Basic HTML Version
Color Copiers
Threaten
Currency
A
dvanced color
photocopiers will be in
use in sufficient numbers in
the next two years to pose
a serious threat to U.S.
currency.
Already, U.S. currency is
the most counterfeited in
the world. Other
countries have redesigned
their currencies to meet a
similar problem.
Canada and England
reduced levels of
counterfeiting alter
Chile's Costly
Earthquakes
C
hile's March 3
earthquake, one of the
most intense in the nation's
history, also could well turn
out to be the most
converting from single-color
to multicolor notes,
according to Joseph
Sheldrick of Battelle
Columbus Laboratories,
which was commissioned
to study deterrents to
copier counterfeiting.
Last year in England a
new 20-pound note was
issued. A security thread
appears as a line of
silver dashes down the
front of the bill; when held
up to light it appears
continuous.
Last November, Japan
changed its currency,
already among the hardest
to counterfeit, by
introducing a special ink
expensive.
Original government
estimates of damages were
US$538 million. But later
the government trebled
the figures. The severe
quake caused damages
requiring replacement of
200,000 homes plus
damages to numerous
public buildings, schools,
hospitals, water and
sewage works, roads,
ports, transport and
telecommunications, power
supplies , mining and
agriculture.
Since 1900 Chile has
suffered 150 tremors of
6.5 or more on the Richter
scale (powerful enough to
do serious damage to
buildings and human
structures), with 300,000
deaths.
The March quake added
a heavy burden to a nation
and increasing the number
of lines in portraits
The United States, with
one of the few remaining
one-color currencies, is
also considering changes,
among them pastel colors,
security threads and
optically variable devices.
Optically variable devices
such as holograms, in use
now on sorne credit cards,
would create shifting
images as viewed when
the bill is moved. But they
are too expensive and
" we're not that sure of the
technology yet, " Robert J.
Leuver, director of the U.S.
Bureau of Engraving and
Printing, told The Plain
Truth.
But will counterfeiting
cease when these
deterrents are used?
According to Mr.
Sheldrick : " The
protessional criminal will put
forth additional efforts to
compromise the deterrents,
and it has been
demonstrated that given
enough time and money,
methods are available to
compromise essentially all
of these deterrents." •
D
espite the widespread belief that smoking
marijuana is harmless, if not helpful, scientific
research is proving quite the opposite.
"Smoking one marijuana joint is probably equa/
to smoking a pack of cígarettes a day," says Dr.
Alfred Munzer, a member of the Board of
Directors of the American Lung Association.
Laboratory tests show that marijuana smoke
contains about 50 percent more cancer-causing
substances than cigarette smoke. Because
marijuana smokers inhale more deeply, ·burn as
much of the joint as possible and do not use
filters, the deleterious effects are multiplied.
•
already struggling to
overcome severe economic
difficulties. Many industries
were apparently lulled into
a sense of false security
by the unusual lapse
between major
earthquakes.
Since the 1940s.
Chile had suffered at least
Aftermatb of eartbquake,
San Antonio, Cbile. Map
to left: selected Ricbter
scale readings.
one such catastrophe
during each six-year
presidential term. General
Augusto Pinochet Ugarte
had ruled for more than 11
years without a major
quake. The disaster again
showed the dramatic
impact earthquakes have
on 20th-century
civilization. Personal
reactions to the Chilean
trauma are reported in this
issue of The Plain
Truth. •
The
PLAIN TRUTH