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Philips Develops Roadside Drug-Testing Device
Al writes "A handheld developed by Philips for law enforcement detects traces of cocaine, heroin, cannabis, and methamphetamine in 90 seconds. The system uses magnetic nanoparticles attached to ligands that bind to traces of these drugs. Once saliva has been placed inside the device, an electromagnet mixes the sample and the nanoparticles. Frustrated total internal reflection (FTIR) — the same phenomenon that underlies fingerprint scanners and multitouch screens — is then used to measure a change to the refractive index. By immobilizing different drug molecules on different parts of a sensor surface, the analyzer is able to identify traces of each different drug. An electronic screen displays instructions and a simple color-coded readout of the results."
Freedom FTIR
Disinformatzia inciter
Whip up the suds
Leave the sensor still whiter
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
This could go a long way towards treating other drugs like alcohol for driving purposes. One of the major roadblocks in legalization was no field test for driving while impaired.
And then we'll have chips that do the same thing.
Oh, where is that tin hat of mine!
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
...that we can ill-afford. I have a much better idea. Why not simply jail everyone from the get-go to save everyone time?
They should open the code and hardware specs to reduce the understandable suspicion we have of black box judicial devices.
THL phish sticks
Requesting the source code worked in one breathalyzer case.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Can this tell the difference between intoxication and merely having used said drug in the past couple of days? While cannabis may be illegal, a DUI should not be warranted if you happen to test positive, given the long time it's present in your bloodstream.
Now highway cops will have these handy-dandy devices that will also detect legal drugs but will still try to arrest you for being "influenced".
If you're not having problems driving, communicating or making rational decisions then the drug isn't harmful, some people need things like amphetamines to be rational.
Maybe this is a fair weapon against irresponsible driving, but all I can see on the surface is another tool for abuse.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Do they return false positives for people who eat poppy seed cake? http://www.snopes.com/medical/drugs/poppyseed.asp
See, I think drugs have done some *good* things for us, I really do. And if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor: go home tonight and take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your cd's and burn em'. 'Cause you know what? The musicians who've made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years... Rrrrrrrrrrrrreal ------ high on drugs."
"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather."
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom, itÂs what it is ok?. Keep that in mind at all times. Thank you!"
-- Bill Hicks
This is promising. We need more and better hand-held medical devices. Medical technology tends to be bulky, and as it is downsized, it can be deployed more freely.
A friend of mine is a horse veterinarian, and she's always looking for devices that can be used in the field. Vets sometimes get new gear before human doctors do, because it can be deployed for animal use while it's still in clinical testing for humans. She already has compact X-ray gear which displays on a laptop; that was a big advance. She's had portable ultrasound gear for a decade or more. Field tests on blood, though, are still in their infancy.
The drug-test device, though, is testing for simple compounds. That's easier than most medical tests.
With the successful campaign to free up breathalyser source code how long before this is challenged and the science behind it questioned? Before or after multiple convictions?
Can being at the party and kissing the babe with the razor blade be sufficient to get traces in your saliva?
Because we can, should we?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
There has been some news here in the Netherlands about it and no it can't see whether you are under the influence or have used it in the last 24 hours or even days before depending on the drug. Most drug effect wear off after sleep and this machine won't know the difference. In the Netherlands this is such a big problem that drug prevention units like Trimbos are advising against its use as it will create more problems than solve. But maybe it works better in countries that prosecute users anyway.
Cocain? Really officer? Man I thought it was kind of odd how my tounge would go numb when I was making out with that girl I just dropped off.
No you cannot search the car.
Am I free to go?
Can I call my lawyer before I answer that?
I knew a guy in college who could smell weed from miles away. No matter where you were, if you broke out a joint, he would magically show up within minutes. Hiring guys like that has to be cheaper than these devices.
... the mezca freaks from all over
the salvia kids
the morning thunder crew
minds cannot be tied or chained
NO SIG
... so our government can keep being at 'war' with us.
Drugs are a social health problem, not a criminal problem. Sadly our representatives and much of our populous lacks the maturity or the foresight to acknowledge this difference --- and thus the current moralist/criminalist approach leads to filled prisons and fines that leave us wondering why we're all such bad people.
Wake up -- curiosity and susceptibility are not bad things. Given the change in availability and removal of black markets, most drugs only impact the individual -- and for 'other crimes' that people may commit on drugs, those acts are still criminal. Example: in a meth legal world, the addict is not treated like a criminal, but if she neglects her child she can still be held responsible for that neglect.
Like I said, drugs are a health issue.
i've been participating in the transparencycorps project, and have been amused at seeing all the requests by representatives for this or that device for police departments all over the country. how long before we start seeing requests for this device too?
When you recognize love in another and realize how precious it is, everything else seems so insignificant.
Police could test actual impairment. Some years back I read about an impairment testing device for use in factories and heavy machinery. It's a simple LCD screen with a left-right joystick. A dot moves randomly to the left or the right on the screen, the user tries to keep it in the center using the joystick. If their reaction times are not impaired, the device unlocks the machinery. If they are, for whatever reason, like sleep deprivation, prescription medications, illegal drugs, or whatever, then the machinery remains locked. The police could test actual impairment rather than the presence of things that might or might not impair reactions. This would catch any sort of impairment which might endanger drivers and others on the road. For instance, studies have found that people with severe sleep apnea are about as likely to get in an accident as someone with a .1 BAC. If we are trying to protect people on the roads, rather than simply punish users of certain substances, this would be a fairer option.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I'm curious about those of us who live next to areas where it's been decriminalized (i.e. Canada). Theoretically I can go to Canada, light up, and come back; as long as I'm not 'under the influence' I have not committed any crimes.
I'm cynically assuming, however, that the point of detecting trace elements is a 'guilty until proven innocent' policy: since it's illegal in the US, it must be illegal everywhere and you're a criminal to have any of it in your blood stream.
Its just a photo of a dog in a baseball cap and sunglasses, if you totally think he looks like he could drive a truck, you failed the test.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
So much for making out with crack whores.
Hope is the currency of fools
the mezca freaks.....
all over again
NO SIG
As has been shown time and time again (including by the Mythbusters) eating poppy seed bread can set off a false positive. How sensitive is this thing? I.e. will it discard anything below a certain level or just flag you for the tiniest amount of opiates (I think it's opiates in the poppy seeds)?
If you go to a concert and end up close to someone smoking a joint, will this pick up the presence of cannabinoids in your saliva?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
This will probably prompt some zero tolerance laws--any illegal drugs in your system when driving, and you are guilty. I expect that such a law would pass constitutional muster, but there would be challenges.
Law enforcement will want to jump immediately on this stuff. The big expense with this kind of thing is not buying the units and training the users and maintainers--the big expense is the inevitable war of legal challenges that will result. If the manufacturer will not fully expose its schematics and software, then law enforcement should pass on this. Full transparency from the beginning is the only way to keep litigation costs down.
This technology changes, too. Each little change in the hardware or the software can bring a new slew of expensive legal challenges. You want a system that you can live with for a long time, because change is sooo expensive.
This technology is great, but it should be implemented very deliberately.
State trooper: Do you have any illicit substance on you?
Cheech: Not anymore, hehehe.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
They need only to step out the front door of their office in Eindhoven to test for space cakes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coFCa7k4iyg
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
... letting the "war on drugs" police-prison-industrial complex beat us into the ground (i.e., take away all vestiges of privacy, personal choice, and/or any sense of pleasure) with its ever advancing technology? We should just end the WOD already? It ain't nobody's business what drugs/substances I use, drink, smoke or eat if if it doesn't harm anyone else. We need to declare an end to this Nixon era nightmare so we can empty out the prisons, give cops something more productive to do and increase our revenues by taxing the dopers to recoup what we can from their vices. Drug abuse is a medical problem not a PPI one. So let's treat it that way before the PPI's tax subsidized techno mavens create a total (but drug free!) police state for us to live. (End of rant)
"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff."
The sad part is all this will never change until the out dated closed minded ruling generations dies out.
LSD's alright then? Trippy!
Sadly, this device was developed for Dutch law enforcement who wish to instate a zero-tolerance policy on drugged driving. Fortunately, because tests have shown these tests also return positive results for drivers who used drugs in the previous says are not currently impaired, implementation has been delayed. This is especially disturbing because cannabis use here is tolerated. Yet, police still desire to prevent all drug users from driving even those who do not drive impaired.
Is there a surprise that there is absolutely no mention of the accuracy of this product? Sure, it tests for a bunch of drugs, but there's no comment if there will be false positives like we've seen with the breathalyzers.
Does anyone who knows better than I, have the capability of making a comment on this? Will this be another one of those things that shows the wrong result just because you had a poppyseed bagel for breakfast, etc?
... so our government can keep being at 'war' with us.
Umm, quite the contrary, actually. One of the excuses I've heard for refusing to decriminalize or flat out legalize various drugs is because they can't be easily detected in a roadside test. See, if you're trying to nail a drunk driver, you've got the breathalizer. It's easy, then, to tell if a person is intoxicated while driving, and it provides solid evidence in a court case. But with recreational drugs, no such test has existed, up until this point. Instead, they had to drag you down to the station and you had to submit to a blood test, at which point the drug may have metabolized, rendering the results useless.
But with this release, suddenly that objection no longer exists. Now, the police have a reliable method for determining if an individual is driving while intoxicated on these other substances.
Frankly, I can't see how this can be anything but a *good* thing. Driving while intoxicated, no matter what the substance, is a dangerous, and frankly really *stupid* fucking thing to do. If the cops have tools to catch the morons who do it, then maybe people will become less concerned with the spectre of people driving stoned and running down their dear old granny down the street.
Personally I'd much rather see a test for melatonin levels than any narcotic. Driving while tired is much more common and more hence likely to cause accidents than drug use I think.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
When the economy gets so bad that we have to choose between spending to arrest and incarcerate rapists and murderers vs some guy lighting up a doobie at a concert, things might change.
If police wanted to frame someone with that device, it would easy enough to do, by the officer having a stash of coccane in their patrol car, and if they wanted to bust someone, create a solution of saliva (spit) mixed with drugs and dip the mouth piece onto the machine. It would be all too easy to do.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Sadly our representatives and much of our populous lacks the maturity or the foresight to acknowledge this difference
I reckon it's got more to do with the billions of dollars per year that drug prohibition pulls through the business of government. The people at the top of the power pyramid could care less about your health or "morality" -- they simply want your money, and recreational drug use just happens to make an excellent boogie-man.
I'd agree with most of your points but disagree that it's a health issue. That implies that somehow compulsive drug use is a disease, a person is not responsible for their actions, and thus they should be treated differently. I think that all drugs should be legalized yes, but I disagree with either court ordered treatment or treatment as an option. I think it's a "cop out" and actually gives an incentive to people who commit crimes to do so while intoxicated. Drug use is a personal choice and one that I think is completely irrelevant to one's actions. People shouldn't be judged for it or let off the hook because of it. Judge people by their actions and not what is in their bodies.
And it has a multiple choice caption below it
Pick the following which is more likely to come from the subject of this image:
a. Meow! Meow!
b. Arf! Arf! Arf!
c. Hi i'm in ur clothez drivn ur truks lol!
The thing about drug-testing (not alcohol) for driving purposes that always leaves me wondering is: how the they know I'm positively high? Maybe I shared a joint a month ago with my buddies, and since THC is fat-soluble it lasts longer than any other controlled substance in your system. Maybe it doesn't last for so long in your saliva, but still there should be a threshold just like there is with alcohol ( >0.23 = your are busted, 0.23 = you can go now). How do they legally state that you are not ok to operate a motor vehicle?? In my opinion the only way to assess this would be by legalizing, and then restricting. This way it's just nuts.
When my Karma level reaches 0 I feel in piece with the Universe
1. If you use illegal drugs, you are a criminal.
2. Profit
There's no 3.
Governments have a pretty binary approach to the issue. If they can collect fines they'll do so. If it's more profitable to build more jails and put 10-30% of the population there, providing slave labor, they'll do it. Remove a law that criminalizes almost everyone and brings untold profits... why?
Now if they could only invent a device that got rage drivers, drivers that talk on phones/text, drivers that do makeup, and drivers that read the paper we will have better roads.
"Philips screw driver."
How is marijuana a public health problem when it isn't even a private health problem?
Alcohol abuse is a private health problem, but it only becomes a public health problem when people get drunk and drive.
A public health problem is when your health problem affects MY health. Anything else is a flasehood the people unfortunately swallow hook, line, and sinker.
Free Martian Whores!
where's the doobie?
We have a few generations conditioned and brainwashed into truly believing that drugs and not the drug policy ruin lives. They believe that ruining the lives of users is actually "good for society"... in a doublespeak-y kind of way. Not logical, but deeply ingrained in the culture, a "common sense belief."
It will take time for these generations to naturally fall off governing everyone's lives and choices and hopefully be replaced by less corrupted, more educated and more aware individuals.
Given that "corrupt politician" is a redundant expression, I don't see this happening within our lifetimes. Corruption in politics is like a traffic wave, a self-perpetuating phenomenon.
traces of cocaine, heroin, cannabis, amphetamine and methamphetamine.
Reminds me of the sing-song thing from... Sesame Street? "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things does not belong."
JM2C, YMMV, lighten up, and all that.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
If the police want to frame you, and they happen to have a stash of cocaine in their car, all they have to do is plant it on you. No high tech detectors or spit-mixing required.
most drugs only impact the individual
What utter BS.
Ask the children whos parents are into crack. Ask the friends and family if they would loan any money to a heroin addict? You even said so yourself they should be treated like criminals for the other things they do. But you make a distinction of what kind.
From your statements I can see you do not understand the mind of an addict. They care nothing for anyone around them other than their next buzz. Or in the case of a heroin addict how they will feel 'normal' soon. They do not care. Many would sell their souls to get it. Many do and more. How can that NOT have an effect on those around them? You are applying the broken window fallacy to an addict.
Rules (such as laws) are meant to help society. That breaking those rules do not 'harm anyone other than themselves' ignores other effects. Here is a contrived example but plays out every day. Say a couple has a baby. The mother has a sister who is into crack or meth or whatever. The couple needs to go to a social function at the mans work but can not bring the baby. So they have choices now 1) leave baby with sister 2) hire baby sitter 3) do not go. All have downsides to society at this point. 1) They can not trust that the sister will take care of the baby properly 2) now they are out 30-40 dollars to have someone watch their baby 3) social consequences at work for not going. So instead of being able to help her sister she is unable to do so because she is not even considered reliable. The family is poorer for it. Notice I did not even involve the other negative aspects that the 'black market' entails.
Go on with your 'im sticking it to the man by smoking weed'. But guess what to the rest of us we see thru your crap or the crap you got from someone else. It is self delusional crap.
You've never driven stoned, have you? I know a *lot* of potheads and not one of them feels or acts impaired while driving stoned. There is a public perception that it negatively affects people's ability to drive which is just not true. Marijuana can make you *feel* intoxicated when you actually aren't, which is why people feel stoned, but if you ask them to do something, they generally do it perfectly fine, which is why it's impossible to tell and why it shouldn't be prohibited; it only affects the user and is otherwise transparent.
> But with this release, suddenly that objection no longer exists. Now, the police have a reliable method for determining if an
> individual is driving while intoxicated on these other substances.
As long as it shows you are intoxicated, not just that you smoked a joint a day or so before.
If drugs are a health problem, Obama/Hillary will let you know that it is now a government problem....
I remember reading, 10 FUCKING YEARS AGO!!!
That 90% and higher of US currency tested positive for cocaine.
I guarantee you, cops will set the limits on these things as low as they're allowed.
Because of current civil forfeiture/seizure rules, which the officers' departments get a part of, and which the party they steal from has basically no rights to contest, this will be a huge money grab, especially for smaller municipalities.
The war on drugs needs to end. Immediately.
I don't care about trying any of them (just the smell of pot makes me puke, and I hate needles), but I'm sickened by how people are treated due to it.
From Nixon to Regan to Bush I, the rules got tightened, then Clinton pushed up enforcement, hard...
He had lots of ex-gulf war military that could easily be funnelled into law enforcement, and anti-discrimination laws meant the limiting of the "old blue-boy's network", where you might get off because they knew you weren't a danger, because now they have to check everyone for everything.
Here's the cure to all of this...
End the war on drugs,
get rid of civil forfeiture laws and everything associated with it and the war on drugs,
mandatory firearm ownership, plus, mandatory carry, no FOIDs, no registrations, no limit on what you can carry except that you can control it when you fire it (FOID, registration, National Firearms Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act are all unconstitutional).
REQUIRE citizens to grab their guns and run out onto their front porch when people start shooting, and defend themselves and their neighbors...
Do that, and you will have the following happen:
Violent crime will plummet to barely existent levels
All law enforcement orgs could be cut in half, lowering taxes.
What are gangs actually going to fight over now? And how are they going to fight each other when everyone around them is armed? They're not... they'll just whither and die,,, or they can attack and die faster.
I was under the impression this is for handing out DWIs, not for furthering the war on drugs. Would you call arresting drunk drivers part of the neo-prohibition movement?
Driving is the most dangerous activity I engage in frequently. Bungee jumping is probably safer.
So driving while lit up on three tabs of meth shouldn't be illegal unless you actually get into an accident?
The GP didn't really insinuate that. Driving under the influence generally makes you incompetent, and does harm. Mind you, I'd prefer that the person driving behind me had taken one toke, rather than having started an argument with the kids in the back seat.
However, if this is about risk, then a fair risk assessment would have to look at the statistical causes of accidents, and set traffic laws based on that. Smoking cigarettes while driving, being sleep-deprived, failing to wear appropriate glasses, cellphone use, even changing the radio while driving might have to be specified as prohibited activities.
Or, you could just fine-tune existing laws about dangerous driving, without having to be too specific.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Justifying violations of your civil rights since 2009
include $sig;
1;
There are two ways to deal with the drug problem. Either you legalize it, or you clamp down really really hard on it. Anything in between is simply a half-fucked attempt and end up in a long drawn out cat-and-mouse war.
You're the one who's delusional. I wouldn't let my alcoholic sister watch my baby either, and it's perfectly legal. Should that change? No.
Careless people are careless people, and not all drug users are 'addicts', and yes that even applies to hard drugs.
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20090804/NEWS/90804012/Wrong-way-Taconic-crash--Driver-Schuler-was-drunk&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
people don't act responsibly. your opinion about drugs and complete freedom to their access would be valid if everyone acted responsibly with drugs
but people don't act responsibly with drugs, and so they must be controlled, simply because it cuts down on pointless tragedies
you could counter that limiting people's freedoms is not a justifiable trade-off for making the world a safer place. and i agree with you, in general. but on a case-by-case basis, there are certain freedoms which aren't essential freedoms at all. freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of political opinion, etc: these are essential freedoms for the living of a complete life. but freedom to take drugs? not essential, and therefore completely valid for limitation and control
you could also counter that the tragedy i linked to wasn't prevented by drug laws. but i don't think the war on drugs will ever be won, and i don't think they will prevent every tragedy. they will just decimate the number of pointless tragedies we would see if access to certain drugs was unfettered. drug control is like taking the trash out every thursday at your house: a maintenance function of civilization, not a holy crusade that will ever achieve any victory. so to criticize the war on drugs in that fashion is to not understand the whole point of it in the first place. there is no war on drugs, really, bad description. there is just taking the trash out every week. and that never ends
and i also think marijuana should be completely legal, but do i want someone stoned driving? do YOU want someone stoned driving?
so give your law enforcement personnel the tools to combat this behavior, and get off your holier-than-thou rant that assumes ridiculous notions about human behavior. your ridiculous notion: that we all act responsibly with drug use
as a matter of unchanging ironclad fact of human nature, there will always be people who use drugs irresponsibly, like get behind the wheel stoned or drunk, and such people need to be monitored, controlled, and punished
do you honestly believe there is any other way?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Three points to make.
1) First and most importantly the device's software should (must) be open source. The breathalyzer has been shown in recent years (at least in the USA) to be wildly inaccurate, make false assumptions, and contain horrible rounding errors (when multiplied by ppm is a lot). It took years and court orders to finally look at the software which was protected under the auspices of "Trade Secrets". When opened up it was found that the code looked to be written by retarded drunken squirrels.
2) One fear as already mentioned is it may only detect remains of drugs and not active drugs. Like the differance if I smoked a join before hoping into the car, or if I smoked some 4 weeks ago in my house. Along with this is detecting drugs that are derivatives of each other. So they might say detect Heroin when really I had some medically percribed morphine at some point.
3) One easy test is the scientifically proven field test as demonstrated in "Super Troopers". If any of the occupants are "like totally freaked out dude" then they are high and can be arrested.
Well, all I'm going to say is that the results for anything to do with Marijuana had better be green. ;)
Except that this doesn't test for intoxication.
What they need to develop is some kind of a test (perhaps like a infant's busybox toy) that would provide some quantitative measure of *impairment* -- measuring reaction time, fine & gross motor skills, etc. This way you're not tied to a test for any specific drug, especially when drugs like marijuana can be tested for weeks after consumption without any proof of impairment.
Apparently you are unaware that drug use is directly relatable to numerous genetic maladies such as bipolar/manic-depression disorder and higher intelligence. Furthermore, drug use is highly related to mental health --- something that business in the US directly attacks to produce desired ends such as women hating themselves so they will buy SSRIs and Jenny Craig. When people have a negative self image, as imposed by false representations of social percetpion (aka 'advertising'), they are much more prone to use drugs.
The thing you're getting at is 'getting let off the hook' but you're not addressing WHAT they are getting let off the hook for. That 'what' is a personal decision that affects only the user. As stated before the related crimes of drugs are still illegal, and rightly so (like burglary to fuel expensive addictions).
Should you be let off the hook for masturbation? The question remains, why would you be ON the hook in the first place?
Neglecting a child is still illegal. Alcoholics get their kids taken away, the same would happen for other drug addicts.
By 'the rest of us' do you mean (at this moment) the 20% of replies to my post? Because at this moment the other 80% are in agreement with me. Quite possibly you're part of the group whose perception is far too simple and immature to truly grasp the situation.
I'm 28 and a good number of people I've cared for in my life have fallen into drugs. And in all that I've observed it was the black markets surrounding the illegal drugs that led to the greatest harms of those involved. They suffered the consequences of poor choices and curiosity, yet in nearly all cases the crimes they committed only served to harm themselves (And as you seem to care so much, the crimes they committed against others would still be enforceable given the drugs were legal)
Use your big brain - the one that looks at things in the complexity for which they exist rather than simply and erroneously.
from marijuana, which is a no brainer it should be legal, to methamphetamine, which no one with a straight face could ever say should be legal
but lets pretend for a moment all drugs are legal
question: should you drive an automobile under the influence of drugs?
answer: obviously not
question: is everyone going to act responsibly with drugs?
answer: obviously not
question: is everyone going to refrain from operating an automobile while on drugs, regardless of whether they were all legal or all illegal?
answer: obviously not
question: should law enforcement officers just randomly guess if someone who is driving erratically is under the influence?
answer: obviously not
so what exactly is the problem you have with this testing device again?
because all i see in your words above is a giant red herring. i can hear battle hymn of the republic and ride of the valkyries while you go off on your holier-than-thou fire and brimstone speech about drugs and legality and absurdity, and you completely miss the whole fucking point of this testing device
this is the fucking point of the fucking testing device:
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20090804/NEWS/90804012/Wrong-way-Taconic-crash--Driver-Schuler-was-drunk&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
try to understand what is really at stake here next time you want to puff up your chest and wax poetic please
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Police may have street smarts but the ones that I have known personally weren't very tech smart. I bet most have no idea how a radar gun works, let alone a breathalyzer and now a saliva-alyzer. If they don't know how a technology works, they won't know what situations could cause invalid readings. Unfortunately, the results will be taken as the truth regardless of the circumstances and mitigating factors. NIST accreditation should be required for the results to be valid in court.
You mean you weren't sure whether or not you were stoned for half the tests?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Mostly because of the Political Correctness trend. It's easier to get away with attacking a substance which has no inherent civil rights; than to attack a person who does.
Most of us would agree that we want bad people to be kept away from the good people. But we also want *everyone* to have the same rights and priveleges since we're all equal right? Rather than blame people for being evil/stupid, we blame substances for making them that way. Instead of empowering the individual, we have turned him into a simple victim of his circumstances.
Driving while drugged is a criminal problem.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Oh shit.
Those guys in uniforms are just people we hired because we are too busy to do it full time. But make no mistake, in any society, it is every member's duty to protect every other member from crime.
Too bad the folks we hired don't see it like that anymore. But the problem isn't the fines, it is the fact that we let the people creating the fines and handing out the fines keep the fines. That's a huge moral hazard right there.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You've never driven stoned, have you?
No, and you shouldn't either. Speaking for myself, I know for a fact I wouldn't be even remotely competent behind the wheel while intoxicated on marijuana.
I know a *lot* of potheads and not one of them feels or acts impaired while driving stoned.
Uhuh. I know people who claim they can drive safely whilst drunk, too. I don't believe them, either.
Driving while impaired by anything, be it alcohol, marijuana, or cell phones, is a fucking idiotic thing to do. I don't care if you think you can do it, because, odds are, you actually can't. Why? Because people are notoriously difficult at judging their own competence at, well, anything, really.
So, please, take your rationalizations and kindly shove them up your ass. You and your friends are a danger, and should quit acting like self-centered morons. If you feel the need to get stoned, take a fucking taxi or crash at someone's place. But for god sake, don't drive. You just give the government one more reason to make the rest of us criminals.
marijuana obviously impairs judgment
you should not drive while stoned
it impairs less than alcohol, certainly, but it still IMPAIRS
do you honestly want to suggest otherwise and sound like a complete moron?
look, i'm being serious: it would help the marijuana legalization effort if complete morons like yourself were hogtied and hid in a basement until it is legalized. because when you open your mouth, you hurt the marijuana legalization effort, because you're an idiot
as someone who would like to marijuana legalized, please shut up
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_driving.shtml
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Philips Develops Roadside Drug-Testing Device" might be better phrased as, "Anal retentives find new means to invade privacy"
"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
So what is the rate of false positives? Tests are not 100% accurate despite what the creator would like to put forth.
I officially hate every single person at Philips who worked on this.
Seems like somebody would be able to develop a mouthwash or gum containing chemicals that would bind to the target drug molecules so there would not be enough left for the nanoparticles to bind with.
I'm just saying, not everyone who uses a substance is addicted to it, and not every addiction is bad. The way I see it, there is a wide range of possible drug use styles, from non-use through destructive use. Even heavy daily use is not necessarily destructive. The key things to look for are, does the use interfere with other important parts of your life? Is it messing up your job, your friendships, or your family relations? Then it may be a problem. But someone who drinks two glasses of wine a night, or smokes a joint a day, or plays a few hours of video games a day; but still has friends, holds down a job, and has meaningful relations: this person may be an addict but they aren't causing themselves or others any trouble, so their addictive use is not a problem.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Now I'm gonna have to stop spitting in cop's faces!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Apparently you are unaware that drug use is directly relatable to numerous genetic maladies such as bipolar/manic-depression disorder and higher intelligence.
Yes. Certain conditions are genetic, some of which are associated with a tendency to self medicate. It's still not correct to say that drug use itself is a disease or genetic. It would be as accurate to say suicide is genetic. You're not differentiating between cause and effect, disease and symptom.
As stated before the related crimes of drugs are still illegal, and rightly so (like burglary to fuel expensive addictions).
OK. But see. You're saying basically "drug [user] related crimes". It's like saying Moslem related crimes or [generic personal choice] related crimes. The distinction should not be made is what i'm saying. There is a tendency to mislabel behavior as some sort of uncontrollable disease. Not only does it teach people that they aren't responsible for their own actions (it's not my fault I mugged that guy. I have a disease which made me do it) this let judges sentence people to "treatment" (which is really incarceration plus re-education).
I have a real problem with the government "treating" people or in any way getting involved in public health, especially when the evidence of a disease actually being there is spotty at best. It's often a veiled cover for a religious organization such as AA to prostheletize and spread. I also quite frankly don't feel like paying for it. I'd rather pay to jail criminals and I really don't care what they claim made them do it.
There is a penn and teller episode on AA (that discusses these topics) you might enjoy.
you have every right to express your political opinion. in a totalitarian society you don't, but the arguments for why you shouldn't express your political opinion, as expressed by totalitarian societies, are logically invalid upon examination
you do not have every right to use any drug you want. in a free and open democratic society, the pluses and minuses have been put up for debate, and it is found that those who use certian substances hurt society in myriad ways, far worse than any way laws against those drugs could hurt society. the reasons put forth for why you shouldn't use certain drugs are logically valid upon examination
you have to understand that every freedom, actual and theoretical, exists in tension with other people's freedoms. for example: freedom of expression. in most cases you should have it. but should you be free to shout fire in a crowded theatre? of course not, because you put other people's freedoms, namely, the right to live, in jeopardy. see? there is a natural logical reason to limit your freedom of expression, no fascist dystopian government need apply
there will ALWAYS be a limit on your freedoms, in EVERY society, real and theoretical. what you have to do is stop looking at every limit on your freedom as some sort of march of fascism. its intellectually dishonest of you. some limitations on your freedom are perfectly valid and completely logical and completely unlike your unfounded fears of some mythical march of fascism
in the minds of intellectual simpletons, the difference between an unfree society and an free society is the difference between george orwell and complete anarchy: ridiculous simplistic extremes
in REALITY, the difference between a free and unfree society is a CONTINUUM of RELATIVE limitations and guarantees on freedom, in which there will ALWAYS be some limitations that will ALWAYS exist out of simple logical and reason stemming from the undeniable fact that your freedoms exist in tension with other people's freedom
example: your right to listen to music as loud as you want. my right to get a good nights sleep
example: your right to drive as fast as you want. my right to live
example: your right to set off fire works. my right to not have my roof catch fire
etc., etc., etc.
please understand the issues surrounding innate freedoms more logically, and think of it less in terms of your unbridled fears of marching fascism
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Frustrated total internal reflection (FTIR) [...] is then used to measure a change to the refractive index.
Maybe they are frustrated because police officers are taken blood and urine samples to detect if these same drugs are present in their organisms?
Bravo!
Especially since it would probably seem odd if they took you down to the station later and found that you had absolutely no cocaine in your system.
marijuana impairs driving far less than alcohol. marijuana still IMPAIRS driving
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_driving.shtml
do you honestly want to fucking express anything different? how stupid do you want to appear?
i am not in any way off in this argument, in the least. you, apparently, on the in the other hand, are seemingly operating under two really fucking moronic assumptions:
1. marijuana doesn't impair driving
2. no one will ever be irresponsible and get behind the wheel while stoned, whether marijuana were legal or not
do you really think we need no road side tests for drugs? do you really believe that?
"This device isn't for finding drunk drivers, it's for filling our prisons with 'intoxicated' pot smokers and making the private prison complex, the court system, and the LE system richer"
yes, you apparently do. you're a deluded moron
make believe that the american system of justice is just a vast orwellian human processing machine for slave labor on arbitrary and illogical premises, in the worst recesses of your fear addled little mind
in such a world, people will still get stoned and kill innocents from behind the wheel! REGARDLESS OF LEGALITY
do you really believe otherwise? do you really?!
look, i'm being serious: it would help the marijuana legalization effort if complete morons like yourself were hogtied and hid in a basement until it is legalized. because when you open your mouth, you hurt the marijuana legalization effort. because you're an idiot
as someone who would like to marijuana legalized, please shut up, so marijuna will be legalized. the argument for legalization should proceed in logic and reason, and not be drowned about by the braying of complete retards like yourself on the issues
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
They wouldn't necessarily re-test you. When someone submits to a breathalizer, they aren't uaually re-tested later unless they demand so. But then if they wanted, they could plant the very evidence they used to haul your ass in, in the first place.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I'd want to see the source code for this thing. I am sceptical due to the whole roadside breathalyzer court case that is still ongoing.
Uhuh. I know people who claim they can drive safely whilst drunk, too. I don't believe them, either.
There's a difference between being asked to believe, and witnessing first hand day in and day out buddy.
Marijuana in absolutely no way impairs your motor skills, judgment, or reaction time. Period.
If it did for you, that makes you an extreme outlier, and the rest of us should in no way be punished for the effect something has had on you and only you.
These aren't rationalizations, this shit is proven by hard fact and scientific study. We are no more a danger than anyone else on the road at any given time.
Get over it and move on. Decades of me (and everyone else I know) driving stoned and having 0 traffic infractions is PROOF, not just me thinking "well I'll be alright." No. I am, without a doubt, alright to drive as stoned as I've ever been, as are 99% of the other users of marijuana.
developed code behind this so-called scientific detector ? Anyone want to bet it is as Fsck'd up as the breathalyzer code was determined to be. To top it off with the retention of molecules in the human system this will tell you if the person has done drugs but is very likely to be of little use detrmining the time frame. Just because I smoked last night or 3 weeks ago, does not mean I am under the influence currently, which is the boat we are now.
Note : I am fully against driving under the influence of any substance, be it pot, crack, alcohol or cough medicine, but mark my words, this will become a huge money maker, and yet provide little or no actual detection of drivers under the influence.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
where everything is legal unless explicitly stated otherwise
that doesn't make texting while driving right, and so the law is merely dragging behind technological change, and texting while driving will be illegal someday, and rightfully so
oh yeah, there you go:
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/Politics/story?id=8246302&page=1
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Six: And JUST-LIKE-THAT (snaps fingers), Dr. Gaius Baltar invents the world's FIRST AMAZING Cylon Detector. Better not tell her (Sharon) she's a Cylon; she might BREAK your NECK...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
as "a test for melanin levels." Wondered how much more dangerous DWB was gonna get.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
"If God wanted us to get high, he would have made plants that are psychoactive when smoked or ingested." -Steven Colbert
The junkies and crime deal is primarily brought about because of astronomical street prices because drugs are a high demand black market product(s). If all this stuff was legal, it would be cheap, so cheap, no crime/robberies necessary to "afford" it. A $200 daily "habit" might hit two bucks if it was legal, and that would be with fancy packaging. Think bags of sugar, how much do they cost? The real price of now illegal drugs would be closer to that than "street prices" are now. Crime related to that would be approaching zero.
Half the police departments, an entire federal agency, half the judges, could be "let go" to go try and find some productive work, and we could close half the prisons. And a lot of hospital emergency rooms wouldn't look like a warzone triage effort every evening. And the "news" people would have to actually go and find some important stuff to investigate and write about. And mexico could maybe have a chance of building a real nation..and so on, too many positive results would be garnered from dropping drug prohibition. Ya, it would be the lesser of two evils, but right now we are still stuck with all the negative aspects of abusive drug use, PLUS the artificially negative created aspects of keeping them "illegal".
Liquid drugs prohibition did not work, it was a *total failure* and just made things worse (organized crime gangs prospered, official corruption soared, joe average had to worry about being a "criminal" or who he might need to payoff to avoid getting busted, etc).
Dry and leafy drug prohibition today is exactly the same, just moreso. It is the height of stupidity, but it's great and hugely profitable for both the huge organized crime gangs, the corrupt officials who take bribes (thousands of them, plus all the corrupt banks and real estate people and restaurants, etc who launder money), and for the mercenary poseur "drug warriors", lawyers, judges, the private prisons system that has developed, and various politicians. Job security for all those people. Well paid, too. It also, and this is even worse, has conditioned society to accept no knock raids, shooting people because "they made a furtive gesture", random stops, etc. That part is really really sucky. People got state sponsored terrorized into accepting half way to total big brother, literally scared into it.
It's ludicrous, and it is harmful for society to keep those things illegal. Yes, a lot of people will still get really fucked up if it was legal..they are anyway, that's a zero sum game to argue that point. There are no credible stats available to show that "drug use" is any higher now than back when all of this was still legal. And violent crime is much higher since two things occurred in our "justice" system, making drugs illegal, and instituting the two or three strikes laws.
Now that folks who are facing life with no parole are up against a decision to make in a split second, they mostly go "fuggit" and resort to violence, either to avoid arrest or to "leave no witnesses", etc.
People like to talk about the US "wild wild west" as being somehow more dangerous and scary. On the contrary, there was much less crime back then. Almost everything was legal, and if you were a persistent REAL bad guy, a for-real "threat to society", your recidivism rate was quite low, because some local citizen would just cap you in mid crime and that would be that.
If you're driving too fast, the cop will pull you over because he'll suspect you're drinking. If you drive too slow he'll pull you over because he'll suspect you're smoking pot. If you're doing the speed limit he'll pull you over because that means you MUST have something to hide.
Free Martian Whores!
Law Enforcement: enforcement
Paramedics: help treat in advance of another heart attack
Drug Dealers: Find new users
It'll be interesting to see if the police bust you for drugs, then, when you croak behind the wheel, they re-run the test and find you've just had a heart attack.
But, seriously, what anti-tampering safeguards are in place? You could be framed just as easily with technology as without. So, can one demand to be RETESTED at a neutral hospital that is equipped? Can you demand upon arrest that you be taken to one without the hospital's advanced notice (assuming that if framed, the hospital won't have a mole who facilitates illegitimate busts)?
This could become standard fair for (South) Koreans returning home. There, they are (or are subjected to being) tested upon return from overseas. As Koreans, then can be tested (some if not many are), and if found to have use even marijuana, they are subject to arrest, prosecution, sentencing, and even lose their jobs. For job applicants, they, too, are subject to drug screening, even for what westerners might feel are innocuous/low-risk-of-public-harm jobs.
Hell, this device --if abused in the US -- could tear the country apart. After all, between hunting, guns possession laws/rights, and uneven regulation and enforcement towards gaming, poaching, and drugs abuse and so on, stepping up enforcement might do more harm than good. Even selective enforcement will be plagued by legal cases of profiling, discrimination, and so forth. It might be interesting if the device is used for purposes of assigning per-person drug consumption limits. No outright bans on consumption -- just consumption management.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
The issue with this becomes unwillingness for a person to take responsibility for their own actions. The meth addict neglects her child and then blames it on the drugs...
9/11 was an inside job
obama was born in kenya
anazing completely retarded "facts" i've learned from complete fucking morons on teh intarwebs
you seriously don't believe marijuana impairs driving?
you are a genuine ignorant piece of shit, you know that?
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/marijuana-use-and-its-effects
you are an irresponsible loser
please educate yourself about the blindingly fucking obvious before you hurt someone, including yourself, please, you piece of shit twatstain
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I was under the impression this is for handing out DWIs, not for furthering the war on drugs. Would you call arresting drunk drivers part of the neo-prohibition movement?
My point is mostly that its more tax dollars in the millions/billions being shelled out in a war against human curiosity/error/compulsion however you want to look at it. And in this 'war' there is very little effort to solve the true issues of the cause of our proposed need for this war, while spending more and more dollars to further criminalize us.
I'd rather see 100 million spent on rehabilitation and prevention than 100 million spent on criminalization and punishment.
If you don't know drug users, you're surrounded by good liars. And if you do know drug users, then you should understand how prevalent and permanent the use of drugs is in society. The problem being that usually only the poor suffer serious affliction, and usually from the nature of black markets rather than the drug in itself. From this observation it is clear that criminalization of drugs is akin to criminalization of looking under a rock or trying new foods.
I bet rarely, if ever, you will find that a person actually CHOSE to become a thieving and shady meth addict; rather they chose to 'try' it while feeling invincible, and then the natural progression of the drugs' influence and the factors of the black market around it drive the person into what we now see to look like shitbag zombies.
Those zombies that suck your priests' cock in an alley for $20 used to respect themselves and were trustworthy at one point. You have to wonder if the drugs were available at $5/day with mandatory meetings and rehabilitation training tied to the 'price', what serious things might change. consider this:
-If the drugs aren't expensive, people won't need to steal or neglect to afford them.
-If the drugs are available, they can be clean and pure.
-If a drug addict is faced with rehabilitation-based information, that addiction may actually become a thing of the past.
-If a drug addict is rehabilitating and not committing crimes otherwise, that is one less person to pay for in prison.
Think about it. The 'problem' of drugs is largely in the way we address it and the shallow minds that assume to be as invincible as the subjects they judge once thought themselves to be.
Pot is kind of nuanced though. If you come from AA, they will tell it's fine. In NA there's a lot of folks that feel that way too. But to me, pot's a gateway drug. If you go to NA to come clean off of coke and you're spending every Friday night at the same old bar having a beer and a joint - you're fucking up. Fast forward a few years and yes, I still say you have to be VERY careful. If you're using weed instead of morphine for pain, keep it up, but get your card, don't buy shit on the street from people that will be happy to rail you out for free a few times just to consume your paycheck later on down the road.
Hell, I've had two childhood friends recently fall off the wagon, one after some 15 years and another after some 12 years. Both of them got back in on the gateways and the "friends" they were getting them from.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
but it does impair
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/marijuana-use-and-its-effects
it should 100% be illegal to drive while stoned. how anyone with the slightest bit of intellectual honesty could believe otherwise is completely beyond my understanding
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Now we can lock up more fucking deranged potheads who babble incessantly about "legalization", without bothering to consider the ramifications of selling such a drug to the entire public. I hope Phillips has great success with this product.
I'd like some of the anti-nanny state conservatives here to answer something - why are you guys so much in favor of antidrug laws?
I don't know what gave you this impression.
The fundamental philosophy of "anti-nanny staters" is that it's not the governments job to protect people from themselves. Your mistaken if you believe that the majority of us take drug use to be an exception to this principle.
Driving while drugged is a criminal problem.
Thanks for pointing out the obvious. I never said that it wasn't. If you don't yet know what I'm actually talking about, give up.
Mod parent up. This is exactly right. Hundreds of accidents are caused every day by perfectly sober people who are just terrible drivers to begin with. Why should I be held to a higher standard because I was actually a better driver at some previous point. Shouldn't the definition of acceptable safety be uniform across the board?
The practical and ethical implications are interesting and all but I want to know how they debugged and field tested this thing... Phillips will soon have an influx in job applications from long haired coders who have an insatiable taste for Pink Floyd.
the arguments against marijuana are ignorant. marijuana's illegal status is a xenophobic legal hangover from the 1800s when it was loco weed used only by mexicans and the fieldhands needed to be more dependable (meanwhile, grandaddy was good proper irish/ german drunk: familiarity, therefore legality). there is no scientifically pharmacologically valid reason for marijuana to remain illegal, none whatsoever
however, the argument against cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin: these drugs are so biochemically addictive that they would do more damage to society than the war on drugs is doing damage to society
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
but the use of highly addictive drugs: cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, is such that the negatives on society because of the war on drugs is LESS than the negative effects of the drug use itself. with those highly addictive (and inebriating: nicotine is highly addcitive but doesn't inebriate, so you can still hold a job/ family life) drugs you get a much greater rate of irresponsible behavior as an inevitable result of the inevitable biochemical addiction. addiction to plenty of substances/ behavior is more due to psychology/ habituation. but some drugs feed directly into biological reward pathways no human is immune to, such that addiction is inescapable and inevitable. in other words, with the highly addictive/ highly inebriating drugs, you wind up with an impossibility for responsible behavior. it simply takes over and destroys your life
meanwhile, people who claim to use heroin/ coke/ meth and maintain a job/ family life are kind of like the guy who claims to drive 100 mph all the time and never get in an accident: yeah, wait until tomorrow
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
However, they also employ people and generally give a lot of people a sense of belonging that they don't want to give up. So, once the goal they were created for is reached, they don't disband like they should. Instead, they just set new, generally more extreme goals, until they eventually degenerate into a fringe group of wackos.
This description seems to apply equally well to government agencies. I always thought people should be proud of how small their groups/agencies are as opposed to how large they are, as this would reflect on the the status of the problem. (small group == small problem)
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Yes. The anti-drunk-driving crusaders had a germ of a good purpose to them, but they've gone way beyond what's good, both in overzealousness towards the original purpose, and in going off onto other purposes which aren't good, like neo-prohibitionism. The most obvious move towards neo-prohibitionism is the continuous effort by anti-drunk-driving organizations to get legal blood alcohol levels reduced (ultimately to 0), despite the fact that it is drunks with levels considerably higher than 0.10 who cause the vast majority of the problems.
The 'gateway drug' argument is one of the great arguments for legalization. When a drug is sold only by criminals, then you are likely to be exposed to harder drugs while purchasing your drug of choice. If the drug is sold in a pharmacy, not so much.
However, you seemed to have missed my point about addiction. Let's say someone likes jogging. As in, really, really likes it. They skip work to jog. They cancel on plans with friends to go jog. They miss family gatherings, dates, and any other sort of fun to go jogging. Maybe they even jog so much they damage their feet and knees. That's a problem, isn't it?
Now, let's say they jog a reasonable amount, with friends, and don't screw up other parts of their life or their body to jog. Not a problem, right? Yeah, go ahead and substitute drugs, video games, food, sex, basically anything for 'jogging' and you can see what the real problem of addiction is.
Now, some drugs are worse than others. For instance, I don't know any 60 year old speed freaks. All hard core speed freaks tend to die before then. Opiates are almost as dangerous, cocaine, not quite as much. Hallucinogens have their own set of problems, but addiction isn't usually one of them. So I'm all for treating some drugs like we treat other dangerous activities: require the prospective user to get educated in their use and dangers, and issue them a license.
The thing about addiction is that, in general, it only happens to people who already have problems. A happy, well adjusted person who tries speed is not going to become a speed freak. Drugs are not the root problem. Addicts are merely self-medicating, trying to fix something that was already broken. And abstinence does not fix the underlying problem, at all. Look at the problems dry drunks get themselves and others into because they never fixed the problem that got them started in the first place. Hell, some of them even invade random foreign countries to avenge their fathers.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/marijuana-use-and-its-effects
now tell me with a straight face this is someone you have no problem with getting behind the wheel of a car
is that enough of a real argument for you asswipe?
the ad hominem on my part comes from complete and utter zero respect for anyone who can't figure out the fucking blindingly obvious: no one should drive after taking marijuana. to think any differently is to have some combination of complete stupidity and complete delusion
how do you feel about people who believe obama was born in kenya? how do you feel about people who believe 9/11 was an inside job?
people who believe that driving under the influence of marijuana is ok fall into the exact same category in my mind: low iq and delusional
in other words, such a person is completely immune to your "real argument". they're trolls or their complete fucktards
its not baseless insults. its a sober and objective characterization of the quality of their minds: shit
i'm sorry if you are offended by my langaueg, but i believe in brutal honesty. and when if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, its a duck
if you believe marijuana doesn't impair your judgement enough that you shouldn't drive, you are complete and utter deluded moron
not a baseless insult
motherfucking objective fact
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
By the way, the acronym FTIR is already taken.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
This is irrelevant. I can get way scary too drunk and still drive a straight line. That's why cops use sobriety checkpoints: you can't identify drunk drivers by how they drive -- until after they have a collision that a sober driver could have easily avoided. That's when you realize, "Oh, he must have been drunk," and you mop the blood off the road, test it for alcohol, and confirm it.
The idea that drunk drivers swerve around is a myth, except for the extreme cases where someone is 3 times over the limit. Sure, they can't walk or drive a straight line, but that's not the case that cops are looking for. Those cases are open and shut. They want to convict the guy who blows .011% and appears to drive ok (until you test his reaction time, situational awareness, etc, all stuff that a line walk doesn't test).
I hate MADD's lobbying (especially at the national level), but what I've learned is that this is an exaggeration. If anything, the limits are too high. The legal BAL is so high that it takes about 6 typical beers for me to get to .08%, and I am undoubtably impaired at 4, possibly even earlier. At 3 beers, I have to stop, but I am way below the limit. Quit spreading this rum cake bullshit.
... Drugs are a social health problem, not a criminal problem.
To be fair its a little of both, but i agree its primary issue is health related.
However, as long a its treated as a criminal issue primarily, they can funnel more money in, keep raising taxes and increase control over the population.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
word to the wise - which is the same as the Breathalyzer - NEVER EVER BLOW - NEVER
ask any lawyer - a cop asks you blow into something - you lawyer up and you shut up
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
this argument was about driving under the influence of marijuana
"What I DONT agree with is using that reality as an argument against the full legalization of drugs as soft as marihuana."
no one is doing that. no one serious is doing that. no one you should take seriously is doing that. and no one is doing that in this thread. we have no disagreement
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The debate as to whether driving under the influence of cannabis should be treated similarly to drunk driving has already been answered by the FDA when it approved the warning label for Marinol (the synthetic THC pill that is available by prescription as a Schedule III controlled substance in the United States) that states that users should not drive a car or operate heavy machinery until they become accustom to the effects of the drug. In other words, once you know how cannabis effects you then you can drive your car.
... is that the device will also register a positive match if the driver used drugs (cocaine, notably) several days before the measurement.
This is the current discussion("speekseltest"=saliva test) in The Netherlands, where chief police officers are in favor, but the most prominent drug advisory institute for the government, the Trimbos Institute, is speaking against it for this very reason.
It is just not fair enough, and could lead to driver license revocations for no apparent reason.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
... it's "Phillips screw" (driver) not "Philips screw" (driver): "Phillips" being the American company, "Philips" being the Consumer Electronics company from The Netherlands.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
LOL, on that last line. I didn't miss a thing you said and I don't disagree with a word of it either.
Maybe one corner case, I'm ADD, so when I found speed, it was a new GOD, that doesn't go away. In fact, after sixteen years of refusing treatment I'm finally seeking out - speed (I'm leaning towards Ritalin right now). But, when I was self-medicated (read junkified), how are you going to find out that I was on to something?
Yea, I agree there's nothing short of legalization that will at least moderate abuse.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
"Meow sir, if you'll just spit into this machine"
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
If you go to NA to come clean off of coke and you're spending every Friday night at the same old bar having a beer and a joint - you're fucking up.
See. That's funny. I know two heroin "addicts" and a meth "addict" who quit on their own and several years later are doing just fine. Two still smoke pot and one drinks. They tell me that weed has helped them stay away from the harder stuff. Either way, all we have here is anecdotal evidence, neither side of which proves anything. To me, the gateway theory is just that... a theory. Problem is that theory has been put forth as fact into the public mind. That's the problem I have with the gateway theory. Far-fetched theory is set forth as fact and as a result people are sentenced to a bona-fide religious organization for the "cure" (which you later find out they don't actually do). Fast forward a bit through the indoctrination process and they believe the stuff they are told as a matter of faith and are acting it out. They end up believing they're powerless. They end up believing "one drink one drunk" and as soon as somebody hands them a joint they go "ooh... i can't control myself. i've relapsed... i must have heroin now"... And there goes the neighborhood. It would be as comical as the South Park dramafication if it wasn't so sad.
Define "dry drunk". Isn't that where you have quit drinking but have avoided the "spiritual" portion of the treatment? It seems to me like there is a lot more to AA/NA than they let on publicly if that is the case.
and while the technology and patents not only still exist, but IMO, could be turned into a sub-$100 device that could be placed inline with every ignition switch on all vehicles (cars, buses, trucks, planes). . . it died due to lack of market interest.
Corporations and government ignored it completely.
Given a choice, would you rather fly with a pilot who was tested during the pre-flight checklist for impairment or someone who had a random probability of being tested for drugs?
Personally, I don't care if the pilot or bus driver in a vehicle I'm riding or a truck driver next to me is impaired due to alcohol, legal drugs, prescription drugs, or lack of sleep, if somebody's impaired, I don't want them running a vehicle that affects my safety.
"Zero tolerance" is about lifestyle control and more money for the prison-industrial conplex out of our pockets by CEOs and politicians who simply do not give a shit about public safety.
Tech Public Policy stuff
So where did the .02 come from?
The only other person in the story's your brother.
We've established that you weren't drinking yet.
Ergo he must be the one drinking.
How did alcohol get from his mouth to yours?
Ergo... I'm picturing a more rural life, somewhere in a Southern state. It gets lonely, doesn't it. It's OK buddy. Nothing to be ashamed of. ;)
The thing that gets me about the gateway and pot addiction stories is this: life is full of a huge array of personality types. Some people are gonna be fucked up losers no matter what. Of course they start with pot, it's easier to get. Of course they keep going until the destroy their lives with drugs, they were sick to start with and drugs make mentally ill people worse.
But the number of people who smoke pot every day and still contribute to society? Louis Armstrong was a bigger stoner than almost anybody. Show me the harm. And there's lots of people like that.
If pot is a gateway drug that leads to harder things then this is news to me. It's not what I've observed. Being a bit cynical I'd say it was more true prescription drugs are a gateway that leads to illegal drug use. At least that you can read about in the paper.
Need Mercedes parts ?
all the code that determines innocent or guilty is, shall we say...
proprietary?
Good people go to bed earlier.
As a casual marijuana user (once a week at my max) I have never driven while stoned because i believe driving is a responsibility not only to yourself but to others on the road and it requires your full concentration to be safe. I know how non-functional I can become when I am high and do not believe it is a very safe mindset to be in while driving. I believe noone should drive high and it is my personal belief that is what this device was created to stop, the story does not indicate how long the drugs have to be in the system to be detected by the device, or the length of time they can be detected for. Hopefully it is a very short period of time otherwise responsible casual users will be corralled up by police and jailed for nothing more than responsibly having a toke.
Mod parent up. It's not a rationalization. I drive stoned all the time and the only time I ever had a fender bender was when I *wasn't* smoking. Marijuana can help people to focus on things more. It can make people who have been educated to believe it intoxicates feel that placebo effect for a while but that goes away eventually once you realize you're objectively not intoxicated in any way. Probably the kicker for me was that people who knew me including my own parents could not tell when I was smoking. One day the FUD surrounding the whole issue will disappear and people will be told the truth about what pot does.
"They tell me that weed has helped them stay away from the harder stuff."
That's the very definition of self medication right there. There is something deeper going on, they have exchanged one drug of choice for a milder one. But, it's not necessarily going to work all the time. Whatever their emotional problems are, they are not going to move along in a straight line forever, the intensity will fluctuate. The difference, is the pot smoker that smokes because they enjoy being stoned and the pot smoker that smokes pot because being stoned covers up their regular problems. Earlier I put up the disclaimer that if that problem is pain, I personally think pot is far more preferable to morphine.
What I don't understand is why this is so god damned important to you. Do you care what kind of treatment schizophrenics receive? If schizophrenics and their doctors all agree on a treatment that works for them, who the hell are you to question it? Not being either a patient or a health care professional, why do you care?
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
so you start smoking pot at thirteen. Where do you get it from? A criminal? Yes. An adult criminal? Often times yes. Does this guy give a shit about how strung out some kid gets or where the little punk digs up his cash? Not necessarily.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
To me, the gateway theory is just that... a theory.
No, it's an assertion. Theories have some evidence backing them up, and all I've ever heard is some cop running his mouth off.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
One of the excuses I've heard for refusing to decriminalize or flat out legalize various drugs is because they can't be easily detected in a roadside test. See, if you're trying to nail a drunk driver, you've got the breathalizer. It's easy, then, to tell if a person is intoxicated while driving, and it provides solid evidence in a court case. But with recreational drugs, no such test has existed, up until this point. Instead, they had to drag you down to the station and you had to submit to a blood test, at which point the drug may have metabolized, rendering the results useless.
Imagine that, you'd actually have to prove he was behaving poorly.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
That's the very definition of self medication right there.
And why, exactly, is that a problem if it works? And what if pot not only helps them deal with their problems but helps them heal from whatever trauma? For many, pot is not a "cover it up" drug. It's a "help you focus on it and process it" drug. People who want to cover up their pain drink to excess. It's a much better tool for the job and it's legal. For certain things, such as PTSD, it's a VERY good medication.
What I don't understand is why this is so god damned important to you. Do you care what kind of treatment schizophrenics receive? If schizophrenics and their doctors all agree on a treatment that works for them, who the hell are you to question it? Not being either a patient or a health care professional, why do you care?
Email me and i'll tell you. psyborgue@mac.com
i agree with you. my main argument is a correlation to guns.
conservatives say, 'guns don't kill people; people kill people (with guns)." and i agree.
but by that logic, i say 'drugs don't kill people; people choose to ruin their own lives with them'
so if they want guns to be legal drugs should also be legal.
i agree though. both 'teams' are hypocritical when it comes to actual freedom.
check your mail
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
we have a similar device that is undergoing field-testing (that is, it is used as a preliminary test for intoxication, but not necessarily admissible in court) in my township: Lower Merion Township, PA. It is called a Pupillometer. It's made by a company called Barenco. See website: http://www.barenco.com/security-products/eyecheck-pupilometer.asp I personally think that devices like these actually encourage the legalization of drugs, specifically Marijuana because they provide a vehicle of proof for law enforcement to determine intoxicated drivers/pedestrians without placing a burden on hospitals and labs requiring blood tests and time spent analyzing results. If devices like these are proven to be accurate to limits comparable to a PBT (portable breath test), the commonly accepted preliminary standard for determining alcohol intoxication levels, this only provides more compelling evidence for state elected officials to agree with legalization demands.
If they're gonna plant the evidence why even put it in the solution in the first place? And I'm pretty sure they'd retest if you claimed the arresting officer screwed around with the breathalizer or that it was a false positive.
Discovered speed at 18, and only now after 14 years of taking speed about 4 out of 5 weekdays (less at the weekends, which are more for enjoying a nap and/or going out and other stuff) am I in the process of seeking a diagnosis of ADD... took realising that my normal self-image is of me when I'm on amphetamines, rather than the apathetic, unfocused and un-engaged person that I become most of the time. And that meant a) I didn't want to be going to a dealer aged 65 and b) separating speed from other drugs so that my usage of them can change naturally.
First time I heard about ADD was when I was 20 and going out with a girl who was much the same... we were both like "lucky bastards" for kids being prescribed amphetamine, took another 9 years before I met someone who had it and told me adults could have it and to look into it...
Having it all sorted out will be the best thing I've ever done, but I'm guessing I'll miss some of the intensity... lol, I already look back fondly on my year where every week was pretty much wake up Monday morning, stay awake all week at work or coding and learning stuff at home, go Friday night out clubbing and manage to catch a couple of hours at someone's house afterwards before crashing and then sleeping pretty much till Monday again :)
you could just say hi too. Awfully suspensful this waiting around bit.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
check your mail.
I predict mass arrests because devices like this will give positives for "traces".
All dollars have traces of cocaine on them, so anyone who handles cash money on a daily basis (almost everyone) will be flagged by this device.
huge government debacle incoming.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
You are mistaking MADD for cops. MADD doesn't arrest drunk drivers, but yes, they do lobby for prohibition.
Excellent post.
I've previously commented to the commenting regarding buying weed leading to buying hard drugs by pointing out that there have never been any times when I've got to buy weed and come home with a big fat bag of coke. You make it seem like the only source for weed is gangsters and thugs. Sure the people who sell it are technically criminals, but I've had plenty of friends who needed to make money and just decided that they were going to start selling weed to do so. Sure they're technically criminals, but these people are still my friends. And even that is beside the point, I've bought plenty of weed from people who aren't my friends, and none of them have ever tried to sell me on buying some heroin or meth instead. I'm not saying that I disagree that it should be legalized, or that I wouldn't prefer to hit up a pharmacy or coffee shop where I could purchase affordably priced, high quality marijuana. I'm just saying that I don't know where you get your weed, but all of the places I've ever got mine, hard drugs have never once been part of that equation.
Drugs are a social health problem, not a criminal problem.
I would say they are not even that, unless someone's health actually is impacted, and even then, they are a problem for the USER and possibly those around him or her, not "society." What people choose to consume is not anyone else's business, as long as no one else's rights are being violated.
But, along with the freedom that every person should have to consume whatever the frak they want, inevitably MUST follow the responsibility to not violate the freedoms or rights of others. If you're going to abuse something that's mind-altering, don't drive or operate heavy machinery. If you're going to trip, have someone nearby that can keep you from jumping out a window and landing on an innocent stranger. If you're going to do something potentially addictive like crack (which is a seriously bad idea, more so than for most other drugs), then make sure you can afford the consequences (cost and possible disability) without inflicting any of them on others. Stay away from firearms and other weapons when impaired. Have a designated driver. If people on drugs acted a bit more responsibly, I think they would find society a bit more accepting of their activities, and it might be a bit harder for "governments" to imprison them along with countless innocent others using drugs as their excuse.
Nonaggression works!
I was responding to cyphercell's comment about weed being a gateway drug because of who you meet when you buy it. I agree with you, most pot dealers don't deal harder drugs. But that's beside the point, the 'gateway drug' argument is an argument FOR legalization,as a said.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You know, you can still do the same no-sleep schedule with legal amphetamines. I also know people who use speed responsibly, just as if they had been prescribed the legal stuff. A little bump in the morning, a little bump at noon, and that's all for the day. Not saying that's the way to go, the legal stuff is guaranteed pure, but you can abuse that too. If you find yourself crushing and snorting it, well...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
When the cops arrest drivers who are at 0.08 BAC and showing no outward signs of impairment, they're assisting the neo-prohibition movement, by enforcing laws that the neo-prohibition movement got passed.
The article isn't clear if they are testing for drugs or the by products of drugs. Most drug tests aren't sobriety tests. Also, some drugs are very easy to detect and some not. Sadly, the easiest drugs to test for seem to be the safest drugs.
Ah yes, as both Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and I have discovered, any time you piss a cop off, you are guilty of "disorderly conduct". That's the problem with charges that are entirely at the discretion of the arresting officer; even if there is no chance in hell of the DA actually pressing charges, the cop still gets to act as judge, jury, and executioner, punishing you for pissing him off by making you spend a night in jail (yes, it can take 8-10 hours to "process" somebody brought into the jail) even if you are innocent of everything except annoying a cop. And by the way, they actually charge you for this "processing", even if there was no probable cause to arrest you, and they take the charges out of any money you have on you. If you get a chance, empty your pockets BEFORE you get hauled off, then at least you don't have to pay for it.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.