Random reply to a very good suggestion: Sorry, Paul. Ate too many veggie burgers at a climate change meeting. Maybe tomorrow?
Ho Ho Ho. Very funny, NOT! Don’t be a twat.
Paul,
Are the drug busts just random occurrences, police quotas for the end of the year, or is there some kind of turf war going on between various factions?
[quote=“almas john”]Paul,
Are the drug busts just random occurrences, police quotas for the end of the year, or is there some kind of turf war going on between various factions?[/quote]
Taichung is always a gangsta paradise. If you are growing/ selling drugs in the chungle, and don’t have permission from certain very nasty cnuts then you are better off in prison, cos the other option is usually death. When I first heard about it I was all like ‘no way’ then I was like ‘NO WAY!’ and then I was like ‘way.’
Chaon says that you used to. When did you quit?
Nice one Armistice_Jean.
Just like most every others on this site.
Paul,
Almost the season of giving. Give some Love. Wishing you could take some time out. No need to be stressed. How about Having a nice long 3 week Christmas vacation.
Watching too many gansta movies I think. We are talking about a very small fish peddling wee amounts of herb to friends and aquaintances. (Mostly foreigners as well I assume)
Aside from being given up by somebody, perhaps another reason many of these folks get pinched is due to their lack of discretion. Wanna live the glamorous life.
[quote=“Taiwanpaul”]I am very upset that Steve has been grassed up. [/quote]What does this mean exactly? You know Steve? You’re upset that he’s been unfairly accused of dealing marijuana? Are you saying that it’s a case of mistaken identity? Or you know Steve and you’re angry with him for dealing marijuana and getting involved in something like this in Taiwan? Translation, please.
[quote=“Taiwanpaul”]it’s (not Canadians) some SA wankers near Taichung.[/quote]Steve isn’t a Canadian dealing marijuana, he’s a South African drug dealer that got caught? What’s a wanker? Is it a racist epithet for people from South Africa? Translation, please.
[quote=“Taiwanpaul”]Which in my experience is about 80% of the foreigners here.[/quote]Here where? Taichung or Taiwan as a whole? How did you do your statistical anaylsis to reach 80%? What’s the margin of error for your statistical anaylsis? Is it represented by an absolute quanity or a relative quantity? More, please.
[quote=“Taiwanpaul”]I know for a FACT that most of the posters buy smoke here. Including most of the Moderators![/quote]I will assume that “smoke” means marijuana. How did you come to these facts? Do you have sworn affidavits from “most” of the posters and moderators? How many total members does Forumosa have? What number exactly is considered to be “most”. Is it a percentage of the total or just a ballpark figure? Can you present your evidence of the “fact”?
[quote=“Taiwanpaul”]BTW, as a public announcement, YOU GRASS, YOU ARE IN DANGER![/quote]I have absolutely no idea what this is supposed to mean. If you smoke or deal marijuana in Taiwan, there is a danger to getting caught, receiving the death penalty or a long prison sentence? Translation, please.
Sorry for all the questions. I really do want to know what you are trying to say here. However, I don’t fall into your “most” category and therefore do not understand anything in your posting. 
[quote]Taiwanpaul wrote:
I am very upset that Steve has been grassed up.[/quote]
Taiwanpaul,
I understand that you are very upset. Gossip, misinformation, and miscommunication spread like wildfire here in Taiwan. As a forumosa poster, I am also to blame for jumping to conclusions.
Valid information and genuine concerns can be addressed through a non-hostile manner. Expressing your opinion is more than welcome. Clarification is needed.
Somebody might take the time to listen to your concerns and help you out.
[quote=“GRC22”][quote]Taiwanpaul wrote:
I am very upset that Steve has been grassed up.[/quote]
Taiwanpaul,
I understand that you are very upset. Gossip, misinformation, and miscommunication spread like wildfire here in Taiwan. As a forumosa poster, I am also to blame for jumping to conclusions.
Valid information and genuine concerns can be addressed through a non-hostile manner. Expressing your opinion is more than welcome. Clarification is needed.
Somebody might take the time to listen to your concerns and help you out.[/quote]
Yes Paul, valid information and genuine concern can be address in a non-hostile manner, you can do what GRC22 does from high atop his ivory tower.
write cute little poetry, having a laugh at other people’s misfortune, and then take the high road when someone else gets upset:
[quote=“GRC22”]You put your left hand in
You take your left hand out
You put your left hand in
And you shake it all about
You do the ice hockey cokey
And you turn yourself around
That’s what it’s all about…
…Canook…Canoooook…
I want to see all the drug dealers doing it this time, otherwise I’m going to go into a f@#kin flying fit of F%*ken rage and punch you in the mouth with my fist.
Everybody now, take 57
You put your …[/quote]
The poem is from the thread: viewtopic.php?f=110&t=83845 Drug busting cop game
It’s at the expense of the drug dealers.
different threads, different viewpoints?
I for one find all the recent foreigner drug busts highly entertaining. Today I bought the China Post and, on the MRT, traced my index finger along the headline, ‘Canadian man busted for Marijuana’ whilst simultaneously tut tut tutting, much to the approval of my fellow commuters.
What happens behind bars here? Can anyone read Tarot cards for ‘Steve’s’ asshole?
Keep up with the grassing! It makes for good reading.
[quote=“Taiwanpaul”]
BTW, as a public announcement, YOU GRASS, YOU ARE IN DANGER![/quote]
Exactly who is one meant to be in danger from?
If you smoke/sell it, then yes, you’re in danger, but I don’t think that’s what you meant.
Hm. New slang to me, but I guess I’m not like “most Forumosans”. I had assumed “to grass” meant to smoke marijuana, but it looks it means to tell the police officers about a crime.
In other words, we’ve all been warned that if we tell Taiwan’s finest about anything, then we are putting ourselves in danger. 
Don’t snitch, omerta (sp?), and all that.
Not that I would go to the police if I knew anything about what most Forumosans are apparently up to anyway, but I still find the message somewhat troubling.
I’m slowly translating Taiwanpaul’s literary piece of work. Here’s what I’ve got so far.
[color=#FF0000]to grass up[/color] - A phrasal verb which means to inform on someone to the police.
Origin
‘Grassing up’ has been a commonly used expression in the UK since the mid 20th century, but is less common elsewhere. The first known use of ‘grass’ in that context is Arthur Gardner’s Tinker’s Kitchen, 1932, which defined a grass as “an informer”. Grass was a well-enough established word in the 1980s to have spawned ‘supergrass’, i.e. a republican sympathiser who later ‘turned Queen’s evidence’ and informed on the IRA, and which gave the Brit-pop band Supergrass their name in the 1990s.
Informers are variously known as squealers, noses, moles, snouts and stool pigeons. These terms invoke imagery of covert snooping around and of talking. Grass is less intuitive. It could just have arisen from ‘snake in the grass’, which derives from the writings of Virgil (in Latin, as ‘latet anguis in herba’) and has been known in English, meaning traitor, since the late 17th century.
There is another route to the word and this is via rhyming slang. Farmer and Henley’s 1893 Dictionary of Slang defines ‘grasshopper’ as ‘copper’, i.e. policeman. The theory is that a ‘grass’ is someone who works for the police and so has become a surrogate ‘copper’. The rhyming slang link was certainly believed in 1950 by the lexicographer Paul Tempest, when he wrote Lag’s lexicon: a comprehensive dictionary and encyclopaedia of the English prison to-day:
“Grasser. One who gives information. A ‘squealer’ or ‘squeaker’. The origin derives from rhyming slang: grasshopper - copper; a ‘grass’ or ‘grasser’ tells the ‘copper’ or policeman.”
That comes only a few years after the term grass was coined and there seems little reason to doubt it as the derivation. The original users of the term ‘grass up’ were from the London underworld and would have certainly been better acquainted with rhyming slang than the works of Virgil.
Some have also theorised that the term ‘shop’, meaning ‘give information that leads to an arrest’, derives from the same source, i.e. that, as ‘grass’ derives from ‘grasshopper’, then so does ‘shopper’. The earliest known use of shop in that context dates from around the same time as the emergence of grasshopper. The issue of the magazine Tit-Bits for May, 1899 includes:
“[He] volunteered for a fiver to ‘shop’ his pals.”
Most of my posts here on forumosa seem to be related to the topic of drugs.
I will more than likely continue to post random remarks on this subject with regards to foreigners getting busted for their involvement in the drug cartel.
In my opinion:
Drug Dealers
Drug dealers deserve their human rights and be considered innocent until proven guilty. Drug dealing as a foreigner in Taiwan is a chosen career path. The opportunity to profit from drug dealing is made by an individual’s greed. The same individual should be able to distinguish between right and wrong. Sometimes, individuals get set up for a crime they did not commit. I am not a judge, but I do believe that convicted drug dealers deserve their plea bargain sentence and serve the time in a correctional facility. (Jail or some other form of outreach program).
Personal experience: A drug dealer took away the first true Love of my life. It was the drug dealer that destroyed an innocent life. The drug dealer had to do incredibly terrible acts in order to move up the power rankings for distribution rights. I show resentment towards convicted drug dealers, yet it stops at hating them. I probably will never visit a convicted drug dealer in a correctional facility, but applaud those individuals who show compassion towards the convicted drug dealer and see past their crime. To me, a drug dealer is in the top three worst types of criminals.
[quote]Taiwanpaul wrote:
BTW, as a public announcement, YOU GRASS, YOU ARE IN DANGER!
[/quote]
If this means: “You tell the cops about a known drug dealer, Your life is in danger due to the fact that the drug dealer is connected to the underground law” I will accept the warning. Given the opportunity/need: I probably will “rat” out the drug dealer and his/her associates.
Drug Users
I have empathy to those struggling to break the cycle of consistent drug use and abuse. I will endeavor to assist the individual in any way possible.
Personal experience: I have never voluntarily taken any form of illegal drug. I have been the victim of a spiked drink “date drug”. Fortunately, I was surrounded by friends who knew better and got me out of a potentially life altering experience.
[quote=“Deuce Dropper”][quote=“GRC22”][quote]Taiwanpaul wrote:
I am very upset that Steve has been grassed up.[/quote]
Taiwanpaul,
I understand that you are very upset. Gossip, misinformation, and miscommunication spread like wildfire here in Taiwan. As a forumosa poster, I am also to blame for jumping to conclusions.
Valid information and genuine concerns can be addressed through a non-hostile manner. Expressing your opinion is more than welcome. Clarification is needed.
Somebody might take the time to listen to your concerns and help you out.[/quote]
Yes Paul, valid information and genuine concern can be address in a non-hostile manner, you can do what GRC22 does from high atop his ivory tower.
write cute little poetry, having a laugh at other people’s misfortune, and then take the high road when someone else gets upset:
[quote=“GRC22”]You put your left hand in
You take your left hand out
You put your left hand in
And you shake it all about
You do the ice hockey cokey
And you turn yourself around
That’s what it’s all about…
…Canook…Canoooook…
I want to see all the drug dealers doing it this time, otherwise I’m going to go into a f@#kin flying fit of F%*ken rage and punch you in the mouth with my fist.
Everybody now, take 57
You put your …[/quote][/quote]
It is unfortunate that foreigners are being busted for drugs. I do see it as a very difficult situation for a foreigner to be in when facing drug trafficking crimes. I also find it amusing that as a minority group, a foreigner would be so naïve as to be involved in drug dealing in Taiwan. Both government and underground rules/laws are there to protect “their” people. In my opinion, it’s more than likely that the foreigner is going to be made an example of and be duly punished.
I will try and keep in mind, “innocent until proven guilty”.
I hope forumosa posters can add to a list of organizations that will inform/assist both drug dealers and drug users on the consequences of their actions whilst in Taiwan.
Nobody wants to read headlines in the Taiwan Post like this one:
Operation Hornet Stops Drug Dealing Ring: Expat Community Going Cold-Turkey for Thanksgiving (The headline is way too long: will never fit on the front page)
[quote=“Taiwanpaul”]No Jim, I have not been “partaking” of too much weed. How do you know I know nothing for a fact and I’m just trolling? Come on, how do you know that, eh?
Do you know what “libel” is? Also, I don’t give a shit if the moderators know who I am. Do you Jimbo?
OK, as Jim says, delete me![/quote]
You claim that 80% of foreginers in Taiwan are smoking pot. Back up your claims with facts… firstly you can name 80% of the foreign population in Taiwan now eh? Yes just a troll as far as I am concerned. Am I in danger now? Danger Will Robinson, danger.
I do not claim to know you why should I? I don’t need to. Maybe you have been partaking of not enough weed then… who knows?
Why delete you the Admin has cleary replied, he’s upset he aint getting his share… do you have a solution for him that won’t get him all grassed up? If as you claim 80% of foreigners are doing drugs then I’d say it’s about time the government here did something like drug testing all ARC applicants. Why Not? US companies perform drug tests on employees. I’d take a drug test, pull out your hair roots and all that stuff?
Anyways who cares about someone getting grassed up, dobbed in, ratted out, informed on for doing something illegal.
This is part and parcel of the trade.
Work done by local health bureaus in the testing of urine for drug abuse is supervised and assessed. Quality of the laboratory testing of urine for drug abuse conducted by hospitals for the health examination of foreign laborers is monitored and spot-checked. nbcd.gov.tw/home/english_ver … rent2.aspx
I agree, time to make it compulsory