Yeah, it’s amazing how many of my friends out of high school and college know sooo much more than me about the military. :rolleyes:
I’ve had the fortune of family that was pretty open to it, and neighbors back in my hometown that served in WWII, and could explain to my folks the realities and misconceptions. I personally feel the need to completely ignore or shoot down anyone that thinks they know more than me (ask me about ‘Lick’, my sister’s boyfriend) even though they’re civilians. . . Freakin’ amazing.
Good God! We’re channelling each other’s lives! I’ve lost count of the people I know who know jack about the military yet feel the need to tell me I know nothing about it. I put them in the same category as the fools who tell me that I worship Satan because I’m LDS.
Luckily for me, my dad was military. AND his family were extremely proud of him when he went to VMI. AND some of my friends from school served in Vietnam.
Tell us about “Lick.”
p.s. Speaking about “out of college” and “knowing more than” the folks in a particular profession: if you haven’t read it yet, read Signal Zero.
This is a mighty big assumption on your part(re: stoned driving). An experienced stoner(ie someone with some tolerance) behind the wheel is safer than a sober but sleepy driver or a sober but distracted driver. The difference between sober driver and experienced stoner was very small (see Science, Nov 99 IIRC).
Alcohol and THC are very different chemicals, have very different effects on the mind and body and shouldn’t be lumped together simply because people enjoy altering themselves with them. Do we talk about how people shouldn’t drive under the influence of nicotine? Certainly not.
Alcohol has a very synergistic ability to make you a bad driver by simultaneously decreasing your reaction time and coordination while effecting your judgement to make very bad decisions.
Pot, OTOH, effects your perception. Reflexes, reaction time, and especially judgement are not effected like they are by alcohol. Pot tends to make a more careful driver, while alcohol tends to make a driver take more risks.
now I’m not saying that it’s a GOOD idea to drive stoned, but it’s very much NOT deserving to be lumped in with alcohol as far as danger levels are concerned. People make this ASSumption without thinking… thanks drug war propaganda!
** oddly enough, this is exactly what I hear from ‘experienced’ drinkers.
I especially like the qualification “an experienced stoner safer than a sleepy or distracted driver” .
yep, that’s what we all aspire to.
When anyone is driving, they’re sending a substantially heavy piece of equipment down the road.
yes, distracted drivers can have accidents.
yes, sleepy drivers are dangerous.
yes, drivers using certain prescription and OTC substances can be risky as well.
yes, drivers who are on the phone or yelling at their kids or putting on make up or doing crossword puzzles can be dangerous as well.
some elderly folk may be risky
some individual drivers are crappy and therefore risky as well.
and yes even that joint you just smoked can increase the risk for every one else.
So what? we all owe it to everyone else to keep out from behind the fucking wheel if we can’t devote our best driving to the car.
LOL, what dream world do you live in? I’d bet that better than 80% of the drivers on the road at any given time are not “devote[ing their] best driving to the car.” Probably more like 90%.
Exactly what you hear from drunk drivers, except that they are lying to themselves, while I refer to a real live scientific study that supports my argument. I even left my anecdotal evidence out of it.
I’m not arguing that pot doesn’t degrade your driving. I’m arguing that it doesn’t degrade your driving as much as other perfectly legal activities(and far far less than alcohol), and therefore shouldn’t be considered equal to driving drunk.
By your own admission, pot affects your perceptions. Well, maybe that car ahead of you isn’t as far as you think it is. Maybe that is really only one line istead of two. Fuck you to be so arrogant enough to think that you can operate a 2+ ton vehicle at some speed down a 10’ lane.
If you are about to tell me that lumping any depressant, narcotic, or other controlled substance with alcohol while driving is wrong, then you can just kiss my ass.
Tripler
I have just found the one person I won’t scrape off the pavement.
Making an assertion and supporting it with a cite to a study? Sounds pretty rational to me.
What’s happening in this thread is emotional reactionism. Nothing rational about that.
The simple fact is that all manner of factors influence your driving ability. Being on the low side of .08 doesn’t make you a safe driver, and being on the high side doesn’t make you an unsafe driver. An analysis of the facts will show that there is no sharp cutoff in driving ability at or near the .08 level… most of the horrible drunk-related accidents involve people driving nowhere near the legal limit, more like 2 or 3 times that.
Help me out here. Are you saying that the difference between an experienced stoner and a sober driver is very small, or the difference between an experienced stoner and a sober+sleepy/distracted driver is very small? I’d have a hard time believing that there’s a “very small” difference between a sober driver and a stoned driver.
What, exactly, is “very small”? Gimme a definition of your terms, here.
It ain’t just your life you’re gambling with on the road. If you’re driving stoned, you deserve what you get. The other people whose lives you’re risking don’t, though.
While I agree with your latter point, I can’t see any gray area in the decision of ‘safer’. Seems pretty black and white to me. And your source is shaky. What is “Science”, and how did you get a copy from 1999?
**
Why the hell shouldn’t we be reacting emotionally about any source of distraction while driving, whether they be chemical, narcoleptic, cellulo-telephonic, or lack of attention related? I find absolutely no logic in your thinking at all! One is safer than the other? WTF?
Hey bucko, this is no logical fact, it’s just unscientifically proven common knowledge, kinda like we ‘know’ the sky is blue, but can’t prove what ‘blue’ is. Furthermore, I heartily question with prejudice your assertion that most “horrible drunk related accidents involve people driving nowhere near the legal limit, more like 2 or 3 times that.” Do you have hard evidence or statistics? I venture to say that all ‘drunk’ accidents are spread clear across the board, and if they were classified by law enforcement as ‘alcohol’, then they have broken the limit and the question of “how drunk” is a moot point.
My continuing rant, which is quickly beating a dead horse, is that if you have had anything to drink, smoke, eat, snort, defrost and grill, broil, poach, or otherwise ingest that would reduce your abilities, you shouldn’t be on the road. Why am I jumping all over you? Because your “logic” is based on vague assumptions rather than hard evidence, and your keyboard tappings sound dangerously close to what drunks mutter all the time at ‘Last Call’.
See, there you go with the assumptions. “You deserve what you get” implies that “everybody knows” that a stoner is gonna get in a big accident, and boy does he deserve it.
Forgive me if I’m hazy on the details of the study, as it’s been a couple years since I read it. However, the gist was thus: an “experienced stoner”, ie someone who smokes pot regularly and has a tolerance, is “nearly” as safe as a stone-cold sober driver, and safer than a sober driver coping with one of many minor distractions.
One thing I remember they did mention was that the stoned driver partially offsets his decreased performance by being more careful, while a drunk does exactly the opposite (compounds his decreased performance by exercising poor judgement and feeling/acting invincible).
Of course you’d “have a hard time believing”… because you’ve spent your life awash in drug war propaganda telling you “drugs are bad, mmmkay?”. The hard fact is that very little is known about the effects of illegal drugs in general, and marijuana in particular, because there’s been an effective ban on study and research for the last 50 or so years. The above mentioned study is the only one I’m aware of that even sets foot in this neighborhood. And no, ONDCP/DARE sponsored propaganda “research” doesn’t count.
PS, I believe it was New Scientist, not Science. I get them confused, for obvious reasons…
saying you read something a couple of years ago in a magazine which you can’t seem to correctly recall the title of, well, if that’s what qualifies for ‘supporting’ your assertions in your eyes, no wonder you think that smokin’ a joint before driving is cool.
Ya know what? I too feel that if yer a fuckin’ moron enough to drink/smoke/snort and drive, you deserve what you get. There’s a reason medications come with the label ‘DO NOT OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY’.
**
If you don’t remember, fair enough. I trust your memory. However, the content of that article is what I contest. I read into this to say that pot, crack, cocaine do not decrease performance, nor cause impaired judgement as bad as alcohol does. To that, I reply BULLSHIT!. How many other accidents/crimes can we attribute to drug and alcohol abuse?
**
No, I’m engaged in the war on Terrorism. You sound like one of those conspiracy nuts. I assume you are for the legalization of drugs? :rolleyes:
**
Well, I guess 50 states and one federal government just passed anti-drug/DUI laws one day on a fuckin’ whim then, if little is known about the effects. Am I to assume you really believe that no study on any drugs have been done? Well golly gee, what the hell do we have an FDA for?
Fair enough. I was just curious. Sounded like a vague title.
But your logic is still flawed. There is plenty of evidence. Hell, they proved tobacco is horrible for your health. Why wouldn’t the same be done on illicit substances? We know pot is a depressant and coke is a stimulant. . . Gee whiz!
Tripler
Buddy, yer either misinformed or under your own propaganda scheme.
Why? because emotional reactions are based on emotion, and not FACTS.
You’re not finding logic in my thinking because you’re reacting emotionally.
YES, one is safer than the other. Why is that so hard to understand?
Actually it is a scientifically supported hypothesis, to be precise. Just because I can’t pull a cite out of my ass on this one doesn’t make it less so. The real unscientifically proven common knowlege is your “venture to say that all ‘drunk’ accidents are spread clear across the board”. The evidence says otherwise.
I don’t dispute the “shouldn’t”. Unfortunately though, pretty much nobody follows that particular shouldn’t. The law has drawn a line where, on this side you’re okay, on that side you’re not. In my estimation, the experienced stoner driver (of which there are probably far more than you realize) belongs very far on THIS side of the line, but is being unjustly placed on THAT side of the line.
This is very bad reasoning. The drugs should be grouped by their effects, not their legal classification. Pot, cocaine and alcohol are all very different drugs with very different effects.
What if I said cocaine made you a better driver? I have no idea if that’s true, but it well might be. You (I assume) would automatically discount this hypothesis because it’s an illegal drug and drugs are bad, mmmkay? but you might well be wrong. It’s a stimulant and enhances your senses, right? I dunno from personal experience.
How many other accidents/crimes…? How the fuck should I know, and what does it have to do with the price of tea in china?
That’s basically the size of it. If you were to look into the facts, you would see that DUI laws were passed with some attention to the real effects of alcohol on driving. The rest of the drugs were just thrown in for good measure.
No study has been done in the US that’s for sure… check it out, marijuana is a SCHEDULE I NARCOTIC. That means it has NO MEDICINAL VALUE, so why should we study it? This is the logic the fed has been using for the last 60 or so years. Of course the FACT that MANY people are helped with a variety of medical problems by pot doesn’t enter into it… it still (by law) has NO medical value.
“Man shoots friend in hunting accident, while intoxicated.”, “Individual high on crack robs bank, takes hostages.” And there’s a whole myriad of others. . .
I think you’ll find a lot of references to the crime committed while under the influence. Perhaps just enough to make you think drugs might be bad and influential on your mind, mmmmkay?
**
Oh sweet Jesus, you are a bigger moron than I thought. Please, tell me you really believe this, and that strange sound you’ll hear out your window will be me lauging my ass off at you all the way from the midwest. :rolleyes:
**
Misguided, at best. If ‘the FACT that MANY people are helped with a variety of medical problems’ doesn’t make it a medical tool, and hence by definition give it some measure of medicinal value, then perhaps you need to put down the joint and seriously look over things, “rationally”.
Tripler
I think you’ve quite sufficiently proven your naivete.
tadc, if you’re gonna quote a study, at least do it correctly.
The New Scientist archives are on the Web, and available to anyone who wants to register. There’s an article on a recent study regarding the effects of cannabis on drivers. I attempted to cut and paste some short, relevant parts of the article, but my Internet connection keeps going down. To sum up briefly, the study explicitly did NOT recommend people toke up before driving … even one joint. You’re correct in saying that those who partook of cannabis in the study were more careful in their driving habits, and they generally thought themselves more stoned than they actually were. However, they had difficulty in short-term concentration, and had a hard time maintaining a steady speed or staying in the proper lane while driving a figure-eight course. In short, they showed marked driving impairment compared to a non-stoned driver.
Get your facts straight before posting. Stoned drivers suffer noticeable impairment when compared to non-stoned drivers, and they can be hazardous on the road. Driving stoned is NOT a wise move.
