Newest Republic
The BBC reports on the world’s newest republic: Nepal votes to abolish monarchy
The Himalayan nation of Nepal has become the world’s newest republic, ending 240 years of monarchy.
A constituent assembly meeting in the capital, Kathmandu, overwhelmingly voted to abolish royal rule.
The Maoists, the largest party after laying down arms and standing in last month’s elections, were committed to ousting King Gyanendra.
While it’s tough to lose a family business that has been chugging along for over two centuries, the fact that in 2001 Crown Prince Dipendra killed his parents and a half dozen other members of the royal family in a drunken rage, which resulted in Gyanendra having to take over a job he knew nothing about, did not bode well for the future.
6 comments
Cannabis prohibition ends in Nepal now.
I would start rolling prematurely, Michael, some Maoists are moralistic scolds as bad as the evangelicals.
That’s true, Bryan, but in Nepal the Maoists don’t interfere with cannabis growers. At least up to now. I’m sure the US government will be trying to bribe them soon, but in Nepal, cannabis is more powerful than any government.
http://cannabis.net/articles/nepal.html
Apparently opium was never grown in Nepal before 1973, which was when the Nixon administration bribed the government to prohibit cannabis.
Don’t look for any reality when it comes to drugs laws or enforcement. You would think that someone would actually do some purely practical financial analysis of the situation and come to so supportable conclusions, but this has enter the area of “morality” and there is rarely any commonsense associated with that swamp.