Dangers of being a roomate? (marijuana related)

Factual Questions
41

You’re confusing “What i want” with “What makes a good law.”

The fact that you think that someone’s five-year-old bust for smoking a joint is relevant doesn’t mean that it is. Anyone who thinks that such a trivial matter is any real indicator of crucial future behavior issues is deluded. California has determined that the public interest isn’t served by digging for such minor shit, and has made a good law as a result.

Of course, it would be better if they just legalized marijuana altogether, but i guess baby steps are better than none.

42

. I fourth this. I used to have a pot-smoking BF, and he was a very sweet guy, but life just slooowwwws down around them and they don’t get much of anything done.

43

The smell of smoke permeates everything that it contacts. Cigarettes, joints, bongs, pipes, it doesn’t matter. Smokers don’t believe it, but every non smoker knows it is true. Your clothes, your hair, your furniture, everything will smell of pot smoke in a matter of days.

Deciding if that is worth the rent savings is a more immediate and likely thing than a possible big deal drug bust of a couple of stoners at home.

Tris

44

I do work on the side as a security consultant and investigator. We do pre-employment checks for companies and put together a report on applicants.
I agree that a single pot arrest is not good grounds for denying employment. But It is still relevant to our clients to know if the applicant has, even minor, marijuana arrests. Especially if there has a been more than one. Combine this with, lets say a couple of other types of convictions, and it can show a clearer picture of what kind of person they’re dealing with. Some of the positions applied for include medical positions, driving positions, security positions involving weapons, and positions involving working with children and past arrests for anything need to be known about. There may also be licensing issues at stake.

The fact that you believe this doesn’t make it so.

45

Actually, it does.

There really is no rational reason for marijuana to be illegal, especially in a society that is so indifferent, in general, to cigarette and tobacco use. There are studies up the wazoo, looking at everything from health and addiction issues to questions of jail populations and social policy, that show pretty clearly that the social and economic and health cost of enforcing marijuana laws far exceed the social and economic and health costs of allowing marijuana use. The presence of so many non-violent drug offenders in America’s prisons is one of the most damning indictments of this so-called modern, civilized society.

The only reason for supporting the criminalization of marijuana is some antiquated sense of moralizing, or some misguided belief that marijuana is an automatic entree to hard drug use.

46

No, it doesn’t. Your opinion is no more valid than anyone elses.

47

Another fallacy. I am sorry, but I will take the opinion of the learned above the opinion of the ignorant, any day. To this particular issue, some of the most learned men on earth have held forth. Where is YOUR Nobel Prize, Mr. pkbites? Have you read this book? Have you even heard of it? Perhaps you should pay attention to some other opinions before you become so confident that your (wrong, imho) opinion is the correct one.

With rare exceptions, I have smoked pot every day for the last 30 years. It hasn’t compromised my ability to show up for work, perform complex work, be an honest person or anything else.

I produce visual FX using CGI and I can tell you that it is more complex than flying transport jet and doing heart surgery put together. I can also tell you that almost everyone in this field smokes weed. Please, if you think our contributions to society are so screwed up, please stop watching television and going to the movies. You are only subsidizing our dangerous evil habit. :rolleyes:

48

Sorry, the attitude that opinions are all equal is wrong, at least when the opinions in question have some foundation in rational and scientific investigation and analysis.

You are correct in one respect. The opinion that smoking pot is morally wrong is no more or less valid than the opinion that smoking pot is morally fine. I accept that.

But if we are to look beyond merely subjective moralizing, there is very real validity and objective rationality to the argument that making pot illegal causes more harm to society than the smoking of pot does Especially since the criminalization of pot doesn’t really lead to much of a reduction in its consumption, but merely creates a new and unnecessary class of “criminal” and pointlessly fills our jails in order to satisfy the moralizers referred to in the previous paragraph.

49

Oh, and lest you say that I am not in a position of trust, in the past I have been given extraordinary trust. I was in charge of all the computers at a large private school. I had the passkey for the entire school, and permission to get 24 hour access to it from the lobby security, who would not bat an eye were I to move equipment in and out. In fact, as part of my responsibilities I did that all the time. I could have stolen all kinds of gear out of there, and they would never even notice it missing. The fact that I didn’t, is evidence that the demon weed didn’t corrupt my morality after all. :wink: I would recommend the Friedman Szasz book over whatever you have been using for research up until now.

And before you argue that Friedman would say an employer has a right to negotiate with the employee any kind of background check as long as there is no coercion involved, please note that if drugs were legalized, as these two so brilliantly argue, there would be no drug arrest to find. At that point you are down to making people pee in a bottle, and that may work if you are Target or whatever, but when you are hiring talented people, that kind of degradation doesn’t fly. I’ll pee in a damn bottle when all the cops, judges and politicians do, and not a day before.

So take that, Mr. wants to know what people do in the privacy of their home kinda guy.

50

My opinion is as valid as anyone elses!

51

Oh, and I could have taken money from the school, lots of it. I created the database for the financial aid department and it would have been trivial to make up some fake students and cut some checks. But I didn’t.

The executive secretary did though. She embezzled almost $100,000 and blew home to Peru. “I cant believe I trusted her” was the Prez’s only comment. She was very anti-pot. She told me it makes you crazy. This, from a lady who was about to buy a $10 stapler from some smoothie off the street for $60 until I intervened. Staying off the weed keeps you sharp, y’know. Sharp and honest.

52

You’re both barking up the wrong tree.

You’re trying to turn this into a debate about the legality of pot.

Irrelevant to my position as at this time it is illegal. Prospective employers, like my clients, want to know about any arrests, minor or not, as it may substantially relate to the circumstances of the particular job or licensed activity. In this state an employer has a right to find this information out. WHAT they do with it IS regulated by law. But what they do with the report I give doesn’t concern me. What concerns me are laws that shackle other wise open records.

53

You’ve already conceded that a minor pot bust five years ago won’t “substantially relate” to a person’s ability to do their job. So why is the California law a bad one?

54

I am trying to turn this into a debate about whether a pot bust is a good indicator of performance and honesty. If I was concerned about embezzlement, for instance, I would be far more worried about someone’s gambling proclivities. It seems that a lot of the people who embezzle significant amounts of money, turn out to be doing it because they have a gambling problem. The thing is, I can go to Vegas every day for a year, and that is not going to produce a criminal record.

Similarly, if I was worried about safety in a hazardous job, I would be far more worried about a drunk than a pothead. Potheads don’t suffer hangovers, potheads aren’t as likely to indulge during work hours and even if they do aren’t 1/100th as impaired as a drunk person, but you can legally buy all the booze you want and as long as you wait to get home to drink it you will never produce an arrest record. That same person will be operating the dangerous machinery in the fog of a bad hangover which I can tell you from much experience :wink: is far more impairing than smoking a joint before work.

Yet, even if I am never impaired at work or behind the wheel or anything, I still gotta get my pot somehow, don’t I? Maybe I could grow it in my house, but that runs a risk of a much more serious bust from my standpoint, and besides, what am I? A horticulturist? I don’t think so. So I have to buy it. Since my dealer isn’t in the delivery business, I have to go out of my house and bring it back with me. All it takes is one dickhead cop and bingo! I’ve got something you can make some money off, I guess. :rolleyes:

No, people who’s jobs can make their mental impairment a danger to the public, bus drivers, airline pilots, cops, judges, lawyers, politicians, make THEM pee in a bottle. Please leave the rest of us alone in our off-hours. We didn’t hurt anybody, and before someone parrots a truly brain-dead “partnership” ad, if drugs were legal, the profit wouldn’t be there for the gangs and terrorists :rolleyes: to exploit.

My final point because I gotta go (I will check back later this evening) is, what are you really saying here? You stated that a pot bust was part of a bigger picture. What do you mean? As a hypothetical, you are considering a person with, say a minor bust on their record from a few years ago for, say, shoplifting. The woman (I mean we are talking shoplifting, so statistically… :wink: ) boosted some stuff from Mervyn’s but it was a while ago and she has a clean record and good employment history. So you would change your mind and not hire her because she got busted with a little pot? Even the FBI, I do believe, will forgive a youthful experience with pot nowadays so wtf do you want here? If I was making the call, the shoplifting would make or break the hire, not the pot thing. I realize it is up to the employer, but is the employer acting wisely?

Smart honest pothead > dumb larcenous abstainer

55

Because it is still an arrest/conviction. When doing a background invstigation I/my clients want to know everything.

Luckily here I can tell them everything. What they do with it I care not.

56

Just as long as the check clears, eh? I wouldn’t be claiming any moral high ground then. Read the Friedman Szasz book. It is divided into two parts. Friedman tackles the practical problem and Szasz does the ethical side, and between them, they utterly kick the legs out of the prohibitionist argument. I don’t see how any intellectually honest person can read this book and remain a prohibitionist. I highly recommend it to anyone.

As far as the OP, no, you probably shouldn’t move in with the Furry Freak Brothers. I don’t like living with stoners and I AM one. :smiley:

57

You still have made no compelling case for why California’s law is bad. Your only reason, so far, has been that it would make your job harder.

I should care about that why?

58

Yeah, how about that.

Yep! Gawd bless America!

59

Except it DOESN’T make your job harder. You are merely following the law as your clients (in California anyway) must do also. They have no right to ask you to obtain that information, case closed.

You see, in California we have decided, as a matter of public policy, that ignoramus employers that think smoking a little weed is tantamount to baby killing are a greater danger to the public good than someone who smokes pot. We have decided that there should be a reasonable limit to how much someone cane be pointlessly persecuted for something that really shouldn’t be a crime in the first place. This is one of the many reasons why I, at least, don’t have to worry about what the asinine policy is in other states, because I intend to live out my natural life here, a place I consider to be paradise, and not just for the climate.

Let me ask you, if a client asked you, and it were legal, would you investigate to find out if a person is gay so the employer could discriminate against gays? Would you sew a pink triangle on their clothes? What about the juden? What are the limits to what you would investigate in someone’s PERSONAL LIFE for some jerkoff employer?

60

The answer to your question costs $85 per hour, +plus+ expenses, minimum 4 hours.