Luggage found stuffed with 5,000 leeches | Hacker News Reader

Luggage found stuffed with 5,000 leeches

nationalgeographic.com

68 pointspidu8734 comments

What I don't get is why go to all the hassle and expense of smuggling them when they could be bred locally? Surely the raising and breeding of leeches isn't complicated?

It depends on the profit margins. If the labour in the destination country is significantly more expensive, harvesting/breeding somewhere else and transporting can make sense.

Maybe because the cost of travel and breeding expenses were lower compared to just doing the breeding in Canada.

Could also be the sales price which might be higher there than elsewhere.

I'm by no means an expert and it's just a guesstimate.

Possibly also regulation. I don't know how/if leech breeding is regulated but if it is I suspect it's a lot easier to hide one suitcase than a breeding operation.

I personally hate the things - was bitten under my knee once and it was itchy for three years - but they’re valuable enough to smuggle. Or “import” in this case. $50k worth of product in this case.

What are they used for ?

The article explains it. They are used for getting rid of pooled blood and are used for that purpose by legitimate hospitals and doctors. Obviously quack medicine is also trying to sell them as something to use to get rid of "bad blood" which is nonsense. But they do have legitimate medical uses.

Hey, balancing the humors is important for health! Don't believe 'mainstream medicine'!

You forgot the /s mate ;)

The difference between pest and pets is often but a /s

If your humours were better balanced you might have a better more balanced sense of humour.

if you have to explain a joke, you've ruined it.

You'd be surprised.

So is the legality of acquiring them in Canada a gray area? Seems like the guy is trying to fulfill (albeit crudely via smuggling) a market need.

He wasn't charged with smuggling - just with illegal importation(it's not the same, as silly as it seems). He didn't try to hide the leeches from the customs official, but he did declare them as for "personal use" which is nonsense at this quantity.

I understand that he would need to apply for a permit to import them first, which he didn't.

I saw an episode of the television show 'Victorian Pharmacy' where they explained the modern and historical medical uses of these creatures, and also demonstrated it live on some poor guy.

Apparently the ones used by hospitals are fed nothing for two whole years so that they are REALLY hangry when put to use. The leech vendor had a bucket of them and says he gets seven dollars apiece!

Lower the risk of rejection in face transplants for example.

Honestly I don't get how they deem the risk of infection acceptable, especially with leeches of unknown origin. They could carry a myriad or blood-born diseases. They are more than likely to have been used on ill humans before.

Are they thoroughly tested for all cases? I honestly doubt it. Just incinerate them and breed clean ones. And it's not like their anti-coagulant abilities are irreplaceable. Sure, they come in a convenient package but that's all.

That's a new one. "Leeches of Unknown Provenance."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_of_unknown_pedigree

That is just SOUPer!

That's a near-perfect parallel.

A heartwarming piece about how a police dog did it's duty and found something unexpected. Cute, right?

Let's not forget that drug-sniffing dogs are trained to give positive indicators. They don't sniff for drugs, they just give cops probable cause to search your luggage if they want to.

This piece doesn't have the typical copaganda headline, but it's copaganda for sure. Just saying.

>copaganda

Your points may be valid (immaterial to my comment), but you're not doing yourself any favors by using such words. It's a red flag for "ideologically-driven zealot".

Cops work is often refered to as duty or service, obviously inflated terms but no one would accuse you of being an ideological zealot for using them. Agenda seems neutral by comparison.

This is absurd. It's called duty and service because it falls under the category (and I'm being technical here) of a public service for which there are legally-assigned duties (e.g.: assistance to endangered persons).

Am I not supposed to be driven by ideology?

You're supposed to be reasonable. Phrases like "copaganda" suggest you're not.

I'm telling you this to help you be more convincing.

I disagree. The dogs would help reducing random searches or mass searching. So it increases privacy. As far as I know, the dogs can't sit randomly or can't count every tenth person to indicate.

The personnel in the airport have limited searching capability. So if dogs are sending some people, it reduces your probability of getting searched.

I'm not sure about that. I've seen that police dogs are capable of picking up the bias of the officer(s) they accompany or are trained by due to body language signals and training bias[0]. This can be worked against as the article points out, but the fact that it is a problem has me uncertain that I support their usage without widespread training and protocol that prevents this issue (instead of limited training). Because the personnel in the airport have limited searching capability that fact reduces your probability of being searched, the dogs then increase your probability of being searched if you are a victim of bias expressed by the officer and dog.

[0]: https://www.npr.org/2017/11/20/563889510/preventing-police-b...

This is true in principle, but the parent poster's point is that canine units are intentionally abused to legally justify searches that are otherwise unjustified.

Yeah it would - if they weren't effectively four legged probable cause generators which changes in incentives greatly. They sell the same comforting illusion as profiling - don't worry you won't be bothered by our secutity you are good people right?". That message should disturb any student of 20th century history.

Also privacy is one area that demonstrates Jevon's paradox but in reverse because you are the resource. Increasing expenses can be the best protection for privacy as it forces attackers to give up.

Well, for traffic stops they use drug dogs as probable cause to warrant a search.

I mean, it's not just my opinion https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/08/04/...

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/01/07/132738250...

Dogs are not complex animals, and they are rewarded for positive indications regardless of whether the person who is searched actually HAS drugs or not. Since you have a constitutional right not to have someone just point at you and say "Hey, lemme search your bag because I don't like your face", they are basically an excuse to search whoever the cops want.

> that drug-sniffing dogs are trained to give positive indicators

...in America.

Do you have any evidence this happens elsewhere?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com