Post by (PeteCresswell)Post by TAs far as pot goes. It is stupid to use. But, probably
less harmful to society than alcohol. We will see.
- It makes people even more stupid and less capable of
critical thought. We can all point to smart people who
smoke the stuff, but I would contend that they were even
smarter before they started smoking.... and the *last*
thing this country needs is more people lacking in
critical-thinking skills.
I do not know what the science is on this, but my personal
experience is clear.
- There does not seem to be any field-practical test to see
if somebody is under the influence.
Maybe performance-oriented tests will suffice... maybe not.
I will be interested to see what happens to raw motor
vehicle accident rates over the years in states that
legalize.
Having said all that, I think it's sick to lock up some guy just for
possessing the stuff - especially in the context of Obama being
something of a weed user in his youth, Dubya having had a coke
habit, Clinton "not inhaling", and Jeff Bush having sold dope in his
college days.... and none of them having been even close to jail for it.
OTOH I am not looking forward to the day when Liggett & Meyers spends
hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising campaigns to convince
young people that being stoner is cool.
I wonder if it would be possible to keep it in some nether world where
it's not quite legal (keeping the big industry people out of it) yet
"legal" enough that nobody goes to jail for using it.
Probably not, but that would seem to be a good compromise.
I have to wonder how Portugal (which, AFIK, has basically legalized the
use of *all* drugs for some years now) addresses that aspect of drug use
in general.
Hi Pete,
Your comments were insightful.
The pot heads I knew in the Service were useless. The
only thing that motivated them was the fear of their
stash being confiscated. The nearest animal model I
can think of would be a "sloth".
What statistics I want to see is pot against alcohol.
Both can mess you up pretty good. And from what
I observe, pot heads don't go get into fights and
drive.
If the ER visits for pot poisoning go up, I
want to know both the number as well as the percentage
and I want to know if alcohol related problems
went up or down as well.
As far as a field test for pot, it will come. I the mean
time, an officer has to have probably cause to pull you
over. And, reckless driving would apply. They don't
need a test for pot to bust intoxicated drivers. Just
follow the guy and put his driving on your dash cam,
show it in court, and busted ...
Oh well. Pot heads could always work for the DMV.
No one could tell them apart for the sloths that
also work there.
My guess, the slaughter house on your road will go
down a slight bit now that pot is legal
And, what is all the hue and cry about illegal drugs
anyway? The legals ones that allopaths push (designer
opiates) are killing far more folks by multiple times
than all the illegal drugs combined!
-T