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Open Government Brainstorm Defies Wisdom of Crowds
theodp writes "In May, the White House launched what it called an 'unprecedented online process for public engagement in policymaking.' Brainstorming was conducted in an effort to identify ways to 'strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness by making government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative.' So, what were some of the top vote-getters? Currently near the top of the list are Legalize Marijuana And Solve Many Tax Issues / Prison Issues (#2) and Remove Marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (#3). For those who remember Obama's earlier Online Town Hall, it's deja vu all over again."
Hey folks, it seems that the administration is at it again. All of my posts have been removed regarding Obamas legitimacy of his birth certificate. It seems all of you that feel the same way will have yours removed sonner or later so that the ideas input portion of this website seems to consist mostly of garbage that doesnt really natter to true conservatives... How Sad Obama... You can change a leopards spots but you will never change the leopard.
Are there no abuse policy/software in place to catch this?
Even the other users like a person named 'obamawatch' is ranting about the president's birth certificate. I'm embarrassed enough for all parties involved--is this the "YouTube of the Government" to them? This is really what you say when you get the chance to make suggestions to your government?
Where's the "Ron Paul Should Be President" +75,496 idea?
I hate to say it but this might almost not work for a population the size of America. I know on a smaller scale (like in Hennepin County, Minnesota) they get useful ideas from the populace with very realistic goals. I dare say the only way this could work on a national level is to require the user to put in their SSN & birthdate for verification and banning for repeated abuse. But I don't like information going through IdeaScale one bit.
My work here is dung.
And it embodies, IMHO, a wider question about the freedom of the people to act as they wish without *very* good reason from the government and without demonstrable harm to other folks.
Shame it'll just be written off with excuses like it always is all over the world.
yeah don't make me laugh.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Cowboy Neal for Internet czar!
That's not going to help people articulate ideas let alone produce anything usable. Half these things read sort of like a rant. IdeaScale should implement sections like the following:
Go to corporate America and ask any CEO what he expects to see in an idea presented to him from an underling. Then you'll get an idea of what kind of data we should be seeking from people with ideas.
I mean, this site should at least try to help people from making asses of themselves and instead 90% of these posts sound like people thinking they have the floor to say whatever they want about whatever they feel like. It's not coherent, it's not helping, it's nothing but internet drivel.
My work here is dung.
But I think the fact that this issue keeps coming up shows that marijuana legalization isn't as much of a fringe, oddball, shouldn't-even-talk-about-it issue as some people seem to think. Polls are showing around half of the people in the US could go for completely legalization, and more than 70% are in favor of medicinal legalization. It's kind of ridiculous that despite the support for this issue it is still considered such a non-issue.
Hell, the numbers in favor of legalization are *much* larger than the numbers in favor of gun control, and they still talk about trying to push that through!
"Think of all the DA's, DEA employees, prison workers that would be out of a job"
-- if you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
When will there be a way to check a person's marijuana intoxication level quickly and easily at a traffic stop?
Until there is such a check, legalizing marijuana would make the current drunk driving problem many times more difficult in terms of detection and enforcement.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Cannabis intended for recreational consumption comes in several different grades ranging in price from $10 a pound for compressed bricks of seedy Mexican hemp flowers purchased near the source up to $3,500 a pound for manicured colas grown indoors by farmers who produce small crops. That same $3,500 pound can be sold to consumers for up to $25 a gram, meaning that pound's street value if sold by the gram is in the neighborhood of $11,000.
But, the case in point is the series of raids this summer, which authorities claimed netted 138 pounds of cannabis from 340,000 plants. Since they raided in August, the plants they took were immature [...] and at least half would have been male plants that produce nothing. Had those plants, which represent less than 10 percent of the county's entire crop, survived to maturity they would have yielded somewhere in the neighborhood of three-quarters to one pound per plant or about 150,000 total pounds of low- to mid-grade cannabis which would have been valued at something like $500 to $1,000 a pound [...] for an estimated net sale price of conservatively $75,000,000. Factor in the percentage of undetected crops and we see the county's illicit outdoor cannabis crop can conservatively be valued at $750 million in initial sales. [...] it would not be unreasonable to place a value of Tulare County's current cannabis industry at $1 billion, all of it untaxed.
Let me isolate that statement for effect: Tulare County is currently home to a $1,000,000,000 unregulated, untaxed industry that our elected officials are actively and ineffectually attempting to eradicate at the taxpayers' expense, thus depriving the county and state of at least $80,000,000 in annual sales-tax revenues while they charge us for the privilege.
Think about that when you read we cannot afford to fund rural health clinics or that our schools are in need of repair or that we can't afford rural fire stations or if you live along or must drive ill-maintained county roads or if you're one of the thousands of unemployed or are affected by that unemployment or if you or one of your family members is considered an outlaw because they use cannabis or if you think it's wrong to destroy Yokohl Valley in the hopes of generating a tenth the revenue cannabis could provide the moment it is legalized.
You know, if I can just grow the shit, I'm not paying $3500 for it. Let's say cigarettes (which are legal, and a huge industry) cost $25 a gram for tobacco. A cigarette contains about 0.8 grams of tobacco (a bit less); a pack contains about 20 grams. So that's like $500/pack. Now, I don't smoke; but if a trip to the gas station for a pack of cigs cost me $20 to fill my tank and $500 for a pack of Malboros? I'd grow my own tobacco.
The whole argument for marijuana tax hinges on artificial scarcity. Marijuana is a weed, literally. It grows anywhere, it's the easiest shit to grow, and everyone already knows how to grow it. Seeds are easy to find. If you legalize it everybody will grow it; growing plants are harder to hide than a pocket-sized bag full of mulch, but nobody cares if the plant's now legal!
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All sorts of people wiser and more eloquent than I can help to explain why such decisions should not be left open to public vote. A good recent example is Clive James' commentary on democracy which just finished it's run over on the Beeb.
It comes down to the fact that most people don't really know what's best for society, which is why we grant stints of power to those who (we hope) do. When dealing with complex issues such as law-making and governance, we need to locate and consult suitably educated experts to make these decisions.
Meta will eat itself
I used to think that all drugs were bad, and all that stuff. But after reading the second linked thread, the Schedule I thread, specifically the bits about
* marijuana not killing people as much as tobacco and alcohol;
* pure THC being ranked as a Schedule III drug and marijuana as a Schedule I drug (see comment by user pbrigando13);
* Oxycontin et al., more damaging and causing more of a dependency than marijuana (which creates none), not being on the Controlled Substances List altogether;
* (taking this one with a grain of salt) the advantages of marijuana, rarer use of violence and driving accidents from users than alcoholics, etc. (see comment by user onegod1world)
, I'm reconsidering that stance.
Also, I'd like to point out that #1 is End Imperial Presidency -- with 755 votes against #2's 351 --, heavily criticizing Bush's presidency and calling out what happened in Iraq as war crimes, as they should be called. That is a serious one, and I for one am glad that it got voted up top.
Don't we already have this? It's called voting. The congress works for us, and it is our job to use our vote and our voice with our local representatives to effect policy change. This idea sounds more like the equivalent of inviting the entire country to a 'town hall' meeting.
I get the feeling that people think our government is broken. It is no more broken than your car is if you drive to work backwards. Either you are using it wrong, or you are too stupid to use it correctly. Either way, don't blame the car; get a new driver.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
For those who remember Obama's earlier Online Town Hall, it's deja vu all over again.
So this is the second time we're experiencing deja vu? Am I the only one who fails to RTFA because they can't get past the horrible grammar in the synopsis?
Yes, the War on Drugs is as massive a failure as the War on Poverty. When the gov't declares war against an idea, it just means that they're going to funnel a bunch of money to their lackeys who work in that field, without any accountability and without any goals or measurable results... Ever. But hey, big gov't types love to throw money at causes because it makes them feel like they're doing something, without actually having to do something. Every time I hear someone say that there should be a gov't program for this cause or for that cause, I just want to slap them on their bitch mouth.
Why are you under the impression that cannabis intoxication is a traffic problem? (There's science done on the subject that I doubt you're aware of)
Cannabis != alcohol. Those two drugs to not have the same issues.
Bad things need to be carefully controlled.And the lessons of prohibition learned.
More dangerous alternatives are out there - because the lower / safer products are too high to access, unless you are rich or a celebrity. America already has Las Vegas and other gambling 'islands', and known red light areas - and unfortunately , crack houses.
So no, decriminalize, and make it available in a tightly controlled zone that is hostile to addicts
Amsterdam does this very well.Property and revenue taxes are up.
Lesser evil works.
As for Jails being full, segregate the junkies, and offer them free unlimited drugs - with one catch - a no resuscitation policy.
When will there be a way to check a person's marijuana intoxication level quickly and easily at a traffic stop?
You can tell if someone's level of marijuana intoxication is interfering with their driving quite easily. Are they asleep?
Until you demonstrate some evidence that smoking marijuana actually makes one more likely to get into an accident, you're just FUDding.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The problem being illustrated is with the concept of 'democracy', an idea our Founding Fathers was aware of and not only discarded it was a notion they took great measures to prevent. Instead we were given a Republic, if we could keep it. Epic Fail.
Democracy means if you have a group of a hundred people, fifty one can vote to piss in the Corn Flakes of the other forty nine and if everyone believes in Democracy there can't be any objections if the votes were counted properly. Because that is what Democracy IS, the People can have anything they vote for. We had a Republic with a written Constituition that laid down hard limits that while changable, were intentionally difficult. This created the Rule of Laws instead of the Rule of Men. We had divided and limited government. But we threw that away and now have the Rule of Men and our civilization is declining.
Democrat delenda est
By that reasoning, you can't buy any night-time medicine.
Oh, those are sold over the counter, and would really affect your ability to drive.
And then there are tons of currently prescribable medicines that would impede someones ability to drive, usually coming with a "Do not operate heavy equipment under influence of this drug"
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
not that I disagree with some of them.... maaaaaayn....
It doesn't matter how more likely marijuana makes drivers get into accidents. The law as it currently stands forbids driving while intoxicated, and that could be with prescription drugs or weed just as much as alcohol.
#2 has 531 votes, not 351. Typos rule.
Why exactly is it not "wisdom of the crowd" to legalize MJ if SO MANY people vote for it? Id reason it indeed would gain massive tax income, and lower prison population.
DISCLAIMER: Im Dutch.
These are useful ideas, and they should be seriously considered. Read The Emperor Where's No Clothes by Jack Herer and learn why and how cannabis was made illegal in the first place. It's not any more harmful than beer or cigarettes, and it could be extremely helpful if used in the right ways. Aside from medicinal use it can be used to make paper, food, FUEL, and more. It would be an a huge cash crop if it was legalized, and would create an entire new industry. Lots of jobs, lots of tax revenue. Everyone is smoking the shit anyway. Legalize it and the money stays here instead of going to thugs in Mexico. The war drugs does more damage than the drugs themselves. Do the research. Think about it.
Easy. The question itself is irrelevant. Regardless of intoxication via alcohol or cannabis (marijuana is a racist term), an individual should be punished for their degree of reckless driving.
If you are chatting on a cell phone, driving angrily or aggressively or just being clumsy (without any chemical intoxication), your punishment for reckless driving should be just as harsh, including loss of license and/or jail time.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Marijuana decriminalization is not simply a "stoner" issue. It's actually a very important one.
The US has disproportionately crowded jails, filled disproportionately with African-Americans, and a very large fraction of which are there on drug charges. The US "War on Drugs" has led to many many convictions over marijuana and we are paying the social and monetary cost of imprisoning lots of people.
This is not a Cheech and Chong movie - these are people in jail for doing something that is widely regarded as harmless in of itself.
So, I don't think it's any surprise when you have a very vocal segment of the population calling for decriminalization... particularly in this forum! Establishment media and other outlets for vox populi are likely to steer away from this issue due to editorial concerns - no one wants to look "pro drugs", so the issue will be touched very carefully in a newspaper.
Do _I_ think it's the most important issue? No. But then my brother isn't in jail for dealing.
policeman looks for scent of weed (distinctive when you know what you're looking for), red eyes, and smoke. If he sees 2 of 3 signs, he issues a field sobriety test. Problem Solved.
WÌÌfÍ--ÍSÌÒÍ...Í...ÌHÌÍfÍÍÍ--ÍÍÍ
legalizing marijuana would make the current drunk driving problem many times more difficult in terms of detection and enforcement.
Are you trollin' us? Aside from not being able to use the breathalyzer, why would anything else change? Our field sobriety tests test physical and mental capability such as standing on one leg, walking backwards, and reciting the alphabet backwards. And everybody knows what weed smells like.
Research from the Dutch "Nederlands Forensisch Instituut" (Dutch Forensics Institute) shows that the effect of a single joint equates to about 1.1 ppt alcohol in the blood. In 2006, out of 730 casualties in lethal accidents, 75 were drugsrelated (also cocaine, speed etc. but that doesnt impact driving as much as marihuana). Currently experiments are underway to determine intoxication level with drugs out of the cheekslime. To this date a bloodtest is required, which is done on suspects (smells like having smoked pot, eyes looking decidedly vague, reactions not very coordinated etc.)
See http://thecoffeeshops.wordpress.com/tag/jointje/ for the Dutch article.
So it's not FUD, and research has been done over here where its legal to smoke it, and yes it does cause serious traffic accidents.
Note: I am completely in favor of legalizing it. But don't say it's harmless - driving after smoking, especially given current THC levels in joints, is NOT harmless. Oh, and don't compare your homegrown weed with the stuff you buy in the coffeeshops over in Holland. The THC of the current export-quality pot is nothing to scoff at and can knock you out quite easily.
In Australia we already have this:
http://www.police.qld.gov.au/programs/roadSafety/drugDriving.htm
It is ridiculous to assume that because the crowd opinion does not match your own that the crowd is wrong. Perhaps legalization is the correct course of action, and you are blinded by your own puny intellect.
Legalization would save tens of billions of dollars in law enforcement and prison system fees. This money could easily be redirected to proping up companies that make cars that no one wants, making the world a better place.
Here is a hint, you can't detect oxycontin from someones breath & someone abusing that shit is about 1000 times more likely to run you off the road that someone high on pot.
There is a war going on for your mind.
They'll say that, but they'll really be taking RIAA campaign contributions on the side and retasking those DA's DEA, employees, etc. to deal with all those evil music pirates out there.
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't drive under the influence of marijuana. While it doesn't have the same effect as alcohol, in my case it makes it just as likely to get into an accident. I simply become slower... I couldn't react to a sudden change of a situation as fast as I could without any drugs.
Posting anon for obvious reasons....
There's no need for all this phony 'consultation'. It leads nowhere in any case. The legislators simply legislate the way they want to regardless and use the feedback, if at all, to help them figure out how to sell their self serving new laws.
A practical form of referendum on legislation, effectively providing the population with a veto on legislation would work.
That way, politicians would not waste time on legislation unless they believed that the public would go with it. More importantly, the politicians would have to keep the public informed (in a way that they don't bother to currently) and explain why legislation is needed.
Frightened that the mob use their communal ignorance to stop all progress? Give them some credit. You are part of that mob too.
The War on Drugs isn't one that they can hope to win, primarily because the enemy are their own constituents.
I don't consider marijuana a desirable substance myself (and stoners who insist on self-justification beyond all rationality, go away. Yes, I have smoked, and inhaled, despite your insistence that it is impossible for anyone who has smoked to have a negative opinion on the substance) but I also know very well that criminalisation does not work, and will never work.
As a (admittedly informally, and generally fairly secretively) practicing Shakta Hindu, I could also if I wanted, claim historical precedent for my own use of marijuana as a religious sacrament. (Although AFAIK, in India at least, marijuana is more commonly used in association with Shiva, but it has been consumed as part of the worship of Kali)
Although I hold nothing against other adherents of various religions who do so, I have made the decision not to do that, as my own experience has led me to believe that marijuana is not b primarily beneficial substance, at least in the case of my own specific physiology.
I acknowledge, however, that it is not up to me to make that decision for anyone else other than myself. I further acknowledge that the plant does have certain extremely legitimate medical uses; I have advocated at least trying it with a few people I know at times, when they have been in extreme pain.
There is a certain percentage of the population (whether they are a minority or not, I do not know specifically, and make no claim about) who whether for good or ill, are mortally determined to smoke marijuana. Given their level of adamancy on this especially, it is not the place of government to make the decision for these individuals as to whether they should be allowed to smoke or not, especially considering that such a decision is usually made against these individuals' implicit, if not explicit, consent.
It has long been my opinion that the American government is, and always has been, at its' heart, a fundamentally tyrannical and insidious institution, which will, at any opportunity afforded to it, enthusiastically act as the mortal enemy of its' own constituents. The long term war that the Drug Enforcement Administration has been waging against said constituents, is in itself compelling proof of this assertion.
The DEA, in its' own defense, would likely try to claim that many of the substances which it crusades against the use of are gravely harmful; sometimes lethally so. In the cases of heroine, cocaine, and methamphetamines in particular, I would not argue against such an assertion. However, whether the drugs themselves are lethal is not the point.
The point is that it should not rightfully be the role of government to act as a parental figure for its' constituents. As adults, said constituents are supposed to be able to serve that role for themselves.
I also believe that criminalisation, rather than reducing the use of these substances, in face greatly contributes to their appeal, as it is well known that both teenagers and retrograde adults take particular delight in doing certain things, primarily when they know that said things are illegal or taboo. If many of these drugs, marijuana included, we made legal, use of them would cease to appear to be an act of rebellion, and would instead become socially mundane.
A third point is that many of the entheogens have not been allowed virtually any academic study, because of a hysterical, knee-jerk governmental approach to criminalisation. Some early work was done with LSD, yes; but very little such work has been done with other substances such as MDMA. If this research was permitted to be conducted, more could likely be learned about the drugs' drawbacks, potentially beneficial uses, and guidelines could possibly even be developed for the safe and guided use of the substances by those who still wished to consume them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quango generally they are quite hard to get on unless you are the wife of an MP or Captain of Industry or hubbies 1st name is either Sir or Lord. I seem to recall you get quite well paid for being on one too something like £500 a day + expenses (Obviously Citation needed but can't find one).
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
said it best in Men in Black:
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
No marijuana is not harmless, but the fact that I'm sitting here smoking it while watching TV *is* harmless, and that's why it should be legalized. I'm not endangering anybody except myself.
This all comes down to control. U.S. Congress wants to control our morals, like a modern-day version of the medieval church. This is not freedom.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
In Digg We Trust?
Operator, give me the number for 911!
While I certainly don't have the tolerance levels of some of the hardcore stoners I know who have been smoking for ten years, there's no way I'd ever argue that marijuana doesn't reduce driving ability. I've driven high before a few times, I don't like doing it at all and don't do it regularly (only twice in four years of smoking). You don't speed or get reckless like you do when drunk, but your motor skills and reaction times are unquestionably impaired. The last time I did it was a fairly long 3 AM highway trip where I had my in-car camera running, so I have a perfect record of how I drove. Really the only positive thing I can say about my driving that night is I stayed between the lines (barely at times) and didn't really speed by much (70MPH in a 65, which is odd for me, sober I tend to run the Turnpike at 90+). Terrible idea.
Obviously this is just one anecdotal experience and yes I'll agree that it is far safer to drive on weed versus alcohol, but if you believe you drive fine on weed you're lying to yourself.
That said, I'm still all for legalization. They can't tell how much marijuana intoxication is affecting driving as-is, so it wouldn't change anyways. They can't tell how intoxicated you are off of any of the number of OTC or prescription drugs the average American is on either. All that would change is that the states with retarded "any detectable levels of metabolites" laws for marijuana OVIs would have to STFU and figure something else out. I could not smoke anything for a week, be unquestionably sober, and still get popped for an OVI based on a piss test in those states. Fuck 'em, that's not fair at all.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
Why are you under the impression that cannabis intoxication is a traffic problem? (There's science done on the subject that I doubt you're aware of)
Cannabis != alcohol. Those two drugs to not have the same issues.
Well, they don't get aggressive or overconfident, which is definitely nice. But someone going 30 on the motorway isn't exactly safe either.
Even so, I've never heard of serious marihuana intoxication problems in traffic, and I live in a country where smoking pot is legal. People who are high have better things to do than driving a car, apparently.
I realize it is a bit off topic, but how in the world is marijuana a racist term? It has negative connotations and I agree that cannabis is probably a better term but marijuana being a racist term? How?
Doesn't matter, we put up with distracted drivers every day which are just as/more dangerous than people intoxicated by marijuana. The issue of DUI enforcement shouldn't allow us to continue on a proven failed path that is bankrupting the country and ruining peoples lives (disproportionally minority lives). Bust the people who pose a danger for reckless operation with video showing the improper operation and let a jury decide if they posed a risk.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Stop smoking indica and smoke sativa instead. Slowness problem solved.
export-quality pot
Export quality? I thought the whole point was that we don't export it. Otherwise we get into trouble with France.
cannabis (marijuana is a racist term)
Since when is marijuana a racist term? Cannabis is the name of the plant, marijuana is made from the buds of that plant, hash is made from the resin of that plan. They're all valuable words.
They have a way of checking: Well-trained police officers.
I believe the story goes something like this (wasn't alive at the time, so don't know if it's true):
Back when they were pushing for the banning of weed, the plant was "cannabis" and the term marijuana was coined to make it sound more "ethnic" and give the associated negative connotations to the widely-racist white-bread conservative population.
I personally think they did it just to fuck with stoners who would get baked and then try to spell it. ;)
Aren't alcohol and cigarettes alone not already enough of a problem? I'm not saying Marijuana intoxication is worse than Alcohol intoxication, but frankly said, I don't think we need more stuff that allows people getting high on it at all. We've got more than enough troubles, do we need another drug causing them?
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
And yet I don't hear any suggestion that we test people for Ambien at traffic stops. Weird, huh?
Even if what you say was true, then at the least, why is that an argument for criminalising something for someone without a driving licence?
Make it a choice if you must.
Also I hope you have evidence for such claims?
Not all prescription drugs, intoxicating prescription drugs. To place the effects of marijuana under the same umbrella as alcohol is unfounded. Perhaps part of the problem is that lack of understanding of how drugs work is being used to justify using such broad brush-stokes in applying the lay.
Marijuana sounds vaguely spanish.
You should use the term "plant-based tetrahydrocannabinol feedstock" instead.
Unless you're high, in which case you'll get lost somewhere in the middle because you noticed that dude, when we die? We like.... we.... we end up trapped in our own minds...so....like......you need to be able to live with yourself before you die... or you'll be in hell, but if you're happy with your life... you'll be in heaven......
Dude, that's deep. What was I talking about?
It's been a long time.
We will have a way to check for Marijuana easily at a traffic stop about the same time we have a way to check for Xanex, Valium, Vicodin, Oxycontin, Percoset, and a plethora of other substances that intoxicate an individual, but people drive while on every day. It is a shame that a naturally occurring substance that can help so many remains illegal while the patented ones are plentiful and legal. Controlled sure, but can be prescribed by a doctor without risk of imprisonment.
All points of time and space are connected.
I honestly don't think this is going to be anywhere near as big of an issue as people make it out to be. Ever seen someone drive that has smoked weed. They drive very slow and careful, they really are in no rush to get anywhere. I mean this in all seriousness. The other thing is you sober up from week much faster and without the effects of a hangover. Someone out drinking even if they had a designated driver the next morning when then feel like crap and are hung over this is similar to driving while being sick. Again, the guy that smoked a joint last night wakes up feeling just fine.
While I only drink once a week or so, I would give that up completely in lue of weed. I like the buzz to sit there and relax. But if I drink to much I get stupid and sometimes mean. I also hate the next morning. But I am legal, years ago when I smoked it, I was always nice and mellow I felt better and more relaxed, my blood pressure was lower and I was much happier. I woke up in the morning feeling like a million bucks ready to take on the day and get things done. I personally think you would have a lot less DUI's as there would be more people opting out of alcohol. There are always going to be people that go way to far. You have them now and all you do is punish the people can control it
so where is the field test for pain killers? or viagra?
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
That always bothers me. I don't care what state I'm in, I can't recite the alphabet backwards on demand. I'd get about 3 letters in and realise I'm lost. "Just a minute while I sing the alphabet song and write it down."
It's been a long time.
How is this or the parent post a Troll? Hopefully this will be fixed in metamod.
There is a war going on for your mind.
...It's the wisdom of the underemployed and overeducated amongst the crowd, not the crowd itself. In the case of Wikipedia, bored graduate students and post-collegiate basement dwellers wrote an encyclopedia, but the "average net user" never touched it.
"But we threw that away and now have the Rule of Men and our civilization is declining"
we did? when the hell did that happen?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't know if you're referring to the full legalization thread (#2) or just the Schedule reclassification thread (#3), but here goes.
[T]here is a considerable legal difference between "drunk" and driving while "intoxicated" and "under the influence". The concept of drunk, as used in public drunk statutes, refers to a person who is so inebriated that he is incapable of caring for his own safety. This is a considerably greater degree of inebriation than "intoxicated" or "under the influence". This latter condition is often legally defined as that physical state in which the liquor has so far affected the nervous system, brain or muscles as to impair the ability to operate a vehicle in a manner like that of an ordinarily prudent or cautious person under like conditions in the full possession of his faculties using reasonable care. source
[Emphasis mine, from "Drunk driving defense" by Lawrence Taylor & Steven Oberman]
The effects of THC on the body do include relaxation of the muscles, therefore would fall under the term "under the influence" as defined in law. However,
Although marijuana's share of fatal crashes is much lower than those attributed to alcohol, researchers say the results show that marijuana use, even in low doses, significantly increases the risk of fatal car accidents. source
While the quote could be used in an argument on both sides, if marijuana were only reclassified under another Schedule, not fully legalized, the rate of use would be lower than with full legalization (with a law already in place for "intoxicated driving" as above!), so it all comes down to what you'd rather avoid: even more driving accidents than in the current situation; another cause of driving accidents; or perhaps the fact that the "new" cause of accidents is less well detectable by simple behavioral analysis therefore less enforceable. But the point of rescheduling marijuana (#3) is that the current legislation doesn't make sense. See my other comment in this thread for a summary of why.
If this is what you really believe then I would urge you to support a limited federal government in all matters.
The issue is this: If you give them the power to regulate X, they invariably regulate Y and Z. On the other hand if you do not want Z to be regulated then you may have to settle for X and Y going unregulated as well. It's not to say your state government could not be more proactive. Invariably power over one object extends to power over other objects until power over all things is obtained. Just consider the velocity US policy in the 20th century.
So, if you do not want your morals controlled you may have to give up federal control of say education and healthcare. Let the states handle it. There is something to be said about 50 competing solutions. Eventually someone will get it right. On the other hand if we have a single solution and get it wrong... It really makes for a mess. I believe any inefficiencies are made up for by the robustness of a decentralized solution.
I would urge you to read the Constitution and see if those words justify: 1) Any of the bailout nonsense, including the take over of GM. 3) Marijuana prohibition. 4) A central bank. 5) Universal healthcare or indeed medicare or medicaid.
For what it's worth I agree whole heartedly with you about MJ. It can be harmful. Hell, you may eventually get lung cancer from smoking it someday, but (at least in my eyes) you own yourself and you are as free to make your own decisions as you are free to deal with their consequences.
Anyway, please think how control begets more control.
Clive James doesn't know what's best for society either, and nor do you.
The "suitably educated experts" you refer to have succeeded in dragging us into a pointless war in Iraq, brought the world's economy to its knees, and contrived over several centuries to keep the bulk of the world's population in poverty. Clive James and others who push their elitist view may be 'eloquent' but that doesn't stop what they have to say being drivel.
There is a huge difference between understanding how to achieve an end, and deciding which end you want to achieve. By allowing politicians a free rein, you are giving them the opportunity to decide both of these. By all means allow someone else to think on your behalf if you don't feel up to it, but the rest of us can think for ourselves thank you.
Democracy is not perfect, but in a true democracy, those who do loose out will tend to be a minority. Some people want to fix it, and to some extent have succeeded, so that it is the majority who loose out. we need more democracy not less.
"The problem was progressives wanted to scrap it and start over with fascism/socialism yet lacked the votes to do so. They got the bright idea to just start ignoring the limits and use their control over the mass media to blur ths issue."
you really believe that?
you've been watching too many hollywood movies
i would characterize your thoughts as borderline paranoid schizophrenic
that what you wrote you think has anything remotely to do with reality is completely laughable, or frightening, depending upon what you think should be done about the vast left-wing conspiracy to put us under fascist socialism
seriously? wtf
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If a driver is driving unsafely, then they should get penalized for unsafe driving (a requirement everywhere I've lived). Why do you need extra punishment for driving drunk or stoned? I'd rather have every stupid driver pulled over and have their license revoked than have to deal with the DUI check points. Punish all unsafe drivers equally and severely, regardless of intoxicant levels. Otherwise you end up with the drunk driver getting their license revoked for several years, the stoned driver getting theirs revoked for some different time, and the couple rolling on the latest designer version of X (so not illegal yet) getting a ticket all for pulling the same bone headed maneuver. The all do the same thing, they should all be punished the same.
The word "marijuana" for cannabis was introduced by the prohibitionists back in the 1930s. Everybody knew that hemp was a good thing, and cannabis was a useful medicine, so they needed a new word to whip up a frenzy, and to keep all those old prohibition agents employed now that they were no longer arresting rum runners.
The word "marijuana" was great because it linked the drug to those dirty dark-skinned fellows. As evil prick Harry Anslinger testified to Congress in 1937, "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."
So, yes, the selection of the word marijuana by prohibitionists was rooted in racism. Cannabis would be a more historically neutral term for the medicinal plant, or hemp for the industrially useful strains.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
... something about Tetris with plants...
"When dealing with complex issues such as law-making and governance, we need to locate and consult suitably educated experts to make these decisions."
"suitable educated" translates as "suitably indoctrinated into an agenda" in reality. there is no such thing as "education" on matters of social policy, only opinions. you can be educated in the hard sciences, say physics, but on the subject matter of say, states rights versus federal rights, you can only be indoctrinated into an agenda, right or left. you can't be educated in matters of social policy in the same way as say, how magnetism works
really, the problem with trusting some sort of elite over the general public should be self-apparent to you
what you do is retain your faith in the general public, you don't have any "experts" (aka, partisan hacks), but what protects your rights is that you have some laws which can be changed easily, and you have some laws which can be changed only with great difficulty
which should be easy and which should be hard? well, various legal concepts are enshrined at various levels in our legal system and its history. for example, the set of laws concerning equality have been reaffirmed going back to reconstruction. it would take a lot more effort than one simple vote or law to overturn them
in this way, our laws and principles and rights are not as fragile as you suppose, nor as subject to the vagarities of public opinion as so many anxiety-ridden types would believe
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The wisdom of crowds, which works quite well when each individual does their own research and reaches their own judgments, is easily subverted. All that's required is that individuals cease to do their own research and use their own judgment, and start echoing the opinions of others (social networks), or their judgments receive a blunt force bias in the form of advertisements (television, newspapers). This reduces the non-duplicate information content of the crowd. The result? You have a population concerned about marijuana laws (admittedly stupid) more than hydrocarbon depletion, overpopulation and potential economic collapse. The web, rather than making the wisdom of crowds ubiquitous, has made the stupidity of crowds inevitable.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
"Congress started sneaking over the line pretty fast actually. But they sneaked because they knew it was wrong and if enough people caught em there would be trouble"
you do realize that congress is composed of men and women just like you and me: well-meaning bumbling folk. not alien entities with an agenda out to destroy your rights
i think you are a paranoid schizophrenic. or, more hopefully, a teenager with too much hollywood and too little common sense and experience with other people
"Let me set a challenge to you. Go to Congress's Thomas search engine and find a Bill at random. Open another tab and Google up a copy of the US Constituition. Since you are asking the question it is a good probability you have never actually read our founding document so do that before continuing. Now read that random Bill and attempt to locate the authority for whatever it is trying to do in the Constituition you have open in the other tab. Odds are you won't find any such authority but you will find a 10th Amendment that forbids it. Repeat this random process another nine times, recording your results. I'll bet you that at least eight will fail muster and give you even odds that all ten will fail."
wtf?
look, crackpot:
what protects your rights is that you have some laws which can be changed easily, and you have some laws which can be changed only with great difficulty
which should be easy and which should be hard? well, various legal concepts are enshrined at various levels in our legal system and its history. for example, the set of laws concerning equality have been reaffirmed going back to reconstruction. it would take a lot more effort than one simple vote or law to overturn them. there is no "rule of men" that comes along like a bull in a china shop and destroys the constitution. rather, the essential principles of the constitution have been expounded upon and shifted SLOWLY and SLIGHTLY in interpretation over time. as THEY SHOULD BE, since society changes. right?
in this way, our laws and principles and rights are not as fragile as you suppose, nor as subject to the vagarities of public opinion as your anxiety-ridden thinking would suppose
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I keep crashing my car when playing Burnout 3 on marijuana... I still haven't found a place to get munchies either.
Many people know lots of things. People who have better knowledge about a thing then others will be able to dominate people with less knowledge since facts are on their side.
Regardless of how tainted onces beliefs are, facts are facts.
Wisdom, ethics, insight, knowing whats best for society, looking at stuff not from onces own field of expertise is not prevalent in crowds.
History is full of people who had knowledge, but lacked wisdom...
Say what? Let me analyse this point by point...
Strengthen our democracy: How, by making people sit around their bong every night discussing the problems of the world? Like.. "Man... link um.. why do they fold those papers around those little sticks of gum? Can't they see we need to save some trees? Besides they taste terrible when folding a joint, their just disgusting."
Promote efficiency: Get real, Marijuana and efficiency in the same sentence? Last I knew all my childhood friends were doing nothing with their lives. Just sitting around getting high with no aspirations in life. Several are dead from accidents, suicide, some perpetually in rehab clinics, and all living life day-t-day. Efficiency is not the first word on my mind.
Making government more transparent: Ok, Marijuana is hallucinogenic for some people, but I doubt that the Government is going to get any more transparent that way.
Collaborative: Ok, lets get this one definition straight. We are talking about the Government being more collaborative, not people sitting around talking about fantasies while smoking joints. How is legalizing Marijuana going to get the Government to improve on their collaboration skills?
I know I'll get flamed, and I'm not trying to argue that it should or should not be legalized, but what the study is for and the conclusions being stated about Marijuana are just not related from my viewpoint. But as I remember back to 'hanging out' with my childhood friends, they usually were not thinking all so coherently about much of anything, and no doubt they were the ones 'brainstorming' here. So why would I think this study would be any different? Go figure.
You want it legalized? Good for you, go for it. This is a democracy after all. But, with the next study trying to 'fix the Government', please try to come up with ideas on topic and that actually solve the issues that the study is supposed to discuss. If you want to change the law there are already ways to do that. Go for it.
Yeah, but with some prescription drugs (Cymbalta for one) and with marijuana, that side effect of feeling high goes away. You get used to it. That's why you hear medical marijuana patients saying it doesn't make them high.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
It's not easy to do this in a two-party system, but one of the major parties in the US is less popular among US citizens than legalization of cannabis is.
Earlier this year, a couple of polling organizations asked about legalization of cannabis. An ABC News/Washington Post poll in late April asked: "In general, do you favor or oppose legalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use?" Of 1072 respondents, 46% were in favor, 52% opposed, and 2% unsure. A CBS News poll (see at the same link) of 1142 adults in January asked "Do you think that the use of marijuana should be made legal or not?" It found similar support at 41% in favor, 52% opposed, and 7% unsure. But in March, when the question was repeated, the support was lower at 31%-63%-6%, down in the same territory as Republicans (we'll get to their numbers in a minute). In February, Rasmussen polled 100 adults, asking them "Should Marijuana be legalized?" 40% answered yes, 46% no, and 14% unsure. Crosstabs aren't available to the non-subscribing public, but Rasmussen does let us know that 48% of US men are in favor of legalization, but only 34% of US women agree. It also said that voters under 40 years of age support legalization much more strongly.
So we see legalization of cannabis with support just above 40% on average. It's looking tough for my claim in the subject line, right? How are the Republicans doing?
Dick Cheney was around 30% in his last job approval numbers, and his personal favorability numbers in May varied between different polls, with a range of 18% to 37%.
George W. Bush had final job ratings from different polls between 24% and 33%. His latest favorability numbers vary, depending on the poll, between 25% and 41%, with 41% looking like a bit of an outlier.
Rush Limbaugh generally gets positive marks from about a quarter of the population, with results varying between 20% and 30%.
John Boehner gets marks of (favorable-unfavorable-don't know)15-64-21.
Mitch McConnell is at 22-60-18.
Congressional Republicans get favorability numbers of 12-72-16.
The Republican Party as a whole gets marks of 21-71-8.
So in fact we see that legalization of reefer madness is currently more popular than prominent Republicans, about three times as popular as Congressional Republicans as a group, and about twice as popular as the Republican party as a whole.
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
Why would you take viagra and then... drive?
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
I'm curious. What does the phrase "or to the people" mean here? Are they talking about powers at the county/city level? Does a crowd of people (say, on a bus, or a college campus) get to make laws somehow? How many persons does it take to make "the people"? What powers do "the people" have? Do they get to make laws that apply to the whole country?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Almost. I think actually it is just a medieval church still wanting to control our lives and morals. Most Congressmen just want to get elected, and that means heading to the medieval church and its tens of millions of active voters.
somebody got a bad batch of smoke if they cant see the humour in the above
jebuz
Putting the drug debate aside, online polls always suffer from two things:
biased sample and hasty generalization
A poll at WhiteHouse.gov merely reflects the opinion of those who visited WhiteHouse.gov--nothing more and nothing less. A poll at cnn.com or foxnews.com merely reflects the opinions of those who visit those sites--nothing more and nothing less. It doesn't matter how popular the online poll is... THEY CANNOT BE GENERALIZED TO THE US POPULATION AT LARGE. And it would be unwise for an administration to make policy decisions based on informal online polls.
That's why we have the voting system. Those who vote represent legal US citizens who chose to exercise their constitutional right to vote--nothing more, nothing less.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
The guy ranting about the birth certificate obviously doesn't know how to use Google search:
http://www.politifact.com/media/img/graphics/birthCertObama.jpg
I think it's interesting that a lot of the top ideas involve legalizing pot, reducing bribes (ie lobbying) and cleaning up the process of law-making.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yesterday, the number one topic was the birth certificate issue. One single post had the most votes. Then, the 3rd, 5th and 6th were also the same topic. Now go today, and those tops have been removed, and new ones are moving up the ranking, only around 200 now.
Yes, there's currently a spam problem going on. There should be no more than ONE instance of a topic at the top. But to remove the number one post AND the dupes is NOT transparent. Obama may not be happy with what the people are interested in, but HE opened that can of worms.
So, yes, remove EVERY SINGLE TOPIC that deals with the birth cert issue EXECPT the one that's performing the best.
What gets me the most is that the site is about being transparent but they are covering the fact that people are interested in this issue AND they are not not being transparent on this whole cert issue to begin with. Just release the damn original so they will shut up about it.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Why exactly is this marked troll?
Actually, I like to partake in the pleasures of cannabis every now and again and definitely believe it should be legal, however I agree wholeheartedly with the original poster on the dangers of marijuana intoxication and driving.
First off, as someone who does smoke marijuana, I can definitely attest to levels of intoxication that would prevent me from driving coherently, and do avoid such scenarios. Second, I have been involved in a major traffic collision when a driver intoxicated on marijuana pulled out in front of me causing me to t-bone him, totaling both cars. Luckily no one was severely injured.
So yes, marijuana should be legal, however there should be ways to ensure it's use is responsible and does not endanger others. And frankly, driving is the only dangerous thing I can currently think of because I'm surely not dangerous in any other way while high.
And would someone please mod the OP out of troll hell. His comment was neither inflammatory nor fallacious.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Strawman, stick your head in the sand a little more why don't you.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Your dead wrong, many many people will happily buy pot & pay the tax simply because they are too lazy to grow their own. It's more socially beneficial if growing & smoking are legal while selling is illegal. A "grow your own" policy reduces government spending by eliminating enforcement, but the lost revenue from asset forfeiture makes these gains less spectacular. A "tax it" policy means you both cut enforcement costs and still get revenue.
Long version :
A countries that wants to control usage, like say Spain, keeps marijuana illegal to sell, but allows growing & smoking in limited quantities. It's basically clear now that this is the best way to limit usage because legit smokers must physically work for their weed. Of course, you can still buy marijuana on the street, but the supply is now limited and erratic, which pushes the users to grow. A paradoxical benefit of the "grow it yourself" Spanish approach is that prices don't really support organized crime either. Why? Easy, any grower who decides he needs extra cash more than his stash may become a dealer. So we've got the perfect environment where smokers smoke in moderation and organized crime is driven out.
U.S. drug policy totally fails to control usage, but nets high profits for the "prison industrial complex", so many government groups & powerful people continue to support it. I think the "tax it" proposals won't control usage quite as effectively as the "grow it yourself" approach, but "tax it" will maintain part of the asset forfeiture revenue stream, while drastically cutting government enforcement costs.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
from taxing the open marijuana trade
c'mon, most people complain how little the government cares about jobs in this country. now suddenly you assert they care a lot? the amount saved from getting rid of dea, prison union jobs, etc., combined with the massive amounts of cash from taxing the trade in something like marijuana: its a fucking no brainer
the only thing that stands in the way of legal marijuana is social conservatism
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There being about 1000x more pot smokers then oxycontin abusers levels that out don't you think.
I doubt that's true. Since oxycontin is a completely legal, albeit controlled substance (Schedule II), and something for which you can have a legitimate prescription for, I'd be more likely to believe the converse.
My blog
The same old tired argument is pushed forward time and time again. Let's say there is a group of sheep and a majority of wovles - they say. Surely it wouldn't be fair to let the majority rule in those circumstances?
Well, you've missed the point. There is no right way or wrong way. All there are, are competing views.Democracy wasn't intended to get the right answer...l because there is no right answer, only different answers preferred by different people.
Democracy is merely the best mechanism we have for maximising the likelihood that a majority of individuals will be contented with the outcome. It does not guarantee contentment, but then nor does monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorship etc.
Using your own daft example, if there were a hundred people, the majority would, in all probability, not vote to piss in the cornflakes of the minority, even if the idea quite appealed to them. The contstitution was intended to prevent democracy being undermined. It is, if you like, a description of the way in which this democracy will be run. Others have tried other ways and have failed, witness Germany, where the voters voted away their own rights to a dictator.
It isn't right to take your clothes off and streak through Time Square, and it isn't wrong either. Some people will like it, some will be horrified. Democracy allows us to gauge whether those who are horrified are greater in number than those who are amused and make things so that the majority are at ease.
The minority will loose out, but in truth, we usually end up compromising (that's why there are naturist areas) and we can all be happy. There will inevitably be a sad few individuals who are always in a minority and their lives will be miserable. They would exist in greater numbers under a dictatorship.
One last point. Don't kid yourself that any rule is anything other than the rule of man. If it is written down, a man (or woman) wrote it.
In Norway, a country of almost five million people, there are 17 unsolved murder cases. Major cities in USA of comparative sizes generally have thousands of unsolved murder cases. I am wondering if part of the reason could be that the police in USA is wasting money on the "War on Drugs" and putting stoners in jail rather than solving actual criminial cases. Note that this is the number of unsolved cases. USA only has a few times more murder than Norway, but the cases are much more likely to turn cold in USA.
The high goes away. You get used to it. Recreational users know this and space out their smoking so they still experience the high. (Well, not all do that. Personal responsibility plays a role.) The medical marijuana patients? They're likely smoking or vaporizing the cannabis daily, and will no longer experience this side effect of feeling high.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
Congrats - you've hit on the real issue. How about we provide %100 percent extended unemployment for all who loose thier jobs as the prisons and jails begin to empty. (It would still be cheaper for the tax payer than continuing the drug war). It won't take very long for a new economy, and new jobs, to rise around the new Hemp and marijuana industries.
Pot smokers and conspiracy theorists have a lot of time on their hands.
Pinned pupils are a pretty good sign someone is dangerously intoxicated on oxycodone (or any other opiate for that matter).
Just consider the velocity US policy in the 20th century.
Actually, acceleration would describe things better than velocity. Otherwise, wonderfully said. The world needs more people like you.
Mind the frickin' laser...
I thought he said he was going to FeedStock, that big anti-hunger concert up in... Is that a Snickers bar? Man am I hungry.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
How else is a Slashdotter gonna pick up a hooker?
Wow, you've never been to a Journey concert, have you?
My Babylon
When will there be a way to check a person's cough syrup intoxication level quickly and easily at a traffic stop?
Until there is such a check, legalizing cough syrup would make the current drunk driving problem many times more difficult in terms of detection and enforcement.
William
cough syrup impairs driving much MUCH more than cannabis.
Should we jail everyone who takes cough syrup at home?
You can't take the sky from me...
You get used to the high. Prohibitionists like to refer to this phenomenon when asked about marijuana addiction. You build a tolerance to marijuana. It's why responsible recreational smokers space out their smoking. They celebrate the high. Medical marijuana patients likely smoke daily and stop experiencing the high after a week or 2.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
Only if the goal of society is to keep you safe and snug your whole life (you know, safe until you die). It's not, there's a balancing act being performed. Sometimes life is a little more dangerous (though not necessarily in the case we're discussing, your strawman is rather hollow) because someone else is free to do something interesting. You have to balance the positive and negative.
One final thing, the GP suggested treating the two substances the same, and you're trying to negate him or her by (poorly) implying a balance in the substances effects on society? WTF?
Look at it this way: why would anyone want to make government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative? Why bother to strengthen democracy?
It's about fairness and being able to trust that your government is actually working to protect the rights of the people, and promote the peoples' interests rather than the interests of a small group. Democracy and transparency are just means to the end of trustworthy government.
Marijuana prohibition flies in the face of the very goal. The drug war may be just one bad thing government is doing among many, but nevertheless, as long as mariuana is illegal, you will know that you don't have a trustworthy government, and that its agend is something other than protecting rights. If it's illegal for someone to grow a plant in their back yard and smoke it, then all your efforts to strengthen democracy, improve transparency etc will have proven themselves failures.
I don't really think politicians should be working specifically to legalize drugs; if you look at it that narrowly then I suppose maybe it really is a "special interest." I'd rather they wake up some morning and decide to generally use their government powers to make government less of an enemy of the people, and then drug legalization (among many other things) would just automatically flow from that. But if drug legalization arguments are the thing that will enlighten them and make them think, "Hey wait, what are we doing?!? I've got this whole 'government vs the people' issue all backwards", then that's progress exactly within the scope of strengthening democracy.
That won't be such a problem once police services shift funds towards detection. They'll be far more likely to so once marijuana's been decriminalized/legalized. Personally, I think there's plenty of excellent stoned drivers, but there's the odd one who's terrible at driving stoned. Because of that, I - reluctantly - accept that a road side test is needed. I would hope that most people can accept the compromise of having traffic laws against intoxicated driving, while being allowed to legally smoke weed in public and at home.
And as Jaysyn furthur down mentions - oxycontin - is a legal drug that is odorless, is just swallowed, and will intoxicate someone much worse than marijuana, yet we haven't outright banned public access to the drug.
If it's legalized so you could smoke it in your home or designated places then fine, but no way am I gonna stand for having to suck in second-hand weed smoke. It's bad enough with cigarettes and shit already; I don't want to add weed smoke to that!
so where is the field test for pain killers? or viagra?
Viagra? would you be arrested for?
Conspiracy to commit road head?
well I guess there is the blood pressure issue.....
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore."
No marijuana is not harmless, but the fact that I'm sitting here smoking it while watching TV *is* harmless
If you weren't so high, you would have realised that you're actually at your computer, commenting on slashdot.
My state specifically allows driving while stoned. https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/statutes/?id=169A.20&year=2008&keyword_type=exact&keyword=marijuana
I keep having to say write this. I might copy this one so I can paste it. Nah I'll keep it personal. You get used to the high. Prohibitionists like to reference this when asked about marijuana addiction. You build a tolerance to marijuana, just like you build a tolerance to some prescription drugs, such as Cymbalta, another anti-depressant drug that leaves you feeling "high" the first few weeks of using it. Your doctor should be sure to tell you of these issues, and there should be no difference with marijuana. People aren't educated on drugs. DARE is not drug education. That is a horrific bad drug scare that leaves emotional damage and bigoted views about drug users, or it's an advertisement to a curious young moderately rebellious child.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
This whole argument is a red herring. Is there any evidence that more people would drive stoned if pot were legal? I'd make an argument for the converse:
Currently there can be no widespread campaigns to stigmatize driving stoned (as there have been for driving drunk) because they would be seen as implicit approval of getting stoned and not driving. But if pot were legal you'd be sure to see a slew billboards and PSAs talking about the dangers of driving stoned.
The "test" part of reciting the alphabet backwards involves whether or not you attempt to do it. A sober person will laugh at the idiocy of the request and ask the officer "Are you detaining me, or am I free to go now?" A drunk person will to try to comply and make a fool of themselves doing it. If the cop arrests the person solely on the basis of refusing to recite the alphabet backward, any lawyer will get the charge thrown out, because like you stated, the majority of the population can't even recite the alphabet backward completely sober.
The US Constitution gives the federal government the right to regulate interstate trade and to print money. This supports the right of the fg (federal government) to forbid interstate trade in marijuana (or anything else), sort of supports the central bank (I would say the constitution doesn't include the right to delegate the right to print money, so I think to be legal the Fed should have to have to get their decisions rubber stamped).
Of course, that doesn't explain why the fg can outlaw any drug (prescription, recreational or otherwise) within a state.
I agree regarding the bail-out, although in fact I think the argument would be that they're not making any laws with the bailout; they're handing out money to organizations that agree to follow a contract. The same BS lets the fed govt regulate any number of things (public schools, intrastate interstates, etc.).
I believe strongly in rule of law, and I think our system could have worked fine as a federation of states (in the old-school 'country' sense). However, I think the US is long past the point that it could turn back the clock and become a federation of states.
From a purists point of view, I think we need a number of amendments to the constitution, to expand the rights of the federal government from those listed in the constitution (in a limited way), and at the same time we need to commit ourselves to rule of law, eliminating all statutory law that is in contradiction with the constitution.
From a realist point of view, I think all that would happen from that is that federal power would expand and our rights contract.
Until there's a sea change in our cultural attitude about rule of law and the role of government, I think any wholesale change in our government would be for the worse.
There already is. I have no idea how much it costs, but a Navy recruiter was in my house yesterday. Took out this little handy dandy plastic thing, similar to but larger than a blood sugar test strip. My son put a drop of blood on the thing, waited for a few minutes, and his prescreen for drugs was finished. They photocopied the strip, the son and the recruiter put their signatures on the paper, and that paper becomes a part of the kid's permanent record.
Quick and easy, it tested for several common drugs, including alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, and I don't know what else.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
It causes people to run stop signs/lights more often but usually this is late at night so the effects are minimized. I still wouldn't reccomend driving under the influence but yes it's less inhibiting of your driving ability in that you're going to stare off into space at a 4 way stop (or red light turning green) than it is going to inhibit your ability to navigate the winding country road (or curved highway) home in the rain. Most drinking related accidents involve corners or turns, most pot related accidents involve taking too long at an intersection or not stopping at one.
moox. for a new generation.
In their June, 1980 issue they did the same test, with marijuana. Their test field included regular smokers, occasional tokers, and one guy who had never tried it before in his life. NOT ONE of the drivers performed worse when stoned, and one performed better. Oddly enough that article received no press.
The article doesn't seem to be available online in its original form, but a scanned microfiche is here: "http://nintharticle.com/cdjune80.html"
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Wait - what?
This all comes down to control.
Let's not kid ourselves. Drug prohibition is about MONEY. Drug prohibition is worth billions of dollars per year to the business of government. This is exactly why prohibition exists.
At the top of the power pyramid, control is merely a means to the real goal which is money. Think about it this way: if drug prohibition were to suddenly vanish, the business of government would be at least an order of magnitude less lucrative. What we have today, in terms of prohibition, is the wet dream of the snakes who dreamed it all up over half a century ago.
No it doesn't. (2) prohibits driving while using any controlled substance. (7) prohibits driving while there are drug metabolites in your body, even if you are not intoxicated. For cocaine, as an example, these metabolites take about three days to become undetectable. So if you were to do a gram, you would not be allowed to drive for three days. They do, however, specifically exclude marijuana, so if you were to smoke tonight, you could drive in the morning (despite the metabolites potentially staying in your system for more than a month)
Except that you're here on the net interacting with thousands directly and probably billions indirectly.
Think of the huge boost in tourism if this ever went through.
My comment was to encourage some of the much needed cultural change.
Otherwise I tend to agree with you though, however and this is a big however. The government is bankrupt and something has to give. Either it does less, it extorts more, or it just flat out collapses. Or in time, some combination of the three.
Are you serious? Your average "well-trained police officer" is little more than the high school bully who refused to grow up and stop pushing the weaker kids around. They're trained to expect violence, and to subdue the expected violence with their own, more powerful, violence. Here in Washington state, where in some areas over 60 percent of the population speaks English as a second language if at all, bi-lingualism is almost non-existent among cops. When Latinos get stopped they respectfully get out of their vehicle in order not to inconvenience the officer (that's how you do it in Latin America). Frelling cops generally freak out and start screaming at them in English and threatening them with their gun. All too often the driver gets frightened and tries to run away and ends up getting the crap beat out of him and tossed in jail just because the cop was too lazy to learn how to say, "Regressa a su coche".
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
No actually I'm doing both - watching tv and surfing the net. C'mon! This isn't 2008 anymore. We now have the technology to do more than one thing.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Government ran a study over the course of 30 something years that concluded that marijuana does not cause cancer. In fact, they found that marijuana has anti-cancer properties. The hypothesis left for someone else is that the anti-cancer properties of cannabis counter the cancer-promoting activity of inhaling smoke. But for the really concerned there's always vaporization, which reduces the carcinogens to almost nothing.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
I disagree.
Watching TV is very dangerous, and can result in skewed political opinions, loss of brain cells, high electricity use, and obesity (which in men, can lead to the development of breasts). It can make you distracted while driving: you will be thinking about instead of paying attention to the road.
>>>>>I'm not endangering anybody except myself
>
>>you're interacting with thousands directly and probably billions indirectly
Yeah.
So?
I want to remind you what Thomas Jefferson, founder of the Democratic Party said, "Whatever religion my neighbor may choose does not harm my body, my property, nor my rights, so I will allow my neighbor the freedom to worship however he pleases." The same principle applies to you. My smoking of marijuana while posting on slashdot does not harm your body, your personal property, nor your rights, therefore you have no justification to stop my activity here in my private home.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
This all comes down to control. U.S. Congress wants to control our morals, like a modern-day version of the medieval church. This is not freedom.
The U.S. Congress wants to control. (you should have stopped there) They also want the campaign contributions from Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Johnny Walker, etc., etc.
There are many "medieval church's" that used marijuana for medicinal purposes so attributing it's illegality to them is inaccurate at best.
I love how society today loves to blast the church for its "intolerance" but completely forgets all of the freedoms the church has given man. You know...like the ability to read a book (reading was reserved for the elite until monks started handwriting books and teaching the peasants how to read). There's also a little thing called beer. yep monks again. Those pesky do gooders trying to keep us from having a good time by creating arguably the most prolific fun-enhancing beverage in the world (they only ask that we use it in moderation).
Sure today's average religious zealot needs a good thrashing but don't attribute to them what can be easily linked to power and greed.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Agreed on all counts.
a friend who used to work @ NHTSA told me the agency had done studies on the effects of weed on naive users: they made noobs smoke an entire doob of their finest mississippi-plantation-grown weed;-) then they put 'em behind the wheel to test their passing skills.
trouble was, nobody wanted to pass: they were just happy to follow the car in front;-)
maybe the cure for road rage is mandatory jay-drivin';-)
It would be a lot less harmlful if it WAS legal... 1. You wouldn't have to deal with the shady characters that deal and traffic it. 2. You could buy it in edible forms and save having to smoke it and damaging your lungs. 3. Many more points I'm sure. Being half-illegal is so dangerous. Either crack down and put shock collars on every citizen or drop this illegal substance non-sense altogether.
Legalize it, tax it at $1 a gram, and we'd have 7.5 billion dollars a year in tax income from it. (Based on US Government estimates of marijuana usage, verify the figures yourself, they're on some .gov site.)
I use Windows... like a two dollar wh.. why don't I just go ahead and not finish that sentence.
Mod parent up! It has a link that leads to a well-prepared article on a study of driving under the influence of THC.
The opposing view point is also in this thread, claiming to also have been gathered from Dutch drivers. Nebulous debates galore.
But, like the parent post says, see for yourself.
All your analysis focused on the druggies and totally missed the government. I would ask you, "What does marijuana have to do with this?" I think it has nothing to do with this. Legalization vs prohibition of marijuana, though, is a totally different subject:
Strengthen our democracy: Let's declare a bunch of people, none of who are infringing anyone else's rights, criminals. Depending on to what degree we've made them criminals, let's stop allowing them to vote.
Promote efficiency: Let's spend public money on cops, courts, and prisons to enforce laws that have no useful purpose. Let's put people in prison, for no reason, so that they can't contribute to the GDP and their families are weakened so that they become more economically dependent on others. Let's penalize domestic farmers to increase foreign market share. Let's create health care problems that we all end up paying for, by making people turn to black markets with dubious quality products.
Or we could stop doing those things. Which scenario is more democratic? Which is more efficient? (I'll admit I don't, off the top of my head, see how it's related to transparency and collaboration.)
I can almost buy the argument that prohibition is more perversely "democratic" since it actually is some people's nature to want to gang up on others.
But efficient? You've got be kidding. In terms of government efficiency, legalization advocacy is right on topic and directly addresses problems that prohibition is causing. They're not only on-topic, but they crush their opponents without even a close fight. Please, pro-prohibition advocates, bring up efficiency or just about anything else related to the economy. Libertarians will eat you for breakfast.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Has anyone else here read and fully understood that book? It's point was that a properly polled and diverse crowd will give more precise answers than any individual expert. The whole point of the exercise is that no individual can know the best course of action - or for example exactly what the positive or negative ramifications of legalization would be. By definition the collective answer may not make sense to the individuals - and that is frequently the nature of wisdom - one who lacks it frequently ignores the one who has it. Just because the voice of the crowd in this instance happens to be a bunch of stoners that doesn't mean we should dismiss it offhand - who's to say what the right answer looks like - maybe legalization is exactly the kind of wallet lubricant our economy needs to get moving again.
Marijuana aside - the debate should not be whether or not to legalize, but how good or bad is this particular mechanism at culling the true wisdom of the crowd. On first blush it seems bad - two criteria from the book are not met: Diversity - you need to have a diverse enough crowd to get all the pieces of the puzzle - whereas this system is undoubtedly limited to the technologically savvy segment of the population; and Incentive - each individual needs to have a real incentive forcing them to make their best possible guess - whereas voting in this system has no consequence.
The book was focused mostly on markets as good predictors - specifically the author was looking at political outcome markets like the Iowa Electoral Market and showing why they tend to predict outcomes better than pundits or exit polls. So what if we rephrased the question in terms of economic or opinion results so that the performance of an idea could be measured in terms of economic growth or some other index like quality of life? Then each idea would be assigned stock - so rather than simply voting you have to invest real dollars in an idea that you think will be successful - and successful ideas in turn yield actual returns.
Any thoughts from the crowd on how to best implement a Good Idea Market?
I'm not sure why this is flamebait... it is well known that THC reduces your response time. If/when I have driven stoned, i've been real careful, but once I tried to turn into a bus stop which I thought was a driveway.
I don't think legalizing will make the problem worse, however, and I don't think it is nearly the issue that alcohol is.
Jeremy
You'd have to knock me out with a schedule II substance in order to drag me to a journey concert.
Jeremy
The HBO show "The Wire" summed up the war on drugs nicely:
Det. Ellis Carver: You can't even call this shit a war.
Det. Thomas Hauk: Why not?
Det. Ellis Carver: Wars end.
Slashdot: news for Apple. Stuff that Apple.
"The last time I did it was a fairly long 3 AM highway trip where I had my in-car camera running,"
So you're a cop?
references please. I'd love it if such a study really existed.
Jeremy
Your argument is not necessarily contrary to mine. PSAs talking about stoned driving are a way to help ensure responsible use, at least as much as drunk driving PSAs do. The fact is, if pot were legalized, you would probably see an initial jump in the number of people using marijuana, at least I would probably initially use it more than I do now, and whether you like it or not marijuana does impair judgment.
Many people that smoke pot don't have a problem with getting in a car and driving stoned because unless they happen to reek of the smell, they feel, and likely can, get away with it if pulled over. That doesn't mean that they are safe to drive because when you're not trying to focus your mind tends to wander greatly from any task at hand, including driving.
My point is that if an officer pulls over a driver for erratic driving, a stoned driver may be able to pull it together and explain away the driving because pot does not give off the telltale signs of intoxication such as alcohol does, but that does not mean the driver is not intoxicated and safe to drive.
And by the way, whomever modded my original post as flamebait, that's just childish.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Field sobriety tests, as usually performed, are absolute bullshit. I know several people who can't pass them completely sober.
What you need to do is ask the officer to demonstrate what he wants you to do. Claim you aren't sure what he means, and ask him to show you so you understand. Take charge of the stop. And when you get home, file the FOI request to get the camera footage :)
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
75 out of 730 were drugs related. By your own numbers, almost 90% of the accidents were caused by those not using drugs. As you have no idea how many drivers use drugs, your figures mean nothing.
As an employer myself I think it is fair. The people I know that smoke pot have certain traits in ther lifestyle. Traits I do not want in an employee. These are not things like race or gender or being to heavy...these are traits that directly damage their life..consume their money...make them make bad choices in life...and all the while not giving 2 shits about it. Please...people don't get hired for their myspace pages...and you failed a piss test because you smoke. Get cleaned up or apply for a job that doesn't care.
When will there be a way to check a person's marijuana intoxication level quickly and easily at a traffic stop?
It's simple. Are there a dozen empty bags of Doritos on the floor of the car, and is the driver listening to the radio with the sound turned all the way down?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Marijuana has an almost universal effect of inhibiting the users 'Vote' response. People who smokey pot regularly are ten times more likely to sit on their asses on election day in spite of their strongly held political beliefs. Users typically engage in some form of disenfranchisement delusion or conspiracy theory as a cover for their pot induce political impotence. In fact, this is widely believed to be the primary reason Marijuana is illegal in the first place. The people who use it are the least likely to do any thing about it except whine and bitch. In fact, if anyone in the Republican party had any sense about them, they would legalize it immediately and paralysis half of the left wing electorate.
They also want the campaign contributions from Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Johnny Walker, etc., etc.
There are many "medieval church's" that used marijuana for medicinal purposes so attributing it's illegality to them is inaccurate at best.
You mean Daniel's, Johnnie, churches, and its.
With the prohibition, people are more likely to hide their use from family, roommates, or whomever, and what a lot of them do is hop in their cars and take a cruise to smoke. I'm telling you, prohibition does more harm than it does good.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
Hey Mr. DARE program graduate....
Reality check
MJ does not affect my driving (except it does avert road rage) and hasn't for the last 2 decades. Alcohol does.
Nuff said.
Dj fuQ [url="http://djfuq.org"]djfuq urges you to listen to the beats[/url] [url="http://djfuq.org"]http://djfuq.org[
No matter how right you get it up there in New Hampshire, I am not moving out of California... just saying...
I would urge you to read the Constitution and see if those words justify: 1) Any of the bailout nonsense, including the take over of GM. 3) Marijuana prohibition. 4) A central bank. 5) Universal healthcare or indeed medicare or medicaid.
1) Commerce Clause
3) Commerce Clause
4) Commerce Clause
5) Elastic Clause
It doesn't matter how more likely marijuana makes drivers get into accidents. The law as it currently stands forbids driving while intoxicated, and that could be with prescription drugs or weed just as much as alcohol.
It damn well should. If marijuana intoxication doesn't increase the chance of a driver causing an accident, then why should it be forbidden to drive while under the influence of marijuana?
(For clarification - I don't smoke weed and I never will. THC does nothing for me. But I hate seeing people being told "you shouldn't do that because... well, you shouldn't".
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
EXACTLY -- mod parent up please
Dj fuQ [url="http://djfuq.org"]djfuq urges you to listen to the beats[/url] [url="http://djfuq.org"]http://djfuq.org[
Adding to your point, concerning the industrial usefulness of hemp:
-"canvas" is the greek word for the plant we call hemp
-hemp is the oldest known agricultural crop to man
-in the early years of the USA, farmers were legally *required* to grow hemp because of it's importance
-it produces some of the best fiber known to man, used for linens and rope that are strong and durable
-ships have used canvas sails and hemp for ropes for thousands of years
-it is a weed, grows very fast, is very hardy, and does not require fertilizer
-its fiber can be processed into paper, which is naturally acid free, and the process is much cleaner than that used to create paper from wood fiber, and results in much more paper per acre than paper from trees
-its oil/seeds can be processed into a variety of useful products such as paint and plastic, with much cleaner processes than their petroleum based counterparts
-plastic from hemp is biodegradable, unlike petroleum based plastics which are polluting and destroying our oceans
-its oil/seeds can be consumed by humans, and is more beneficial to humans than even soy
-it has many medicinal uses, that were of common knowledge years ago (George Washington grew it and used it for upset stomachs)
It's prohibition was spearheaded by DuPont (producer of petroleum based goods) and a paper mogul who owned millions of acres of forest from which he wanted to profit. It began with the creation of the new term "marijuana" and a national smear campaign that lasted over a generation--until the population was well programmed to think that "marijuana" is "bad" and they should be protected from it.
The AMA was approached and asked to back this anti-marijuana campaign. When they discovered it was merely hemp, they refused.
This all comes down to control. U.S. Congress wants to control our morals, like a modern-day version of the medieval church. This is not freedom.
I would say there are many different reasons for keeping marijuana illegal. A few off the top of my head:
The feds LIKE locking people up. The more power they exercise the stronger they are.
Marijuana is generally grown, sold and smoked entirely within the US, which means money is circulating and kept within the country and encourages economic growth.
The feds confiscate shiploads of drugs and resell them, possibly back to their local US friends.
Politicians make money by letting shipments of narcotics through.
Drugs encourage population control through the increased death rate of bad deals and ODing. A form of natural selection?
Drugs enable the police state to take hold. We are at civil war over drugs right now, which means there needs to be an army to keep the druggies down. Massive prisons and police camps ready and trained for the rebellion.
THE MOST IMPORTANT thing it does is it draws a line between peoples and SEPARATES us. They are breaking us down culturally! Breaking our standards as a SINGLE PEOPLE! Remember "We The People"? When was the last time you heard that outside of a civics or history class? If they encourage prejudice against drug users, different races, different ages, etc THEY KEEP US WEAK! Democrats vs republics, whites vs blacks vs hispanics, druggies vs purists. We are all family and we must come together to kill the beast that idly toys with us! It all comes down to love.
Interestingly, I read jmorris42's post with a different interpretation altogether. Simply read "progressive" to mean, not necessarily anyone presently described as "liberal" or "left-wing", but instead as anyone unhappy with the actual rules of government and wanting to change or work around them -- not any specific group, but rather all wannabe work-arounders on any side of the political spectrum. Using this meaning, jmorris42's post suddenly sounds much less paranoid and more insightful.
I could certainly be off the mark, but I don't think he's talking about any conspiracy at all, and instead describing the aggregate effects of many different actors, all likely with different motives, who happen to be using similar means to their various and disparate ends: to wit, ignoring or downplaying the original rules of the game, i.e. the constitutional underpinnings of the country, and backing / writing / lobbying for legislation that establishes new rules regardless of their constitutionality.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
It's illegal to drive intoxicated; it's up to the cops to figure it out. What do they do now, if they pull somebody over for driving erratically, and they're high on some illegal substance? What does the legality of the intoxicant have anything to do with it? Not being able to police illegitimate users is no reason to outlaw it for everybody.
As many more will surely point out, the number of marijuana smokers will probably not change much. I assure you, there are people who drive stoned every day -- I even knew a pizza delivery guy (with a clean driving record!) who got high within minutes of waking up, and stayed high until he went to bed. That he had a clean driving record should not be taken as evidence that driving high is somehow safe, but that people do this a lot and still get away with it, even though the drug is illegal.
How is that flamebait? The guy relates his personal experiences with pot. Not that I endorse such a thing, but I don't think we want to get into modding people down just because we may disagree with them. But then, I guess I'm a little late on that one. ;)
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money
I would say that I often focus more on the road high than when I am sober because I am more aware of the liability. I've been in one minor accident, and that was when I was stressed on coffee! Caffeine directly altered my driving abilities, yet its still common to see people drinking it while driving! I would put weed, coffee, and sugar in the same category. Too much of anything really will impair your driving.
Weed makes you tired, and you're driving at 3 am?! No wonder you had problems! If you're stoned while fully awake you'll drive just fine! You'll also follow all the laws to the dot because you'll be very, very relaxed and satisfied with your life.
http://www.hemphasis.net/History/history.htm
This entry says it all:
1941-1945: Hemp for Victory
During World War II, Japan cut off our supplies of vital hemp and coarse fibers. The hemp was needed for making, among other things, rope, webbing, and canvas, to be used on navy ships. So a program was started to grow hemp for military use under the banner of "Hemp For Victory". After the war, licenses were subsequently revoked; concurrent with the last hemp crops being grown in the U.K.
The U. S. Department of Agriculture released an educational film called "Hemp for Victory", which showed farmers how to grow and harvest industrial hemp. Hemp harvesting machinery was made available at low or no cost. From 1942 to 1945, farmers who agreed to grow hemp were waived from serving in the military, along with their sons; that's how vitally important hemp was to America during World War II. The fields of hemp were termed victory gardens, as were the backyard vegetable gardens also urged by the government.
If you believe that you can be in a society and not affect other members of your society (especially the young, impressionable ones, and the ones that aren't so happy with their status quo), then you've been doing drugs way too long.
Well, I don't like pulling this out because "omg it's YouTube" but the Government doesn't necessarily want this study to be known. They have been stifling research into cannabis since prohibition started. They only allow research into the harms of marijuana, not the benefits. In fact, the Government holds a monopoly on cannabis research supply, which is low grade and quality, and almost all research requests are denied. At any rate, here's the best I can give you -- an interview with the researcher behind the study. Good luck getting the official papers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJmQ16cGBHU
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
gee dippy, maybe you drove badly because you were driving at 3am? putz.
And street corner drug dealers, and the imprisoned ... won't someone think of the Unemployent Rate?
Well, quite frankly, (and I'm not taking sides here, because I think there is indeed some veracity to your broad generalisation of peace officers) I think that a lot of the fault lies with any person who steps out of their vehicle during a traffic stop. It's as much the duty of an immigrant to learn the customs and laws of their adoptive country as it is for the police officer to exercise judiciousness in executing their duties.
Having said that, I believe I did say, "Well-trained police officers," which would suggest officers who exercise said judiciousness. The 'high school bully' is not a well-trained police officer.
This is a simple matter of paying attention to science and obeying the law as written.
The rules for Schedule I are:
A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
The best available scientific and medical evidence and opinion clearly shows that criteria B and C do not apply (the US Institute of Medicine refuted B a decade ago, for example). The only way one can claim A applies is via a circular argument: all cannabis use DEFINED as abuse, therefore it has a high potential for abuse.
If the rules of classification are objectively and scientifically applied the it would rank no higher than Schedule IV!
The logic of scheduling Cannabis at Schedule IV (or V) is further shown by the DEA itself - by scheduling pure 100% THC at Schedule III. Clearly a preparation that is only about 10% as potent should have a lower ranking. One should note that Schedule V consists entirely of drugs with higher rankings (from I down to III) in reduced potency preparations.
This is simply a matter of getting science and reason back into regulation. Regrettably the DEA has been given a pass on these by both parties form the very beginning.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
DARE is not drug education. That is a horrific bad drug scare that leaves emotional damage and bigoted views about drug users, or it's an advertisement to a curious young moderately rebellious child.
Most of all, it's dangerous because it discredits (by using ad logicum and ad hominem) any valid reasons for not doing drugs. If you tell kids repeatedly that "Drugs are bad because drugs are... baaaayud... mmm'k?" and that "Drugs are bad because bad people take drugs so people who take drugs are bad, which means drugs are baaad, mm'k?", then when they realise that both of those reasons (and most of the others given to not take drugs) are absolute bullshit, they assume drugs are safe and good.
The drug education program at my school was unintentionally excellent, because they gave us a bunch of cards with real, unbiased information on most illegal drugs. I could tell that, for example, MDMA is far less dangerous than riding a horse, on a use-by-use basis. Or that ice will fuck you up and destroy your life. This influenced me as to what drugs I would eventually experiment with. This was really not what they intended, but is still how I will educate my children - I'll tell them exactly what the pros and cons of various drugs are, and then let them decide what they will accept as a level of risk. I'd hope that by telling them honestly, "casual, occasional use of MDMA, speed, and weed is pretty safe as such things go, and probably less bad for you than getting trashed on hard spirits", that when I tell them "but kids, stay the fuck away from ice, smack, and crack, because those are the ones that will have you sucking dick in the toilets for a hit" they'll respect me and listen to my advice.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
what you are describing is just regular wear and tear on any country, regardless of the government. governments are challenged all the time via internal legal maneuvering. the issue is is the system robust enough to deal with the wear and tear? i would assert it is, and getting better as it accretes more legal tradition and history, all serving to underline our commitment to the fundamental principles and doctrines of the usa. we're getting better, not worse. but jmorris42 asserts the process of destruction has been going on for awhile and we're at the doorstep of fascism. pure crackpot lunacy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"And think of all the unemployed newly released prisoners!"
/puke
YOu might want to check this out with something that needs fast reaction times. though here on slashdot, not sure there's much besides fast typing to be had :) Juggling 5 balls and up will definitely make it clear.
Yes, it is about control. Starting with Self Control, and working around to "what do the rest of us do when Self Control fails".
While you're sitting in your easy chair smokin', you're no more hazard than any other indoor smoker. (But we're not here to talk about house fires by sleepy smokers...) If you decide you need to make a store run for some munchies, do you know whether you're safe to do so? Do you care at that point?
Not a great deal of difference between that and alcohol, true. But we've got generations of collective "rules of thumb" for alcohol that we don't for weed. We've also got objective tests available.
And we STILL have drunk drivers on the road. The argument "I'm not a hazard in my room" is only valid if there is also a way to ensure you STAY in your room. Absent that, you DO have to consider the side issues as part of the package.
I'm not sure that Congress wants any such thing. Remember Congress is a reflection of the people who voted for them. What Congress wants is to look good to their constituents so they'll get re-elected.
The legalization of marijuana is controversial enough that it might actually risk "safe seats". Therefore most congress critters won't even consider it, because it might upset people enough to mess up the gerrymandering predictions. Since about 95% of congress is essentially guaranteed re-election as long as they raise their funds, please their party voters enough to keep the nomination, and don't screw up in major, public way, there is never any incentive to rock the boat.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Most of them can be transferred to work on combating the illegal immigrants that are everywhere in the U.S.
This strategy would also make the idea of drug legalization more appealing to the more conservative section of the populace and the politicians.
This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with ... entertainers and any others."
Hmm... Not simply racist, then, but also discriminating against actors, musicians, performers, and even mimes!
So, why don't you make that known to the relevant authorities instead of bitching about it on Slashdot? Use your knowledge to correct misunderstandings and injustices, that's what it's there for, and usually all you have to do is explain it to the right person. If you can't be bothered to find that right person, then you really have no right to bitch and complain :)
The 'high school bully' is not a well-trained police officer.
No, in my experience the average highway police officer is a high school bully with quite effective weapons and the right to use them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Regulate" in its original 1789 meaning is "to make regular". It does not mean outright banning of a substance, nor does it allow the central government to overrule California's decision to allow CA doctors to prescribe marijuana to CA residents. What happens within California borders is wholly and completely California's decision, just the same as the Netherlands legalized marijuana and the central EU can not interfere.
>>>From a purists point of view, I think we need a number of amendments to the constitution, to expand the rights of the federal government from those listed in the constitution (in a limited way), and at the same time we need to commit ourselves to rule of law, eliminating all statutory law that is in contradiction with the constitution.
>>>
Agreed 100%. If we want to ban marijuana nationally (for example), then it should be done through an amendment. If the amendment does not pass then the central government is forbidden from interfering.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Hold a bag of Doritos in front of them. If they can resist, they aren't stoned.
On a serious tip, THC is detectable. They'd need to design a breathalyzer for it. Dogs can also smell it. Alcohol intoxication wasn't measurable, til someone built a device to measure it. Before that it was legal for thousands of years. I doubt marijuana intoxication is any more difficult to measure. Someone just needs to engineer the device. I'm absolutely positive that funding this would cost less than the war on drugs and employ some scientists to boot.
Seriously, there is always a way. Besides that, people will get baked whether it's legal or not, so how would anything change? People get stoned and drive now... How do officers find them.?
-Viz
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Even so, I've never heard of serious marihuana intoxication problems in traffic
I have. Just a couple months ago, a mother was killed in a head-on collision by a high-as a kite pot-head who crossed the center-line. The only drug involved was marijuana. Any drug that messes with your depth perception, impulse-control, or reaction time should not be in your system while driving.
"control begets more control". +1
Not all checks are based on breath/air analysis. Saliva based checks are available that screen for drugs, such as this: http://www.angelscope.co.uk/oral_drug_tests.htm
If pot were to be legalized, the technology would develop quickly as the $$ would flow into the market to increase tests (eye/pupil dilation tests, saliva, urine, etc..) to meet the needs.
And, even if a person can pass a field sobriety test, or the saliva test, they may still be charged with traffic violations, even if they can't be given a DUI. But illegal drugs in any quantity would be grounds for DUI in my understanding.
Also, wasn't it shown that severe sleep deprivation to have an effect on driving ability the same as having several drinks? How do you test for/punish that?
http://oem.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/57/10/649?andorexacttitleabs=and&HITS=10&sortspec=relevance&hits=10&andorexacttitle=and&maxtoshow=&andorexactfulltext=and&FIRSTINDEX=0&fulltext=blood+alcohol+level+.05+sleep+deprivation&resourcetype=HWCIT%2CHWELTR&searchid=1&RESULTFORMAT=1
Speeding and recklessness are a function of the level of assholitude. Every single person I know (without exception) that's been arrested for DUI or killed someone while DUI, drove like an utter moron when they were sober too. I'd have been involved in one, but I knew how the guy drove and refused to drive with him even when he was sober. I wouldn't drive to the corner 7-11 with him. My girlfriend's sister was killed by that guy when he got drunk, drove like an F1 racer, lost control and got T-Boned by an oncoming car in the rain.
Thing is they drive the same way while intoxicated, only they don't have the reflexes to handle it like they do when sober. The stupidity starts while sober. I'm not advocating DUI for careful drivers, but you can't blame it totally on the alcohol.
All the more reason to not drive like an ass whether you are sober or not.
-Viz
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Also, I remember being told that the administration then was had relationships to DuPont, who
profited nicely when all the hemp needed for sails and ropes and whatever needed to be replaced with Nylon.
You forgot,
Pharma, Beer/Alcohol and distribution (this is a big one), Rope makers, and more that I can't think of.
If you believe that you can be in a society and not affect other members of your society (especially the young, impressionable ones, and the ones that aren't so happy with their status quo), then you've been doing drugs way too long.
You can't be a member of any system and not effect the system. That's beyond obvious. It seems like GP was talking about the harm involved to others when one imbibes a substance in a private setting. You said nothing that weakens his argument.
However, you should immediately seek to close down all bars and smoke shops so impressionable kids (think of the children!) won't be influenced into becoming adults and having to make decisions about what they do and don't put into their bodies.
There, fixed that for you. Seriously, whatever you do affects everyone around you. Driving a car, walking across the street, owning a house, all of these affect everyone around you. That's not the point. The proper question is: does smoking marijuana in the privacy of your own home unreasonably affect the people around you? If you drive a car today at or below the speed limit, you are not unreasonable even though your driving and even being on the highway increases everyone else's risk of an accident. You driving 100 mph in a 55 mph zone, however, is unreasonable. That's why I changed your post to alcohol. If drinking alcoholic beverages in your own home is reasonable, why is marijuana any different?
Similar to the upcoming US election results
...I don't care what state I'm in...
I can only do it while in Idaho. I haven't figured out why.
Maybe the Latinos should learn to speak English. Every other large wave of immigrants to the U.S. took the time and effort to. It's a shame that Latinos are too lazy and/or stupid to learn English. It would make life a lot easier for everyone.
It's true. In California it's common to drive down the street and see someone toking up while driving, I've seen this from Northern California to Southern California. The one cause is that they can't sit on their front porch and light up a joint, or walk down the street, or sit at the beach, without fear of persecution. While I do not recommend driving while high for the novice smoker, people who have been accommodated to marijuana frequently drive with little (read: no) consequences. Marijuana and alchohol are different beasts, marijuana relaxes and causes the user to 'zone' into driving mode, alcohol however inebriates and screws with your motor functions and perception -- this is why alcohol is so dangerous.
For the safety of others, don't drive while high or drunk. *Real* smokers tend to laugh at people who think driving high is dangerous or difficult. Since I've had my license I've been smoking, not ONCE have I ever been in any accident or near miss due to being stoned. I'm not pushing my chances because I'm 100% in control of my body, unlike while drunk. Have you ever noticed while high, if you get pulled over you instantly sober up? It's because you control marijuana yourself, it makes you feel how you WANT to feel. Want to feel/act retarded? That's your game, not mine.
He said harm, not affect. The things I do that do not harm you are none of your business.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.
Amazing how little press it's gotten.
2004's OS10.2 refuses to run new software. I like machines that last ten years(and save money) and apparently Macs don't
Two points:
1) Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" was released in October 2003, so your "2004's OS10.2" isn't quite right.
2) Rather than the OS refusing to run new software, it's actually the applications that are refusing to run on the old OS. This includes both Apple applications and third-party applications (for example, both iTunes 8 and Firefox 3 require at least Mac OS X 10.4).
As Apple adds new features to their OS, developers start using the new features. At some point, it becomes easier to require the new features than to make the application work without them. I understand that if Apple would stop adding new features, or slow it down to Microsoft's pace, then you wouldn't have the problem you do. Too bad.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I hear them saying that, but I also notice that generally they are so high all the time that they just don't realize it anymore. There is a serious difference between the two states.
What it comes down to is that you can't ask a ruler to measure itself.
Ahh, that is a better reading of the statute. Thanks for the insight.
Excellently put, good sir. I've encountered far to many ignorant people who think DARE is the end of the road as far as substance abuse education. If you do a little research, you'll find that alcohol is a MUCH bigger problem in American society (as far as effects to the end user), than most of the illicit drugs are, especially on a use-by-use basis. One of the biggest problems with alot of the illicit drugs, is the market that you have to go through to obtain them, and the people you have to know. Those two things will create bigger problems for the users than the drugs will by far (if used in moderation / recreationally; hardcore physical and/or phsychological dependence is its own problem, which very much occurs with alcohol as well).
It's common knowledge and scientific fact that Marijuana produces immediate, temporary changes in thoughts, perceptions, and information processing. The cognitive process most clearly affected by marijuana is short-term memory. reflex and response time. (*Marijuana Intoxication," Psychopharmacology 76 (1982): 278-81. *Deadwyler, S.A. et al., "The Effects of Delta-9-THC on Mechanisms of Learning and Memory." Neurobiology of Drug Abuse: Learning and Memory. Ed. L. Erinoff. Rockville, MD: National Institute on Drug Abuse 1990. 79-83. *Block, R.I. et al., "Acute Effects of Marijuana on Cognition: Relationships to Chronic Effects and Smoking Techniques." Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 43 (1992): 907-917.)
At some doses, marijuana affects perception and psychomotor performances- changes which could impair driving ability. This hasn't been linked to highway driver safety but it does have the same requirement meeting most state DWI standards where even under a legal limit, if you are impared, you can be cited. (*Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. "Legalization: Panacea or Pandora's Box". New York. (1995):36. *Swan, Neil. "A Look at Marijuana's Harmful Effects." NIDA Notes. 9.2 (1994): 14. *Moskowitz, Herbert and Robert Petersen. Marijuana and Driving: A Review. Rockville: American Council for Drug Education, 1982. 7. *Mann, Peggy. Marijuana Alert. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985. 265.)
These impairments have also been shown in testing samples of MS patients using Pot. It found that in some instances, being high increased the response time compared to patient who weren't high. They were on average 50 percent slower. Granted, this was a look at people with MS, but I have personally witnessed the same behavior in perfectly fine people. When I used to work with people that got high on the job, they would rail about how good they were doing and all I could think of was how much bullshit it was because I had to work harder to keep things going smooth. And yes, I worked with these people sober where they performed much better at their assigned tasks.
Now, it is true that none of the information I presented showed a specific link between the driving abilities of a person who is high and their likelihood of getting into an accident. But I also don't need specific links to any action to know the sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening. I don't care how pedantic you want to be, it is obvious that being high presents more of a danger then not being high does. It should also be noted that there is no test that can be performed to tell if someone is high or not. All they can do is look for THC concentrations being released from fat cells. THC is released slower then it is absorbed so it doesn't always rise to the concentration required for detectable psychoactivity. There is also no standard baseline for concentration levels in the brain that would allow detectable psychoactivity or evidence someone was high. So unless someone openly admitted to being high on an illegal drug after having an accident, the statistics simply won't be there in the first place.
You dare to suggest that DARE is just the modern version of "Reefer Madness"?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Logical fallacy.
People are killed in head-on collision with sober people who cross the center line too. You have no evidence that the pot was a contributing factor (converseley, I have no evidence that it wasn't, but that's not how science works--so unless you believe blind faith is a valid epistemology, you have no basis for concluding that pot was a contributing factor).
The active word in the sentence was harm. He is not damaging your body with second hand smoke. He is not driving recklessly with you on the road. He is not pushing joints on your kids. He's not even using a drug that ups aggressive tendencies. It has a pretty mild withdrawal. He's not likely to be sucking cocks or turn to a life of crime solely to fund his pot habit.
There are things it makes sense to ban just because the potential harm is just that egregious -- for instance, having a personal nuclear weapon -- but if your kid becoming a burn-out was one of them, we'd also have to outlaw TV, video games, skateboarding and Dora the Explorer.
The constitution doesn't give the Govt the right to a MONOPOLY on the printing of money. At that time, and for nearly a century afterwards, various states had their own currencies. So did various municipalities. (This was frequently abused in "company towns". If you worked for the company you were paid in company money which was only good in company stores, etc.)
The "interstate commerce" clause has been expanded in interpretation beyond all recognition of it's original intent: To act as a mediator between the states at boundary disputes, and in the crossing of good. It wasn't intended to regulate non-governmental commerce. I can't remember when or why the current interpretation was created.
N.B.: I'm not claiming that the constitution as originally interpreted would or could work in the current world. I'm claiming that the means used to alter it, altering the interpretation of the meaning rather than amending it, were illegitimate.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
In this instance, it isn't as much about control as it is responsibility.
The current drug tests check for the presence of THC, but doesn't have the ability to measure a concentrated amount that would indicate beyond a legal point that you were intoxicated at any specific point in time. Basically, what this means is that they can't tell the difference between you getting high while watching TV, and you driving to the store to get munchies 4 hours later.
I imagine you would disagree with the premise of someone getting high and driving, especially if they cause an accident with a fatality is wrong and not consistent with what you stated as acceptable usage. Without being able to tell the difference between you sitting in front of the TV verses driving down the road while high is the reason they will not legalize it. If you are the responsible person, you shouldn't be blamed for the accident, and if your not, you should be if being high decreased your ability to avoid it. That's the conundrum we are in, how can we tell if a person is high or not, and how to we hold them accountable for their impaired actions. Currently, prescription drug can get you a DUI/DWI if they impair your ability mental or motor skills.
BTW, this really has little to do with US congress. At the levels of possession and all that most people will come into contact with at one point in time, Marijuana laws are largely left to state and local penalties. It takes a certain amount in order to provoke federal penalties. These amounts are measured either by weight or number of whole plants which create a bulk amount limit that moves the offense into a higher class and penalty.
Well duh? If pot is legalized more people would use it. They'll be more stupid people who use it, and accidents related to pot use will go up. You might as well argue we don't know if piracy will increase if it's legalized.
While I agree with you, I'd MDMA to the list of bad ones. Not as bad as ice, smack, and crack, obviously, but long-term memory and cognitive deficits aren't good. Of course, that applies to chronic alcohol use as well, I suppose.
The Canadian government did a very thorough study of this issue, titled "Report by the Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Marijuana".
The report is very old, but it was also very well done. The book is as thick as a large phone book.
They performed well-crafted, double-blind studies involving marijuana and tests of coordination, including actual driving. Everything was precisely measured, including the amounts of the different forms of THC administered to each individual. (Being double-blind, there was of course a control group who were not given any THC.) The amounts of the different veriants of THC in natural marijuana varies, so they also experimented with different mixes. According to the study (and just about everybody else's), it is the delta-9 THC that is most active. They also compared the motor coordination impairment to the effects of alcohol.
In order to minimize social influences and the placebo effect, all participants were given alfalfa cigarettes, which are similar to marijuana in smoking sensation. The controls of course were given no THC, while the cigarettes of the others were laced with various measured amounts of THC. Each test was done individually.
The long and short of it is: according to the largest and best study of which I am aware (and it is very good), it takes a huge amount of THC to cause much driver impairment. And the effect seems pretty linear, that is, it takes a lot more to impair coordination very much further.
What it boils down to is: compared to alcohol, marijuana is vastly safer on the road. You would have to try hard for it to effect your motor coordination very much, and you would have to smoke a huge amount to bring the kind of coordination impairment that would compare to, say, 0.15% alcohol (when most people are actually starting to become significantly dangerous). On the other hand, it is not difficult at all to consume that much alcohol, sometimes without even realizing it.
As you say: while studies have shown how much marijuana can cause impairment, there is at present no practical way to tell if you are impaired by marijuana, other than a "street sobriety test". Considering that traces of marijuana can stay in your system for a relatively long time, blood concentrations and so on do not mean much.
mod parent funny! Slashdot poster interacting with "billions" indirectly ftw!
I agree on all counts. However...
As far as I know, the fg doesn't claim a monopoly on the right to print money. There are alternate currencies running around in the US that as far as I know are perfectly legal. They're just not common, because they don't have a big authority asserting that they are viable for a broad category of debts, and because they depend on your faith in whatever entity prints the money.
Ok, when you live in a smaller town with a local newspaper (think population below 10k people) the one thing they like to fill the pages with is local and county police reports. In there you find SIGNIFICANT numbers of traffic stops and arrests involving people driving high on marijuana. Now, if it's happening at that rate in a small town then what do you think is happening in the big cities? BTW - there are plenty of campaigns that cover driving while intoxicated on alcohol and drugs. The term DUI is not exclusive to alcohol.
>> the effect of a single joint equates to about 1.1
>> ppt alcohol in the blood
In that case, a typical smoker hits the road with the same impairment as someone who drank a fraction of a beer. I've been a regular pot smoker for 25 years, and a single joint of typical Dutch weed would be sufficient to get me high /at least/ half a dozen times (even considering that when you extinguish and relight repeatedly, you end up wasting about 1/4-1/3 of it).
>> In 2006, out of 730 casualties in lethal accidents,
>> 75 were drugs related
Bullshit; the role of drugs in most accidents is just not quantifiable - if there's a joint in the ashtray when you crash from talking on your cellphone, it goes into the "drugs related" column. There have been NUMEROUS studies - government and non - that came to the opposite conclusion. A small sampling:
"...The largest study ever done linking road accidents with drugs and alcohol has found drivers with cannabis in their blood were no more at risk than those who were drug-free. In fact, the findings by a pharmacology team from the University of Adelaide and Transport SA showed drivers who had smoked marijuana were marginally less likely to have an accident than those who were drug-free...."
http://www.norml.org.nz/Marijuana/Driving.htm
"...research into impairment and traffic accident reports from several countries shows that marijuana taken alone in moderate amounts does not significantly increase a driver's risk of causing an accident..."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/03/990325110700.htm
For more:
http://www.drugpolicy.org/library/bibliography/driving/index.cfm
So now we've established that there IS an effect. What effect do you think that is? Influence, perhaps? Because if that's true, then harm is established, since the medical consequences of marijuana are well acknowledged, except by (current) users and die-hard hippies. If the harm is there, and the influence is there, then the point is well made.
very true, which is why we have breathalyzers that show how intoxicated someone is on their prescription drugs.
oh... wait... we don't?
How ever do we manage.
Sure, its illegal to drive high, but there was a time when we couldn't tell how drunk someone was either. Prohibition wasn't a good idea then and it isn't a good idea now.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
While I have no evidence, I would bet that people driving while talking on their cellphone causes more accidents than being high and driving. I can think of several cases off the top of my head where people have been run down by vehicles because the driver was chatting on a cellphone. I can't think of one where the driver was high.
Currently there can be no widespread campaigns to stigmatize driving stoned
You've obviously never seen those "just tell your parents your kid sister drowned because you were getting high, they'll understand" commercials. Granted, it didn't target driving specifically, but those series of commercials could be said to imply a loss of awareness about ones surroundings.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Don't forget to add things that aren't immediately obvious. It's one thing saying that MDMA is safer than riding a horse, if you're judging by the number of broken legs. It's another to figure out how many 40 year olds have bad memories due to aging, and how many wouldn't have had bad memories for another 30 years, if they hadn't messed around with drugs.
The actual #1 idea, with almost two thousand net votes, is about how annoying all the posts demanding to see Obama's birth certificate are.
http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/4387-4049
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Bob Dylan
Maybe they mixed up their 36 hour Cialis with the instant stuff?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
because those are the ones that will have you sucking dick in the toilets for a hit
I kinda understand the expression, but I hope you won't try to scare your kids with homosexual bashing.
C'mon, pass the joint already bogart.
According to various sources found easily through Googling the word marijuana actually originated from Mexican slang. I do agree with you that it was chosen to avoid the words hemp and cannabis so it could be more easily demonized, but I see no reason to assume that the word's origins are rooted in racism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana_(etymology) http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=marijuana
Currently there can be no widespread campaigns to stigmatize driving stoned (as there have been for driving drunk) because they would be seen as implicit approval of getting stoned and not driving.
There was a clever ad around here not long ago with a guy getting up to go drive and the character on the papers dispenser-thing starts telling him he's too high to drive.
I can't seem to find it online... so here's one of theirs about drunk driving, just so my time on youtube wasn't a complete waste http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_C897kj9F0 (it's a bit graphic, mebbe NSFW)
Sure, different country, different attitudes, but pot is just as illegal around here (and that law is just as widely ignored by the general population).
Perhaps alcohol is the problem it is because it is *legal*. Just a thought.
The CIA has no constitutional basis, and the lack of accounting in the Pentagon is also unconstitutional. The fact that these are not part of your argument is revealing.
Federal control and federal funding are two different things, though often funding is used to "persuade" states into compliance.
The government is supposed to step in when the market breaks down - which it does often - and restore confidence in the economy. The methods they used could be argued, but I don't think anyone believes that the failure of Bank of America, Citi Financial, Wachovia, and all the rest would have helped the situation at all. The extra loss in confidence would have turned the whole country into people desperately holding on to their money, worsening the spiral.
The government is also good at providing infrastructure, and many countries consider health care and education part of their infrastructure - that is, the assets which make their country valuable. The countries that have nationalized pay less and are happier with their care.
I think the right is going to suffer from their arguments from the standpoint of morality. More and more people are returning to the idea that greed is immoral, especially income derived from interest, and if we're going to keep pot illegal, why not be truly conservative and legislate the rest?
THC does nothing for me.
You mean, other than stimulate your canabinoid receptors. Or I suppose you mean, having your cannabinoid receptors stimulated isn't a good experience for you. Is it because you don't like the experience, or it's neutral because you have a high tolerance to it? In which case, maybe you're smoking schwag.
If the government is helping to arrest or kill people, it is good.
If the government is helping people, it is bad.
Well duh? If pot is legalized more people would use it. They'll be more stupid people who use it,
If it's legal, you can also have proper education (which is far more effective than prohibition). In Netherland, pot is legal and many other drugs tolerated or easier to get than abroad, but the people who are stupid with drugs are mostly foreigners. The Dutch mostly restrict their pot use to weekends and parties, and don't mix them with alcohol (or other drugs, but alcohol is the big one).
but your motor skills and reaction times are unquestionably impaired.
Being a light-weight, I've noticed the same effects. However, I would question that it's unquestionably impairment. I've come to feel that it wasn't impairment, but rather a heightened awareness that gave me the sense of impairment.
When you do something so much, like driving, often you become lackadaisical. I'm not going to make an unquestionable claim, but I propose that more accidents are caused by lackadaisical drivers than stoned drivers with heightened awareness.
The CIA is questionable. The Pentagon's budget is too big. Fine add that to my argument.
I don't have the time to argue with you about the rest of what your saying. You need to think about root causes.
It totally affects me because I don't have any and wish I did. Now I can't focus on my job and will probably get fired. Have more respect for your neighbors. I'm sure good old Tom would have passed the bong.
Yeah, sittin' around and chillin'...
While I do not recommend driving while high for the novice smoker, people who have been accommodated to marijuana frequently drive with little (read: no) consequences... marijuana relaxes and causes the user to 'zone' into driving mode ... *Real* smokers tend to laugh at people who think driving high is dangerous or difficult.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. I've talked with so many people that say that others may have trouble driving while drunk/high, but they're really good at it because they know what they're doing. Same argument: "but I'm good at driving drunk/stoned/tripping/on speed."
If pot were legal and we could have open public discourse (media etc) on the subject, we could start to bring some of this to light. Driving is dangerous, and it gets more so the more mind-altering drugs you've taken. I'd agree that driving stoned is probably less dangerous than driving drunk, but that doesn't mean it's not more dangerous than driving sober (Somewhere else in the comments someone referenced some studies on this).
Why are you under the impression that cannabis intoxication is a traffic problem? (There's science done on the subject that I doubt you're aware of)
You're still intoxicated, you're reaction times are still off, etc... While I'd be happy replacing every drunk driver with a stoned driver, but that isn't saying its optimal. I do agree that this is a pretty hypocritical reason to propose to keeping it illegal though. Alcohol = bad drivers = legal, whereas marijuana = bad drivers = illegal.
Hell, I generally prefer marijuana to alcohol, and I don't even smoke it.
I really can't find any reasons to keep it illegal, outside of the knee-jerk "zomg people on drugs" reaction. Which is odd, since here in America we're on so many drugs that it isn't funny, and this is moving beyond the banal OTC stuff, coffee, nicotine, and liberal quantities of crappy beer.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I agree completely with everything you've said. I still don't see where you've made the case that legalizing pot would increase the number of people that drive stoned, even with an increase in amount of pot smoked or number of people smoking it.
Heh, no I haven't.
But still, those ads are talking about how dangerous it is to smoke pot in general, which we all know is a load of horse shit. That's a lot different than an ad that says "Go have fun, enjoy yourself, smoke up with your friends, just don't be stupid and get behind the wheel of a car. Make sure you have a designated driver".
The British government wanted to do public service campaign cautioning the dangers of driving under the influence of marijuana. When they conducted the study however, they found out that all of the patients drove better while high compared to being sober. They had to cancel the campaign.
I'm not a user but my word-use would probably be cannabis to refer to resin/extracts and marijuana to refer to the leaf. Hemp for the plant or fibres.
General welfare clause was a mistake. But that would be the cop out for a lot of those tests you suggest, wouldn't it? You can argue that using it is too broad of an interpretation (and I agree), but isn't that argument subject to your own interpretation? The Supreme Court is supposed to be the final interpretation on these things. That's all well and good, I can't think of a better system wrt that. But, if the Constitution was much more explicit, they wouldn't need to rule on those things in the first place.
Our Constitution is a great thing, but very far from acceptable. We need a new one that explicitly authorizes all governments (fed, state, local) to act, and explicitly prohibits anything outside of that scope. The price to pay, which no doubt people will whine about, is that it has to have lots of amendments. BFD. It's worth it.
Billy Brown rides on. Yolanda Green bypasses Gary White.
"casual, occasional use of MDMA, speed, and weed is pretty safe as such things go, and probably less bad for you than getting trashed on hard spirits",
There is a problem with this. MDMA has some pretty savage long term effects, and is very very rarely pure, its generally cut with speed or heroin (and often is just cut speed or heroin, with no actual MDMA content). Also, while not terribly addictive, MDMA is a social drug, meaning that if your child becomes enmeshed in certain social scenes, the usage will not be causal, and may be in quantities, qualities, and lengths of exposure that would cause harmful effects.
Speed... I know from some stupid youthful experiences (and living in what used to be the methamphetamine capitol of the US) that "casual" use is hard, if not impossible, to maintain. That stuff is more addictive than just about anything short of crack and heroin. Also, even with "casual" meth use, your child will be interacting with addicts (where else do you get it), and meth addicts are not known for their safety or stability. Also meth can lead to rather severe health problems, outside of the whole nasty addiction bits.
Before recommending meth to your children, please head down to your local ghetto and see what it can do to them.
Marijuana... Thats fine. As long as they don't get caught. My personal rule would be "if you get caught, the consiquences are all yours", and "if you keep it in the house, your in massive trouble, like a trip to jail". I say this because YOU as a property owner can lose your house because of the moronic actions of your children.
This just happened to a second cousin of mine in small town Minnesota. While he was out of state visiting my family, and one of his kids decided to try his hand at cooking meth, and dealing it out of his house. The police found out he was dealing, and seized my cousins house, even if he wasn't aware, and was 3000 miles away.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
you believe what was laid down 250 years ago is 100% infallible. but society changes. issues need to be reinterpreted and clarified, constantly. everything changes. it is impossible to adhere to what the founding fathers wrote and not change over time, nor should you think that is a admirable goal. gay rights for example was not something the founding fathers dealt with or even cared about. the accretion of what you call entropy is the wrong characterization. its clarification and extension of basic principles, strengthing them, challenge after challenge
the country is getting stronger, not weaker. your understanding of things is rigid and immovable, and therefore weak and irrelevant
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
at one time, equal rights for whites and blacks were new too. at that time, it was constantly two steps forwards, one step back. but as principles are clarified and codified, gay rights acquires an air of infallibility and inevitability. now, 150 years after reconstruction, no one would seriously challenge the legal idea blacks and whites are equal. but only over an extended period of time of constant effort and set backs were things finally congealed and acquired depth and tradition. that's not true yet with gay rights, but it will be in 150 years. prop8 is a step back. yet in new hampshire, massachusettes, iowa: the steps forward are being made. give it time. and this is a GOOD thing: fundamental extensions to our principles SHOULD take time
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
increase in equality between the sexes, increase in rights for the disabled, increased rights for homosexuals, etc., etc.
the tempo of the last 50 years has been nothing but a great extension of liberty in this country
what the hell are you smoking?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It seems like a bad idea to operate any type of heavy machinery under the influence of any mind altering substance. Yet the countless mind bending pharmacutials all that is required is a small warning stating such on the side of the pill container. It's obvious when someone should/shouldn't be driving. Why is this any different?
I keep crashing my car when playing Burnout 3 on marijuana... I still haven't found a place to get munchies either.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
There really isn't any data on stoned people driving in the first place. First, the present of THC in the system does not directly coordinate to how high someone is or if they are under the influence or pot in anyways. Second, the THC is absorbed by your fat cells relatively fast then re-released at a much slower rate which could take days or weeks. This means you hit a joint, have a high for an hour or so, then it isn't able to be detected in concentrations enough to assume a psychoactive influence. Often, if you were to smoke a joint, then get into an accident, the 4 hours to collect evidence that most states have would be longer then any concentrations in your system would stay to show an influence. Even the time it takes to get EMS out, transport you to the hospital, and then take a blood sample would be longer then the time that could be needed to remove any evidence of concentrations large enough to determine an influence factor. What we end up with is no useful or meaningful statistics on people under the influence of marijuana and the coordination to accidents unless the driver or someone in the car tells on themselves.
So this means that we do not know what would be "more" in the first place because we don't have an accurate baseline. For the most part, THC being present in the system skews all the results and everyone knows that presence doesn't mean under the influence like with alcohol. This is why work place rules and other testing disqualify for the mere presence.
There are campaigns but not explicit to getting high from pot. But, without the ability to create an accurate baseline, there are no hard figures to be bandied about like there is with alcohol. There are national groups fighting driving while impaired and yes, that does include drunk drivers who aren't legally drunk too. But it also includes tired drivers, people on prescription drugs and so on. This is probably why you aren't noticing it like you do groups like MADD which are very vocal about drunk driving. You have to realize though, the lack of someone shouting at the top of their lungs doesn't mean a problem doesn't exist, it doesn't mean a false dichotomy where it imply support otherwise, it means that no one is shouting loud enough to get your attention as with other people and substances.
Z.Y., an eX-Warrior, was given a coupon by his wife.
Wondering what it was for, he asked "VUTS R QPON?" (in his thick accent).
"MLK JIHG", came the answer, "to FEeD your Cute Baby Alligator."
Z.Y. had a pet, you see, and fed it from a milk jug... Perhaps I should have mentioned that at the beginning.
If you appear to be driving badly (as much as such a thing can be objectively determined), I think a stop and testing is fine.
Testing shouldn't be for presence of intoxicants, but ability to perform.
And you should be charged with some degree of "driving while incapable".
Even if you're not on any illicit drugs.
Be a shitty driver for whatever reason — inattention, sleepiness, emotion, age — and there should be consequences. There should be forces to keep you off the roads: in enforcement, in licensing, in as many places as they can be employed.
Everything I do affects you somehow, so that's out. We haven't established much of anything besides you thinking that I do something you disapprove of - not really worthy of legislation. I can't really make sense of the rest of that wharrgarrbl, so I won't bother with it.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
because those are the ones that will have you sucking dick in the toilets for a hit
I kinda understand the expression, but I hope you won't try to scare your kids with homosexual bashing.
What makes you think his kids aren't lesbians?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Yeah, so just imagine those prison guards working for some of the same inmates they watched over :)
Why would you take viagra and then... drive?
You haven't seen Crash, the 1996 movie starring James Spader.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
To be accurate, you should probably say "increases response times," not "reduces response times."
Obviously this is not something I can site statistics on or give overwhelming assurance on, however in my experience legalizing the drug would ensure more people of driving age would use it. There is a psychology behind substance legality which comes into play. For instance, I nor a good portion of my friends smoked pot in high school, however we all drank alcohol. The difference is one is illegal outright and the other is illegal until you are considered an adult by law. Frankly, the law can not define adulthood in the eyes of a teen and therefore most teens would be more likely to bend such a law, whereas they would not break an outright illegality. Granted, some teens don't give a fuck, but they already smoke pot anyways.
Personally, once I matured I realized that to me the law is flexible where my personal rights are concerned, at least the ones that effect no one else. Which is why I feel free to use banned substances but do not do things like driving while using said substances which would endanger others.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
The great thing about the smell of marijuana ... it's easy to detect in any car at all! And anything that looks like it might contain marijunana (used to be 35mm film cans, I suspect now Altoids tins are in the same category) can lead to what an officer on a witness stand might plausibly say was reasonable suspicion.
Note: cops come in all varieties -- scrupulously honest / connivingly dishonest / middlin' honest, but the illegality-plus-ubiquity of pot makes it a tempting lure for advancing contacts, developing grounds for probable cause.
Aorry -- this is a pet peeve :)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Thank you AC, you brought back all those fond memories of 'makes careless mistakes' written all over my report cards since grade school to university :)
There may have been other factors equally at play, and, please note, I am wildly in favor of legalizing (not just "decriminalizing," and without that ridiculous and-then-tax-it-highly addendum) marijuna, but when a girl(brilliant, beautiful, beloved) who went to my school was killed, along with 17 others in an Amtrak collision (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase,_Maryland_rail_wreck), at least two of the train crew had been smoking marijuana. One of them had previously been convicted of intoxicated driving, too, though, I'm not sure which intoxicant was involved.
My upshot: legal? Great. Long overdue, and the alternative of *illegality* causes many problems besides being facially, farcically stupid. But legal for driving in a commons? Bad move. (Or, more my favorite system, for alcohol, too: have a conservatively low threshold below which driving is not a crime per se, but impose strict liability and punishment in the event of an at-fault accident.)
Just thoughts,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Meh. Part of the argument is that the prisons are overcrowded and the courts are overworked. Decriminalizing mere minor possession of weed doesn't shut down these institutions, it just slims down the court backlog.
That's a mighty fine straw many you've got there, it'd be a shame if somebody were to point out that it's completely irrelevant.
Any substance that causes impaired driving or reckless behavior in sufficient amount to cause dangerous conditions is sufficient for citation. That includes any number of legal OTC medications and in some cases herbs. It might be harder for the police to detect oxycontin or other prescriptions, but that doesn't make it any less illegal.
You might end up being cited for reckless endangerment instead of the DUI, but the police do have plenty of tools available for those that represent a danger to those around them. Unfortunately, not stiff enough sentences though. If you're only a bit buzzed and are driving responsibly, it's unlikely that you're ever going to be pulled over, that's just the way that it works.
If you believe that you can be in a society and not affect other members of your society (especially the young, impressionable ones, and the ones that aren't so happy with their status quo), then you've been sober and plain ignorant way too long.
There, fixed it proper. Argument remains the same.
-Tommy
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
No, really it shouldn't, it's nearly impossible to get that sort of data. If the person was tired and high on pot, which do you count? Or if a person had a drink and a joint, which one is it? The decisions of that sort are made upon the basis of what the chemical is expected to do. There are provisions available for cases where a reaction causes the same dangerous situation.
I can't personally think of a good reason to change it, except that people want any reason at all to legalize pot.
You don't see potheads going 30 on the speed way, you see teenagers who just got high for the first time doing 30.
Not saying its fact, but I've seen a few studies that concluded that a 'regular' pothead generally has no loss of driving ability when stoned out of their gourd. The important note is: REGULAR. The first few times someone gets stoned it is rather overwhelming and they really shouldn't be doing ANYTHING dangerous because they are so caught up in being stoned and focused on that.
Before I stopped smoking, I was high >ALL THE TIME. Didn't matter where or when, I was stoned. No one could tell the difference between now and then, with one exception. My boss didn't realize it, my girlfriend didn't realize it, my parents had no clue. The only thing noticed when I stopped is that I am more vocal and bitchy, rather than being laid back and caring less about silly shit. Now I just get irked very easy.
Mind you, these people ALL knew I smoked pot, they just didn't realize that I was always smoking pot until a few years later when the subject came up. Actually, the story was: I grew up in central florida, 90 miles from disney world, we had season passes and would go ALL the time when we were bored. My g/f asks at a family dinner what I thought it would be like to go to the parks stoned, I had to answer with a 'I've never not been stoned at a disney park, I wouldn't know the difference'. The followed up with the 'yes, I've been stoned all day, you didn't realize it?'
I'm not advocating getting stoned and driving either, just listing my observations. And I'm fully aware that my experiences are not going to be the same for everyone else.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
But you can with a urine test after you suspect it, which is why we have labs that can do it. You can tell pretty quickly if they were loaded up on opiates at the time of 'arrest' if you take the urine sample relatively close to that time period.
Do not under estimate how accurate drug tests have become.
The real solution is simple, don't do it and don't get pulled over and act like stoned moron. Most cops don't WANT to fuck with you, they just want you not to hurt/mame/kill someone, regardless of how evil you (not you specifically) may think they are.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Because there are more factors than just the pot involved in the equation. Pot alone isn't an issue, some kid getting high for the first few times who is concentrating on being stoned and the feeling is a problem.
The guy who is stoned 24/7, not so much.
I agree 100% however, if you want people not to do something for a valid reason, fine, tell them. But 'its bad because its bad' is bullshit and doesn't work.
DARE prevents little kids from doing drugs they weren't going to do anyway. Then they become teenagers and start to question the bullshit they've been fed, they try some drugs and realize the shit they've been told isn't actually true, then proceed to fuck themselves up because no one pointed out all the other reasons why you might not want to do a particular drug or drugs.
Educate kids properly rather than lying and hiding shit from them and you'll be FAR more successful.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
hahaha nice, the only way that would have been funnier is if I was stoned :)
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
You were not in a normal state of mind, so no you wouldn't drive as well. If you were used to driving stoned and not so focused on the fact that you were driving stoned it would have been completely different. We know you were focused on the fact that you were stoned because you made the effort to get the video of it and actually look at the video. You were not just stoned, but also preoccupied with the fact that you were stoned, and that IS dangerous.
As for tests, piss tests have come an extremely long way, and while they are not legally binding at this point as I understand it, don't think for a second that they can not piss test you and get a REAL good idea about how high you are at the moment. They can tell women they are prego before they've even missed their period, they CAN detect the changes, they just haven't pushed hard to try to get it in use by cops.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Well the issue here I think is "proper education." I personally don't think the U.S does a good job with either alcohol or tobacco, so I'm a bit pessimistic about weed education.
>>>>>The same principle applies to you. My smoking of marijuana while posting on slashdot does not harm your body, your personal property, nor your rights, therefore you have no justification to stop my activity here in my private home.
>>If you believe that you can be in a society and not affect other members of your society (especially the young, impressionable ones, and the ones that aren't so happy with their status quo), then you've been doing drugs way too long.
>>
By that reasoning we should ban free speech because it "affects impressionable youth". I strongly disagree with such a stupid, idiotic viewpoint. If no physical harm is caused to a person's body or property, there's no justification to take-away a person's freedom of speech or freedom to smoke a weed. "No man has a right to harm another. And that is all that the government should restrain him." - Jefferson. My smoking marijuana (or drinking beer or shooting meth) while watching "Democracy Now" on the television does not harm you in any way, so there's no reason to restrain me from doing it.
I'm sick of this bullshit that people believe they have a right not to be offended, and therefore that justifies curtailing speech (political correctness aka censorship). Frak that. If you don't want to hear me talk, or let me smoke weed, or wear leather and have fun with my wife, then stuff your fingers into you ears and hum real loud.
I'm not going to stop just because I "offend" or "affect" your pansie-assed sensibilities.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Use != abuse. Drug abuse is the use of a drug to the point at which it endangers self or others, or interferes with the tasks of daily life. Since oxycodone is an opiate, and therefore is highly addictive and causes painful withdrawal, it is likely be abused by a high percentage of users. Cannabis is not chemically addictive, although sustained use can be psychologically habit forming. Even so cannabis has no withdrawal effects.
Maybe you wouldn't argue it, but the only (few) good scientific studies showed not only that marijuana intoxication doesn't appear to lower driver safety, but those that were high actually drove a bit safer. Although this could be and probably is a statistical aberration, it lends even more credence to the idea that simply being high does not make you any more dangerous of a driver. This is not to say that if you get so bombed you are unable to control your reflexes that it cannot affect your driving, of course it can, but the evidence seems clear that a moderate high, especially among regular smokers, does not increase danger while driving in any way.
Because there are so many active components in cannabis, not just THC, the trick is to vary the strains you smoke with some degree of regularity to avoid acclimating to a single cannabinoid pattern.
*ahem*
I would think...
So now we've established that there IS an effect. What effect do you think that is? Influence, perhaps? Because if that's true, then harm is established, since the medical consequences of marijuana are well acknowledged, except by (current) users and die-hard hippies. If the harm is there, and the influence is there, then the point is well made.
No. I am not causing harm, nor am I a hippy. I look like a young Bill Gates, with suit and glasses and nerdy expression. You wouldn't even know I was smoking a joint if I had not told you.
And as for the "influence" argument if we sustain that to be true, then all person's mouths should be immediately taped-up so their speech doesn't have any negative influence. And all churches should be immediately closed for the same reason. Only a tyrant would sustain such a bullshit viewpoint ("bad influence is justification to take-away freedoms"), because it's clearly anti-liberty.
Go live with Comrade Putin; you two would love each other.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>>The government is supposed to step in when the market breaks down - which it does often - and restore confidence in the economy.
That's fine. Amend the Constitution to grant that power to the Congress. Because until that happens, the "save the banks" power does not belong to the U.S. government. It belongs to the state governments per the law: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
As for infrastructure, the Constitution already grants Congress the right to build roads, so I have no objections to that. Oh and by the way, the government control of GM (72%) is fascism, aka corporatism. I don't know about you, but personally I'm against corporatism. The government is supposed to be for the people, not to make corporations richer in politician-CEO bribery deals.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Marijuana is, or was at the time, a Mexican term for the smokable bud of the cannabis plant. When the public campaign to criminalize pot was going on, those behind the push sought to associate it with Mexican Immigrants and Jazz Musicians (read: black people), because we all know what blacks and Mexicans really want: to fuck our pure white daughters. An interesting fact to consider: when the sticky-icky was outlawed, most Americans had no idea that cannabis, the wonder plant that had produced necessary fibers since colonial days and served as the parchment on which our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written and the fibers from which the first flag was woven, was the same plant as marijuana, the devil weed from south of the border that makes good young men into murderers and innocent young ladies into sex starved jazz fans.
So, those who brought the term into popular American usage were certainly racists, and I think that was the GP's point. However, as George Carlin said, there are no bad words only bad ideas or actions. Words are neutral.
The Commerce Clause allows the government to do thinks like the Glass-Steagall Act of 1935 which created the FDIC, which regulated interstate commerce, which was entirely supported by the founding fathers, since the union of the states on a commercial level allowed the US to compete with Europe.
By the way, the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1999, to the dismay of many people who claimed it would lead to another Great Depression. Whoops. Canada kept their rules in place, and they have the most sound banking system in the Western world at the moment.
What GM official bribed a government official? While the crisis is proof of how America operates on an institutional level, bribery was not a factor in the takeover of GM.
They already have it. It is called a Police officer. They ask you stupid unrelated questions in order to check your response, and how long it takes you to answer. The only reason they don't call it a sobriety check is that it would be an acknowledgment that they can check it, and thus eliminate the lack of a "field sobriety check" as an excuse to keep it illegal. Besides in cases where they have determined you aren't sober they usually ask to check your vehicle, (due to the fact that people who are dumb enough to drive high are also dumb enough to drive while carrying).... Possession almost always yields a higher fine than DUI, and both is like hitting the lottery for cops.
-Oz
Heh, reminds me of a controversial ad campaign back in England about 20 years ago.
There were posters all over the place featuring the smiley acid face. Underneath was a caption and a phone number that read something like "We know you're going to get high - we're here when it all goes bad".
Needless to say, some folk though that this was somehow giving approval to taking drugs, and the campaign didn't last that long.
This was during the rave-party and acid/ecstasy boom of the early nineties, and the vast majority of my friends were very much into the scene. We all thought the ads were cool, but it never stopped any us...
I don't care whether or not driving baked impairs your ability to drive less than driving drunk. If you are driving, it is your responsibility to be sober!!! For no other reason than the fact that you are driving a vehicle capable of killing people, I expect that other drivers take their responsibilities to themselves and one another on the road as seriously as I do (whether they really do or not)....therefore I drive sober.
-Oz
While it won't kill you, (as with heroin and ALCOHOL) THC withdrawal can be a very annoying headache that lasts for a few days until your brain starts leveling out your endocannabinoid levels (which drop when you smoke out on a daily basis). I am a weed legalization advocate, but having personally experienced a "drought" or two, I refuse to say that it has NO withdrawal symptoms.
-Oz
I dunno. In Australia they have recently begun random driver testing for a couple of "recreational" drugs. There's been all kinds of media advertising to warn you of the risk of being caught.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
I'll agree that far more accidents are caused by inattentive drivers, but while you do have a point that as well as tastes, sensations, etc. marijuana also increases one's awareness of how high they are I still can't see even where the idea that it doesn't impair you at least to an extent came from. When you're on a drug that's pretty much known for its ability to make people spacey and easily distracted it seems to me to be obvious there will be some impairment.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
Pffft. I taught myself the alphabet backwards in a couple of days just so I could screw with my kids. ZYX WVUT SRQP ONML KJIH G FED CBA.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Your chunking technique is good.
On the normal state of mind thing, I could see a point there. My roommate is a much heavier smoker than I, and often I can't tell if he's high or not. He's fairly functional, where I tend to only be able to focus on one thing at a time.
As for the video, I have a semi-permanent camera mounted for racing and just to cover my ass in case someone does something stupid on the road and causes me to wreck. I only thought to check it out after the fact.
I didn't know that about the piss tests, I know there are obviously higher concentrations of some chemicals and probably lower of others when closer to the time of consumption, so logically it can be done, but making something as portable or easy to use as a breathalyzer would be interesting. Then again, with what we've recently seen on breathalyzer accuracy, who knows.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
I meant 'does nothing for me' in the sense of 'the experience is mildly unpleasant and I have no motivation to seek it out'. Unlike, say, alcohol, which I very much enjoy (and has none of the pesky legal issues). It was meant to indicate that my post was on principle rather than being self-serving.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Even if you don't count how blantantly unfair it is. (I mean I was under the impression once you're an adult your life is your life to make your own decisions.) However even not considering that and even spotting you that you meant to say only people who vote for it have to have their kids go. I know, you were too busy with one of your liberal mental masturbations to actually think this one through but you have to look at the other side, you're basically affecting what people will run for office. Of course if someone doesn't have any kids this is a non issue so figure quite a few of the childless will run. Unfortunately what are they going to think about issues involving children. Gee, that will be great for education issues.(I'm sure they give a shit about your kids' high school.)
But of course that wasn't your point, it was about people who do have kids. Now it's not just a decision about his life, he's definitely going to think about his kids.(And possibly screwing his kids over) At this point you're probably wacking off or something, completely sweaty figuring nobody will vote for a war since his kids will pay and that gets you all hot or something. However I actually see this playing out one of 2 ways. The first group will just say fuck it and not even run or anything. Even if they agree with a war they don't know if their kids do and their kids are adults with lives of their own, why screw them over. It's just easier to not run in the first place and never have to risk it. Even if you ran and got in now you have to weight how badly your kids get screwed over.(And then make a decision that may or may not have more to do with what your kid is doing now.) You might vote no even on what might be a reasonable war and then get creamed in the next election when you get figuratively raped by your opponent.
However there is a group that could make this decision fairly easily and you're giving them a huge advantage by holding this over everybody's heads. That would be people who have a family tradition of military service to begin with. Think about it, if I'm in a family where everybody joins up anyway then this is nothing. Hell, in that case my kids can join up early, I could pull a few strings and get them a commission or something and all of a sudden that being on the front line isn't the hard slog you want it to be.(When the war isn't on they'd have a better pay grade, better quarters, possibly be in the reserves, etc.) The kids would get any advantage they could and since they'd have generations of service they'd get the best the military has to offer.(Especially since daddy's an important politician.) Then if they wanted to they could use that advantage to run for office since now they have a history in the military and a family that does politics. Even when a war was on I could use my military and political connections to make sure the "front" they're at isn't the super dangerous one you were hoping for. (The front can cover quite a bit of area and wouldn't you know it, maybe my kids division is going to be in a defensive position and not storm anything.) That reminds me, who exactly makes the determination of what the most dangerous thing is? Gee, maybe it'd be somebody in the military or politics. If I'm a politician with a military back ground can you say "pull a few fucking strings" to get something ranked as "dangerous" that might not be the most dangerous thing around.(You really haven't thought this one through have you?)
Anyway this should worry you for a couple of reasons. First off last I checked military people tend to vote Republican. (I'm probably not far off thinking you're not one.) However the part that should really worry you is you're basically setting up an old boys network of military politicians. I would expect that they probably arn't as opposed to using military force as you would want them to be. Furthermore that old "chicken-hawk" canard won't be so effective when you throw it at someone who's got generations of military experience. I mean hell, you're basically crea
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Next time you get some smokes, save me the seeds, buddy. Ever try to get tobacco seeds? Have to have a permit to grow the stuff. Yes, there's native stuff around, but I suggest you try that on a smoker and watch them gag and puke. The good stuff isn't easy to get the seeds for at all. Easier to get pot seeds, to tell the truth.
In fact, this may be why pot continues to be not as high priced per gram as say, coke -- where again can I get some plants/seeds/sprouts or whatever to get started with again?
Its not like the drug cartels make this kind of thing available at any price.
there is plenty of legislation written that is downright garbage
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You only had two possible choices once you made that accusation: Follow it up with proof, or shriek at the top of your lungs an unconditional confession that it is an incompetent lie. You chose the latter. And you know it. And you're screaming at your monitor right now in impotent rage, because being confronted with that inescapable fact literally makes you piss your little panties.
A field sobriety test for marijuana intoxication? I have no idea what that could entail, but it's bound to be hilarious. I hope they record them on video.
The feds have frequently closed down alternative currencies that were not politically correct. The excuse was that they were illegally printing money, though I forget the exact wording of the charge. Most of the alternative currencies only circulated in local areas. (I.e., not across state boundaries.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
In 2006, out of 730 casualties in lethal accidents, 75 were drugsrelated (also cocaine, speed etc. but that doesnt impact driving as much as marihuana).
What the? 75 drugs related... how many were actually Cannabis related?
uhh. ice and speed are the same thing
During a Terry Stop an Officer generally is evaluating a lot of behavior, someone who is intoxicated enough to be impaired, is going to be fairly obvious. The sobriety test is a way to remove bias from the equation. By the time an officer has decided to FST he is either convinced of impairment, and needs to prove it, or is harassing, with no intention of arresting.
Wisdom of Crowds != Wisdom of Intellectuals
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Not if it was a stick shift.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The post I was replying was giving the excuse that there needed to be a quick accurate test for marijuana before it could possibly be legalized, I was showing that this was nonsense. Thanks for replying with something has hardly any bearing on the context of my original statement.
There is a war going on for your mind.
70 in a 65 seems safer than 90+ in a 65.
Ah, gotcha, I completely forgot about the "drink responsibly, drive responsibly" campaign.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Proof that geeks smoke pot. If they can't deal with the bullshite of pot laws then they have no chance of dealing with the rest of the crap. Funny but the governments that don't give a shit about pot are also the ones that have faced up to the challenge of global warming.
It could be a valid litmus test of an ability to face reality and deal with it.
Go away mormonfag. And learn how to write a coherent though.
It's obvious when someone should/shouldn't be driving. Why is this any different?
Because it's not so obvious when it comes to marijuana, maybe?
By the way, intentional or not, your username is perfect for this discussion, Mr. Spliffington.
Bullish Machine Tzar
references please. I'd love it if such a study really existed.
There are lots of different studies in different cancer arenas that all seem to come to similar conclusions. That ingredients in marijuana stifle or kill cancer.
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=cancer%20marijuana
Bullish Machine Tzar
So, is this still "troll tuesday" (whatever the fuck that means to your tiny fagball brain) or are you still trying to get the last word in like a person who hasn't seen a woman naked?
I'm guessing the latter of the two - but please - prove me right.
Taxpayers have repeatedly asked the candidate to establish his eligibility -- just the normal birth certificate, passport history, citizenship history. The campaign has repeatedly gone to court to have these requests dismissed on lack of standing. Seeing such normal citizenship documents hidden is unprecedented, particularly for a politician, but going to court to keep them hidden is the point which first caught my attention.
The citizenship questions are numerous and reasonable:
-- Obama's half-sister Maya also has a Hawaii Certificate of Live Birth, like the Kos/Factcheck document. She was admittedly born in Indonesia. (Hawaii COLBs are registrations, rather than actual hospital documents, and foreign births qualify.)
-- No record has been found of the hospital in Hawaii where he was born... no doctor, no nurses have stepped forward and said they were there. The birth announcement in a local newspaper listed an address, and neighbors say they don't remember such a family at that address. His sister Maya has claimed two different birth hospitals in Hawaii. The lack of witnesses is not conclusive, just strange. Releasing the normal documents would help clear it up.
-- The campaign's fightthesmears.com website still says that at one time he held British citizenship, which seems to conflict with the office's requirement for "natural-born citizenship":
http://fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate
-- June 2008 an Associated Press reporter photographed Obama's school record in Indonesia. It listed him as a citizen of Indonesia. People say Indonesian schools did not accept non-citizens at the time. This is the only formal record still public of his citizenship.
http://www.daylife.com/photo/01u33pL9Ns06D
-- He mentioned a visit to Pakistan during college. Some say this was off-limits to Americans at that time, but accessible to citizens of Indonesia. The first US passport we know of him holding was as a US senator much later. Opening up his passport record and travel history could help this issue go away.
-- School records are all withheld. Other politicians regularly release their grades. Some question whether he received foreign-student aid. Opening up school records, as other candidates do, could clear up this issue.
-- Media coverage of the questions has severely distorted the issues. This sometimes happens spontaneously, but....
Just opening up the normal citizenship records, to the normal degree, would have cleared away all these questions long ago. Yet there is unprecedented opacity. An open forum on "open government" would naturally draw these as prime questions.
"Why is it taboo?" Because questioners are personally attacked. Ad hominem, not ad rem. Scary.
(And yes, it is staggering that opposition candidates, media, and even "right wing bloggers" would attack or distort such questions. But the questions themselves are simple, reasonable, and answerable. The implications are significant.)
Or, I dunno, you could just be responsible with your choice of words.
"I'm laughing ha ha this is like so funny lol" is the only retort that an emotionally stunted twat like you is capable of making when forced to face their own failure. It's a pathetic, transparent attempt to hide your frustration at being unable to pretend you're not a filthy cretin. Like everyone else who uses it, you haven't even managed to convince yourself of its truth, let alone anyone with a functioning brain. And like your inability to even TRY to back your claims as previously noted, it is a literal confession to being a liar. Again you chose the latter option.
And no, you ferociously retarded moron, I'm not the other poster, nor does posting anonymously prove anything. You're just hoping that if you keep shrieking what you WANT to be true that you'll be able to believe that it is true. But it's not working, nor is the nervous chuckle you're awkwardly forcing out of your throat right now in another futile attempt to reassure yourself.
I know the sibling poster was marked funny, but what makes you think that his children aren't heterosexual females? There's a lot behind the aversion to "sucking dick in the toilets for a hit" than simply doesn't-agree-with-my-sexual-orientation. And your hypersensitivity is potentially damaging to your cause.
There, fixed that for you.
Real fix: Don't make it illegal. TA-DAA, no more harm!
Or there's the evil way: Make something harmless illegal using false claims and racist rethoric, CREATE HARM, then keep changing the excuses for perpetuating this harm. All the while, use the legal system as a way to legitimize the harm you're causing.
You can't take the sky from me...