Chase/Rayanne Graff
Townes Van Zandt/John Prine
Godfather/Godfather II
Freaks And Geeks/Undeclared
Loudon Wainwright III/Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon/Tom Petty
Harry Nilsson/Randy Newman
Eric Clapton/George Harrison
Tyra Banks/Naomi Campbell
the 90s/the 00s
Harvest/On The Beach
Tina Fey/Amy Poehler
Leonardo DiCaprio/Matt Damon
Matt Damon/Ben Affleck
Priscilla Presley/Ann Margaret
Betty Draper/whoever Don Draper is banging
Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn
David Gordon Green/Jody Hill
David O. Russell/Paul Thomas Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson/Coen Brothers
Christopher Nolan/Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky/David Fincher
Madonna/Young Madonna
Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She is a writer living in Los Angeles. She tumbls here and twitters here.
"The Passenger" - Iggy Pop (mp3)
"China Girl" - David Bowie (mp3)
"Under Pressure" - Queen ft. David Bowie (mp3)