An Interesting Experiment

We read about a new program in Missouri...

Inmate numbers are down in Missouri

FARMINGTON — The supervision center is across a narrow road from the double fence and looping razor wire of a state prison. Out the back door, a garden sprouts with cantaloupe, zucchini and watermelon.
All of the center's residents are on probation or parole, and most have violated the terms that gave them freedom. They could have been ordered behind the razor wire, but the state is giving them a supervised second chance and in the process reducing the state's inmate population. One thing they do is tend the garden.
"I enjoy helping the plants grow," said Michael Goesmann. "It gives me peace."
He could use it. Goesmann, 54, served 15 months for a drug offense and said he'd been an addict for years. He was released from the prison in St. Joseph, Mo., in March and wasn't ready for the outside world.
On Tuesday, he was one of 23 men and five women assigned to the Farmington Community Supervision Center, which opened in January 2006 — the first of two such centers in Missouri. The state plans to open five more in hopes of keeping stumbling offenders away from prison's revolving door.

I have no feelings towards this, one way or another. It's an interesting experiment. We'll have to keep our eye on this one and see if it works. If it has a significant success rate, I have no problems in it, since it will save money, reduce prison size, and reduce recidivism rates. If it fails, cut it.

But it's interesting, and we should give it a chance.

Read teh rest of the article.

Cigarettes Cure Cancer!

Well not quite, but still interesting...

Tobacco may help fight cervical cancer

OWENSBORO, Ky. — Inside a small, temperature-controlled room in the heart of tobacco country, researchers are doing work that could give a life-saving purpose to a plant best known for causing cancer.
The aim of the work is to coax from tobacco plants a drug that could be used to prevent cervical cancer in India, where four times as many women get the disease and eight times as many die of it as in the United States.
The vaccine would be somewhat similar to Merck & Co.'s Gardasil, approved by the U.S. government last year to prevent strains of a sexually transmitted disease that causes most cervical cancer. In fact, the same University of Louisville researchers who helped invent Gardasil, Dr. A. Bennett Jenson and Shin-je Ghim, are also working on this new vaccine.
One big difference between the two vaccines is cost.
The tobacco-based vaccine still in the works would cost an estimated $3 for three doses, compared with $360 for three doses of Gardasil. This would make it affordable for developing countries like India, where the disease is the most common malignancy among women.

While I forget the name of the theory, there's a scientific tenet that states that harmful products can actually be good for you in small doses. (For example: a glass of red wine is great for the heart, but too much liquor can damage the heart however.)

If this succeeds, it would be a god send for India. No one over there can afford 120 bucks a dose, but a dollar a dose has the potential to save a lot of lives.

You know, I can hear the anti-smoking lobby going insane over this already.