#3 – Cheap Drugs That Don’t Kill People
We really don’t want to put on a hemp sweater, wear patchouli cologne or live on a organic farm, but let’s be serious for a minute about drugs in the US.
There are MANY types of medicinal herbs that are illegal in the US that have amazingly great uses that they shouldn’t be ignored. However the government has decided to make as many as illegal as possible.
The number one of course is marijuana.
Naturally occurring, extraordinarily easy to grow marijuana can replace over 150 various prescription drugs.
We could post the whole list here, but the two BIGGEST things ailments that this weed can treat are : Autism and Migraines
Yes, autism can be treated with good ‘ol pot. Maybe Cheech and Chong were on to something, but more and more reports are coming in about the amazing effects of treating severe autism cases with this naturally occurring weed. Take for instance one a well known autism advocate, Mieko Hester-Perez. Her child was near death from severe autism. At age 10, her son was down to a mere 46 pounds. She had tried every single prescription drug that was available, at a extreme financial cost. Then she tried something radical – marijuana.
She started to feed her child small doses of marijuana in things like cookies and brownies. Suddenly her severely autistic child started to act normal. Something that no drug on the market (or in trial for that matter) could do. He started to gain weight and started to show amazing intellect. Free of tics and other things that would normally scar a child afflicted with autism. After a while, her ‘dealer’ was arrested, and her supply of pot dried up. The child quickly went back to severe ticks, becoming completely uncontrollable. The severe proof was there – A few milligrams of pot every 2 to 3 days did more than a bouquet of drugs multiple times per day.
In addition to marijuana, there are several other naturally organic plants that have medicinal value, that are also highly illegal. Some Psychedelic mushrooms can treat OCD and Cluster headaches. Coca extract is a extremely effective Topical Anesthetic as well as a laxative and also treats motion sickness.
To further prove a point about the absurdity of regulations against plants. Another case and point would be the FDA’s attempt to regulate walnuts.
Yes, that’s right, walnuts.
A company called Diamond recently ran a advertising campaign on the health benefits of walnuts. The FDA wasn’t too happy about this and decided that it wanted to regulate walnuts as a drug. If they would have went through with the plan, walnuts would have been highly regulated, requiring permits to sell and made it difficult to buy.
In the end, through massive public outrage, the FDA settled and did not regulate walnuts, instead settling for a massive lawsuit against Diamond which resulted in them being unable to say that “Walnuts are healthy”.
So, why are naturally occurring weeds that could improve life for many people at phenomenally cheap prices illegal? We don’t know, but they are.
#2 – Converting nuclear waste to energy
One of the most regular arguments I see by individuals who hate nuclear energy is “What do we do with the waste!” Common knowledge seems to dictate that all nuclear reactors generate mountains of highly radioactive waste each year, all of which is impossible to deal with and will be toxic for tens of thousands of years.
The thing about this statement is if you truly think about the problem, you’d likely come to a different conclusion than the standard ‘common knowledge’ about nuclear power. If nuclear power plants use enriched, highly radioactive nuclear fuel to make energy, then why is the nuclear waste which is still radioactive not used?
Well, the answer is pretty simple – In the US it’s actually illegal to do anything with nuclear waste other than to bury it. (Thanks Jimmy Carter).
Outside of the US, it isn’t true. France has repeatedly asked for the US to sell them our nuclear fuel. Yes, that’s right, the fuel we’re literally spending billions of dollars on to bury in the ground could be sold to another country. France has much nicer, newer reactors as compared to what the US has, and many of their reactors can use lower quality fuel (The stuff our reactors put out as waste). This results in extraordinarily minimal waste in the nuclear process.
To take it a step further, a company in the US called TerraPower is building something called a traveling-wave reactor. This kind of reactor not only would burn virtually all radioactive waste and convert it to electricity, but it also can take completely un-enriched uranium and plutonium and convert it to power. A truly mindblowing technology when they complete their project. As a side note, Bill Gates is one of their biggest investors as he feels it could supply poor countries with extraordinarily cheap, clean electricity.
There’s just one problem with the wave reactor too. It’s illegal in the US because it could burn the waste too!
#1 – Carbon Nanotubes
Out of all these technologies listed, none would impact every single human being. Not everyone drives a car, not everyone uses wifi and not every person needs access to pot.
CNTs , or Carbon Nano Tubes would radically alter the life of every human being on earth.
What are carbon nano-tubes? They are exactly what the name suggests – Small tubes made of carbon. These little things have a amazingly long laundry list of feats. They can produce batteries that almost never run out, body armor that would never break, real life powered armor (like the kind Ripley used in Aliens) and ships that could never sink. Car bodies that can not be damaged from wrecks, clothes that never wear out and buildings that can be built to any height.
In the forefront of the uses though is the immense ability of CNTs to be utilized to produce batteries. In some early testing, batteries produced by CNTs are so energy dense, that a small 1 cubic foot block battery would store enough energy for a car to drive over TWO THOUSAND MILES on a single charge (Source #1, Source #2, Source #3). On top of that, the batteries can be charged near instantly, taking as much power as can be provided to the batteries.
CNTs would make any renewable technology like wind or solar instantly viable as energy storage is one of the largest hurdles with such technologies.
Sadly, the viability window for CNTs is already 10 to 20 years away. They can be produced, but are immensely expensive (About 20 million dollars for a vehicle battery). However costs every few years decrease by half. In the early 90s, such a battery would have cost nearly 1 billion dollars.
Now, with carbon nano tubes on the horizon, our own EPA is worried that there’s a chance that they could cause cancer (Source #2).
So, before anyone has heard of this world-altering technology, the government is already researching ways that they could make it illegal. Some government bureaucrats want to put it in the same risk category as PCBs and asbestos!
In the end, we’re not against all governmental regulation. We do however feel that the limitations are becoming increasingly absurd and is stifling human growth. To add to this, the United States isn’t the only country who is actively regulating ground breaking technologies or making obscure laws. Recently the EU stated that it is illegal to claim that water can cure dehydration. They have also effectively outlawed incandescent lighting, and the facebook “Like” button.