With automobile crashes, society has, unfortunately, come to accept the fact that there will be a certain number of deaths, 32,367 in 2011 in the US, many of which are true "accidents", but many of which are preventable. (The news is not all bad on this front, as the number of deaths per capita and the number of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled are all dropping dramatically).
When brakes fail and a vehicle crashes into a crowd of people and kills someone, the tragedy may be no less for those directly affected than had the same damage been done by a drunk driver.
But society realizes that the drunk driver had a choice, and is more culpable than the driver who's brakes failed.
So even though YOU DON'T CARE if impairment was a factor, society as a whole DOES, and our legal system DOES, and the driver DOES, and after the initial grief, the family of the victim DOES care.
If you can't test for impairment, or you have no laws indicating what exactly constitutes impairment, then you can't hold people liable for their choice to be impaired. And that makes a big difference to society as a whole, even if it doesn't matter to you. It makes a big difference to the efforts to reduce that percentage of vehicle deaths which should clearly be controllable, (about 9,878 in 2011, or almost a third).
Or right there is where I realized your tin foil hat is on way too tight...
As for "increases attention sometimes to the point of excluding everything else", you do realize that driving requires multi-tasking, don't you? As you you focus on staying perfectly in your lane, you start micro-managing the steering wheel, without noticing the merging traffic all around you as your speed slowly decreases, and as you smack into the car in front. Don't laugh, I've seen it happen.
But like I said, that "Don't Want You to Know" phrase pretty much sends you into the conspiracy dumptster.
But it is the same thing, as any geologist will tell you. Its just on a smaller scale.
A bazillion tons of ice is lifted from the land, and the land rebound upward. Entire icefields that feed the glaciers also reduce their mass. And it is clearly visible in a life time, not merely by observing land features previously hidden by the glacier, but also, as I mentioned, the increased height of the stream banks and surrounding land.
Remember, there are no alluvial deposits taking place. The stream WAS and STILL IS at essentially sea level, so its not like it has any incentive to cut a deeper channel. Yet the banks grow higher as thae land pushes up.
And not that many years ago, the FBI insisted their scientists could tell you if the bullet that killed someone came out of the same box of bullets found in the suspects house, based on a spectral analysis of the lead in the bullet.
They had a whole bunch of scientists willing to swear to this in court under oath. And it all turned out to be utter and complete bullshit. More than one defendant got out of prison on that one.
You can not know the origin of a random rock from outer space that lands someplace on earth. You can't even tell with certainty where a random rock from earth originated.
But a SPECIFIC offense ought to be treated the same in one place as another, don't you think?
You obviously don't understand the difference between state and federal laws.
Some laws vary from one state to the next.
Federal laws ( thanks to years of huge over reaching by scumbag US Attorneys who are eager to abuse the leeway which has been associated with the Interstate Commerce laws ) tend to be more uniform throughout the 50 states in the fascist empire which calls itself the United States.
-
Let me refine my question so that your pea-brain can understand:
But a SPECIFIC federal offense ought to be treated the same by the federal government in one place as another, don't you think?
Yes. Those findings are not too clear. But on the other side, you could visit very heavy young users in clinics and watch those effects by yourself. Those guys really have problems they wouldn't if they smoked weed responsibly.
Marijuana impairs attention. That seems to be the linkage that most people cite. But I find no hard statistics on this either.
Since there is no legally recognized impairment level for Marijuana, and no legally recognized tests, (other than blood draws) either device based tests, or field sobriety tests, its hard to prove the extent to which it is present in accident situations. So if there was a car crash, the police have no real way to prove it was even a factor.
University of Washington cited an Australian study showing that the research is a total mess in this area. So a local TV station then went out and did their own tests.
If anything I'm biased in exactly the opposite direction than you might imagine. I'm not a user, voted against legalization in Washington, and don't hold out any of the high hopes for legal marijuana that some of my neighbors rant about.
(My objection to it was more a mater of personal preferences, we seem to have enough intoxicated individuals running around loose in the world, and the fact that there is no valid test for driving under the influence. But its really not that big of a deal one way or the other.)
But I'm also able to see its not a gateway drug, and if you stop sending users to criminals to buy their entertainment they will stop being sold-Up to worse drugs. I haven't seen any ill effects among my friends that are users. Even those who have been smoking since their late teens, have held long and distinguished legal careers, elected to civil court judge positions, or held highly technical jobs for their entire career. All while using quietly at home.
I have no problem with the idea of keeping it out of the hands of teen-agers. Same goes for booze and cars. You know, your chances of dying a violent death increases four fold when you have more than one visible tattoo. That alone is enough to restrict kids from tattoos if you ask me.
Yes, let us never speak of this again, regardless of whatever new evidence is found! Evar!
New evidence? What evidence, new or old?
We haven't even set foot on mars, yet we have had pronouncements that this or that rock found here or there clearly came from mars. An entire Galaxy ignored, an entire Solar system looked over, Vast Oort Clouds discounted, and a gazillion asteroids hand waved away. But by god this rock couldn't POSSIBLY been from anywhere but mars!!
The ideal solution to me would be to treat it like tobacco: Keep it legal, but at the same time take measures to very strongly discourage use.
Except the tobacco scare tactics are unwarranted, with the possible exception for under-age use, or use while driving, as with any intoxicant. Beer and wine regulatory mechanisms seem more appropriate. In fact Washington State tasked the Liquor board with the job of managing Marijuana sales and use in the state.
What the fuck does Queensland have to do with the issue at hand?
The federal government does not enforce traffic laws, (except in federal parks). It is done by state and county/city enforcement, and it varies by location because they have different laws in each area.
A federal felony in one state is a federal felony in another state, and each state should get the same enforcement level (or lack there-of). This usually happens. Its the norm. Except with this administration, which likes to play divide and conquer.
Exactly, given ALL the evidence, and all the studies, the fact that this remains Schedule 1 clearly shows that DEA is driving the law, and not the other way around.
But as more states follow Colorado and Washington, the whole issue ill eventually resolve itself, as congress will be forced to remove it from the purview of the DEA.
But a SPECIFIC offense ought to be treated the same in one place as another, don't you think?
The only prosecutorial discretion being practiced here is the evaluation of the likelihood of obtaining a verdict in a state like Washington or Colorado, where juries are simply going to start handing federal prosecutors their hat.
There was also a study of New Zealanders. They found that people who began using pot earlier in life and used it most frequently over the years experienced an average decline of eight IQ points by the time they turned 38. By comparison, those who never smoked pot had an average increase of one IQ point by the same age.
A reanalysis of the New Zealand data by Ole Røgeberg of the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo, however, suggested that the IQ difference could be explained by socioeconomic factors. People who start smoking marijuana at an earlier age are often less intelligent to begin with.
You will find most of the research is similarly tainted.
Obama doesn't seem to understand the restrictions on executive power.
Hell, I'm pro-legalization, but Obama's position does not constitutionally allow him to pick and choose which laws he will and will not enforce. Not that it's ever stopped him.
Exactly. This administration plays pretty fast and loose with enforcement and SELECTIVE enforcement. Enforcing marijuana laws in one place and not another is a clear violation of the equal protection clause.
Enforcing marijuana laws anywhere is somewhat questionable, in that its largely a harmless drug.
You could, I suppose, take the position that Once a state enacts laws and regulations on the sale and use of marijuana that it then has clearly taken control of the policing of marijuana use back into its own hands, and therefore the Tenth Amendment kicks in. However, I haven't seen any indication that this is Obama's reasoning.
In theory, if all the ice on Greenland melted, how long would it take Greenland to spring back up again? I'm presuming it wouldn't be instantaneous or even noticeable to a human on Greenland at the time (well, aside from the earthquakes that would almost certainly accompany such an event,) but are we talking years, decades, centuries, or longer?
It would be noticeable by humans over their life span.
You see this (in smaller scale) in places in Alaska where receding ice caps and the glaciers that flow from them slowly recede up the valleys and vegetation changes appear in the wake.
You also see the river flowing from the glaciers cutting deeper channels to the ocean. The glaciers flowed directly to the ocean earlier, now the glacier's nose is several miles upstream. The river channels "grow" high banks as you travel away from the glacier toward the ocean. This is a sign of uplifting land, (there are no longer and deposited soils being laid down in the area, yet the river banks grow steeper, and the river surface is within a few feet of mean high tide over the years.
Its not much, but you can see it over a period of 30 or 40 years if you are observant. Surveyors can measure it these days (even without GPS), relative to mean high-tide in those places where survey markers were installed decades ago.
We have totally un-attended gas stations, with nobody around but a phone to pick up in the place is on fire or something. Why does there have to be a guy there? To swipe (as in steal) your card?
You're going to look silly wearing your 3d glasses every time you meet on Skype to whisper sweet nothings just between the two of you and the NSA.
Skype is off all of my machines since microsoft pulled all the streams through its own servers.
(I actually suspect the NSA funded Microsoft's purchase of Skype strictly to get it into the hands of someone who would play their game, because Microsoft stripped every innovation out of skype that allowed privacy and network robustness).
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I should have thought this was obvious.
With automobile crashes, society has, unfortunately, come to accept the fact that there will be a certain number of deaths, 32,367 in 2011 in the US, many of which are true "accidents", but many of which are preventable. (The news is not all bad on this front, as the number of deaths per capita and the number of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled are all dropping dramatically).
When brakes fail and a vehicle crashes into a crowd of people and kills someone, the tragedy may be no less for those directly affected than had the same damage been done by a drunk driver.
But society realizes that the drunk driver had a choice, and is more culpable than the driver who's brakes failed.
So even though YOU DON'T CARE if impairment was a factor, society as a whole DOES, and our legal system DOES, and the driver DOES, and after the initial grief, the family of the victim DOES care.
If you can't test for impairment, or you have no laws indicating what exactly constitutes impairment, then you can't hold people liable for their choice to be impaired. And that makes a big difference to society as a whole, even if it doesn't matter to you.
It makes a big difference to the efforts to reduce that percentage of vehicle deaths which should clearly be controllable, (about 9,878 in 2011, or almost a third).
anti pot lobbyists don't want you to know.
Or right there is where I realized your tin foil hat is on way too tight...
As for "increases attention sometimes to the point of excluding everything else", you do realize that driving requires multi-tasking, don't you?
As you you focus on staying perfectly in your lane, you start micro-managing the steering wheel, without noticing the merging traffic all around you as your speed slowly decreases, and as you smack into the car in front. Don't laugh, I've seen it happen.
But like I said, that "Don't Want You to Know" phrase pretty much sends you into the conspiracy dumptster.
But it is the same thing, as any geologist will tell you. Its just on a smaller scale.
A bazillion tons of ice is lifted from the land, and the land rebound upward. Entire icefields that feed the glaciers also reduce their mass.
And it is clearly visible in a life time, not merely by observing land features previously hidden by the glacier, but also, as I mentioned, the
increased height of the stream banks and surrounding land.
Remember, there are no alluvial deposits taking place.
The stream WAS and STILL IS at essentially sea level, so its not like it has any incentive to cut a deeper channel.
Yet the banks grow higher as thae land pushes up.
And not that many years ago, the FBI insisted their scientists could tell you if the bullet that killed someone came out of the same box of bullets found in the suspects house, based on a spectral analysis of the lead in the bullet.
They had a whole bunch of scientists willing to swear to this in court under oath.
And it all turned out to be utter and complete bullshit. More than one defendant got out of prison on that one.
You can not know the origin of a random rock from outer space that lands someplace on earth. You can't even tell with certainty where a random rock from earth originated.
But a SPECIFIC offense ought to be treated the same in one place as another, don't you think?
You obviously don't understand the difference between state and federal laws.
Some laws vary from one state to the next.
Federal laws ( thanks to years of huge over reaching by scumbag US Attorneys who are eager to
abuse the leeway which has been associated with the Interstate Commerce laws ) tend to be more
uniform throughout the 50 states in the fascist empire which calls itself the United States.
-
Let me refine my question so that your pea-brain can understand:
But a SPECIFIC federal offense ought to be treated the same by the federal government in one place as another, don't you think?
Washington recreational pot vote had nothing to do with medical marijuana.
So if you disagree with any evidence its propaganda.
I see. Duly noted.
Yes. Those findings are not too clear. But on the other side, you could visit very heavy young users in clinics and watch those effects by yourself. Those guys really have problems they wouldn't if they smoked weed responsibly.
What clinics are treating heavy Marijuana users?
Are you playing the old "gateway drug" card again?
Chemical composition?
Really? We have that mapped out for the entire planet do we?
How many other rocky bodies have a similar composition mapped out?
Marijuana impairs attention. That seems to be the linkage that most people cite. But I find no hard statistics on this either.
Since there is no legally recognized impairment level for Marijuana, and no legally recognized tests, (other than blood draws) either device based tests, or field sobriety tests, its hard to prove the extent to which it is present in accident situations. So if there was a car crash, the police have no real way to prove it was even a factor.
University of Washington cited an Australian study showing that the research is a total mess in this area. So a local TV station then went out and did their own tests.
Ah, only in your twisted mind.
Really?
That would be news to the New Zealand Ministry of Transport:
http://www.transport.govt.nz/research/Documents/alcohol-drugs-2012.pdf
If anything I'm biased in exactly the opposite direction than you might imagine.
I'm not a user, voted against legalization in Washington, and don't hold out any of the high hopes for legal marijuana that some of my neighbors rant about.
(My objection to it was more a mater of personal preferences, we seem to have enough intoxicated individuals running around loose in the world, and the fact that there is no valid test for driving under the influence. But its really not that big of a deal one way or the other.)
But I'm also able to see its not a gateway drug, and if you stop sending users to criminals to buy their entertainment they will stop being sold-Up to worse drugs. I haven't seen any ill effects among my friends that are users. Even those who have been smoking since their late teens, have held long and distinguished legal careers, elected to civil court judge positions, or held highly technical jobs for their entire career. All while using quietly at home.
I have no problem with the idea of keeping it out of the hands of teen-agers. Same goes for booze and cars.
You know, your chances of dying a violent death increases four fold when you have more than one visible tattoo. That alone is enough to restrict kids from tattoos if you ask me.
Yes, let us never speak of this again, regardless of whatever new evidence is found! Evar!
New evidence? What evidence, new or old?
We haven't even set foot on mars, yet we have had pronouncements that this or that rock found here or there clearly came from mars.
An entire Galaxy ignored, an entire Solar system looked over, Vast Oort Clouds discounted, and a gazillion asteroids hand waved away.
But by god this rock couldn't POSSIBLY been from anywhere but mars!!
The ideal solution to me would be to treat it like tobacco: Keep it legal, but at the same time take measures to very strongly discourage use.
Except the tobacco scare tactics are unwarranted, with the possible exception for under-age use, or use while driving, as with any intoxicant.
Beer and wine regulatory mechanisms seem more appropriate. In fact Washington State tasked the Liquor board with the job of managing Marijuana sales and use in the state.
Yet still feds seem intent on sticking their oar in.
What the fuck does Queensland have to do with the issue at hand?
The federal government does not enforce traffic laws, (except in federal parks). It is done by state and county/city enforcement, and it varies by location because they have different laws in each area.
A federal felony in one state is a federal felony in another state, and each state should get the same enforcement level (or lack there-of). This usually happens. Its the norm. Except with this administration, which likes to play divide and conquer.
Exactly, given ALL the evidence, and all the studies, the fact that this remains Schedule 1 clearly shows that DEA is driving the law, and not the other way around.
But as more states follow Colorado and Washington, the whole issue ill eventually resolve itself, as congress will be forced to remove it from the purview of the DEA.
But a SPECIFIC offense ought to be treated the same in one place as another, don't you think?
The only prosecutorial discretion being practiced here is the evaluation of the likelihood of obtaining
a verdict in a state like Washington or Colorado, where juries are simply going to start handing federal prosecutors their hat.
There was also a study of New Zealanders. They found that people who began using pot earlier in life and used it most frequently over the years experienced an average decline of eight IQ points by the time they turned 38. By comparison, those who never smoked pot had an average increase of one IQ point by the same age.
A reanalysis of the New Zealand data by Ole Røgeberg of the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo, however, suggested that the IQ difference could be explained by socioeconomic factors. People who start smoking marijuana at an earlier age are often less intelligent to begin with.
You will find most of the research is similarly tainted.
Obama doesn't seem to understand the restrictions on executive power.
Hell, I'm pro-legalization, but Obama's position does not constitutionally allow him to pick and choose which laws he will and will not enforce. Not that it's ever stopped him.
Exactly. This administration plays pretty fast and loose with enforcement and SELECTIVE enforcement. Enforcing marijuana laws in one place and not another is a clear violation of the equal protection clause.
Enforcing marijuana laws anywhere is somewhat questionable, in that its largely a harmless drug.
You could, I suppose, take the position that Once a state enacts laws and regulations on the sale and use of marijuana that it then has clearly taken control of the policing of marijuana use back into its own hands, and therefore the Tenth Amendment kicks in. However, I haven't seen any indication that this is Obama's reasoning.
And yet there are private "club" gas stations in Oregon. You have to be a member/owner, but they are becoming popular in rural places.
These fall under an exemption in oregon law http://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/480.345
Mostly used by fleet (truckers) but also has private party memberships.
Pacific Pride is one such organization. http://www.medfordfuel.com/Pacific_Pride.htm
In spite of this Full Service Only policy in Oregon, gas there is cheaper than it is in Washington state, due mostly to taxes.
In theory, if all the ice on Greenland melted, how long would it take Greenland to spring back up again? I'm presuming it wouldn't be instantaneous or even noticeable to a human on Greenland at the time (well, aside from the earthquakes that would almost certainly accompany such an event,) but are we talking years, decades, centuries, or longer?
It would be noticeable by humans over their life span.
You see this (in smaller scale) in places in Alaska where receding ice caps and the glaciers that flow from them slowly recede up the valleys and vegetation changes appear in the wake.
You also see the river flowing from the glaciers cutting deeper channels to the ocean. The glaciers flowed directly to the ocean earlier, now the glacier's nose is several miles upstream. The river channels "grow" high banks as you travel away from the glacier toward the ocean. This is a sign of uplifting land, (there are no longer and deposited soils being laid down in the area, yet the river banks grow steeper, and the river surface is within a few feet of mean high tide over the years.
Its not much, but you can see it over a period of 30 or 40 years if you are observant. Surveyors can measure it these days (even without GPS), relative to mean high-tide in those places where survey markers were installed decades ago.
There's a guy there?
We have totally un-attended gas stations, with nobody around but a phone to pick up in the place is on fire or something.
Why does there have to be a guy there? To swipe (as in steal) your card?
Movies and holograms?
Like 3D movies don't already exist?
Holograms aren't going to come from Skype, or Microsoft. You need an innovative company to get that to work on any kind of an acceptable scale.
You're going to look silly wearing your 3d glasses every time you meet on Skype to whisper sweet nothings just between the two of you and the NSA.
Skype is off all of my machines since microsoft pulled all the streams through its own servers.
(I actually suspect the NSA funded Microsoft's purchase of Skype strictly to get it into the hands
of someone who would play their game, because Microsoft stripped every innovation out of skype
that allowed privacy and network robustness).