What do ya do when confronted with people who involve you in potential legal liabilities for illegal drug usage?
I don’t do any illegal drugs, but I do know people who do. The overwhelming majority of these are pot smokers. While I don’t use marijuana, I am of the conviction that it ought to be legalized. Nevertheless, it is illegal, and if people uses it in certain situations where I am present, they expose me to legal sanctions.
If I’m entertaining at home, I can send the miscreants out to take their chances on the street. Exposing me to liability is an executive decision I alone should make for myself.
The situation that probably twists me off the most is when somebody lights up a joint in a car in which I’m a passenger. I have taken a lit joint passed to me and tossed it out the window (fortunately with no police around). The followup was ugly.
I really don’t care if someone smokes pot, but a pot-smoker continuously takes a legal risk in which they have no right to include me without my consent.
So, I’m sure there’re some other Dopers (ironic) out there who deal with this. How do you handle it?
Its (morally) up to the owner of the property you are in whether or not they wish to allow people to engage in illegal activities. If you do not wish to be involved and the owner doesn’t mind the activities you really only have the option of leaving. Of course asking nicely might get them to take it outside but I wouldn’t recommend taking someones joint and tossing it in the toliet.
I’ve never tossed a joint into a commode in a home where the homeowner has apparently sanctioned the activity. In that case I’de either leave or distance myself from the activity.
Lighting up in a car is a different situation, as is people bringing shit into your own home.
You should explain to your friends that you’re uncomfortable when they smoke pot around you because you’re worried about the legal risks and ask them to wait until you leave, and hopefully they’ll understand and stop. Otherwise, your other option is to leave when they smoke or just stop hanging out with them so much if it’s that big of an issue.
Of course, in your own property you have every right to kick them out if they start smoking.
A friend will never bring an illegal substance to my house, car property as it endangers me and mine from a legal stand point. I have also told them in advance that it is not to be done. No friend has ever done it to me.
People who do that are no ones friend and are asshats of the highest order.
No one has ever done it to me twice. Never will either…
I don’t know of any state in the union that would bust you for merely being in the car where a joint was being passed around. The most they could get you for is public intoxication. Which if they were to convict; the burden of proof would be on the state. Which would be impossible since you (ahem) didn’t inhale. (At least not enough to show up on a test)
The driver is the only one liable for ALL illegal activities going on in his or her car. Period. (this excluding passenger having something illegal on their person. Like in there pockets etc…)
This is commimg from some one who has a lot of family member in Texas Law enforcement.
I’m also assuming you’re an adult. Teenagers have a different set of rules they have to obide by.
I’m of a similar view to the O.P. but I’d lose my job were I tested positive, so I take a very strong line. Further, being high in a car on the U.K.'s crowded roads is lethally stupid. If I were in a car and the driver or passengers lit up, I’d leave at the nearest convenient point
Forget it. No matter how white-bread I may look or how well I can swim, I still look too much like Joe Campos Torres for me to do anything that might put me on the bad side of the HPD. Houston is the only place where I have had a gun pointed at me for reaching into a glove box for proof of insurance (though in all fairness it is also the only place where going eighty-five on a freeway got me only a spotlight and a few words over the loudspeaker.)
I’m sorry. I’m usually much more restrained than this, but that was my gut response on reading your post. I have a lot of respect for the people that police that city, but that respect comes in several different forms.
I think that you did the right thing by tossing the joint. If I were in your shoes, I might have tried to pay for the joint, but that’s more what I would do than any sort of suggestion. Besides, I doubt that they would accept.
For the most part, I took care of this years ago by leaving my friends that did drugs. It was a different situation than yours though. I had just had enough of watching my high school friends turn into addicts, and I decided that it was best for me to walk away.
Yeah, the charges with drugs are generally possesion, manufacturing and distribution. So don’t worry about your legal problems if you are not doing one of those.
Just tell your friends you are not comfortable with second-hand smoke - it can show up on drug tests, especially if you are in a car where you really could get a contact high. Ask them to let you know when they are going to get high and quietly excuse yourself to the bathroom, etc.
Hmm, I question the veracity of that. I’ve heard otherwise and have tested negative whilst being exposed to second hand smoke. (lots of second hand smoke).
Yes, I, and others I know, have gotten ‘contact highs’. If you are getting high from second-hand pot smoke, well…I am betting it will show up on a test, especially a hair test (smoke meet hair, hair meet smoke).
“It is possible that second hand [marijuana] smoke will raise someone to the 50 ng/mL level; however, extreme exposure is required. For instance, a closed car full of pot smokers and a non-smoker may render the non-smoker positive for both urinalysis and the hair test, provided that they are sealed in the car for a while. The Army did a case study where volunteers were put in a room pumped full of smoke for an hour, five time daily. Subjects started testing positive after the second day. The non-smoker would have to take in virtually as much second hand smoke as a smoker. Non-smokers are safe in a ventilated area, as long as they don’t get a hair test. According to Clinton, simply blowing crack smoke on ones hair may cause a positive hair test. Second hand pot smoke doesn’t affect the hair test results as much as crack smoke does mainly because exhaled smoke contains no THC. The only pot smoke that contains THC is the smoke that hasn’t entered the lungs.”
So, in reality it is not likely that second-hand smoke in-and-of-itself will cause you to fail. But maybe that, combined with other factors - medications that can cause a false-positive, etc, could cause a positive test result.
That said, drug tests are fallible anyways. One could skew test results just by being completely hydrated (pee is clear).
But the point I was trying to make remains - he can use it as an excuse to get his friends to be polite.
Feh. Driving 1 mph over the limit with you in the car is illegal, too. So are lots of little things that people do around you. It’s nothing more than a traffic ticket in most places, and a quick blood test would prove you weren’t the law breaker. You have two choices: either put up with it or get new friends. You make the call.
I haven’t smoked in the car since high school, but if someone had ever thrown a joint out the window the car would have immediately stopped and they would have been put on the side of the road. That was rude, juvenile, and petty.
It comes down to respecting other people’s choices, if you can’t do that, make new friends.
Absolutely object; to the highest order.
Those who insist in partaking in illegal substances in your presence while you voice your reasonable objections are, in my opinion, not friends.
As to the subject of being a passenger in a car where the stuff is being smoked… well, would you tolerate the driver having had some alcohol before climbing behind the wheel? Or cunsuming while driving? How much is too much?
Well, from a personal safety point of view, I really think you’d be better off spending your energy making sure that you never get in a car with a driver that’s had any (legal or not) alcohol.
The amount of deaths due to drunk drivers is just so mind-bogglingly higher than any other controllable cause, that worrying about anything else just makes no rational sense.
If you roommates or friends are regularly dealing or producing illegal drugs, then I agree you should worry about your legal situation, and take actions to make sure you’re not associated with it (make them move or move yourself, and don’t go to the dealing friend’s house). It is quite likely that there may be law enforcement interest.
If your friends are doing large amounts of cocaine or other major drugs, you might want to decide if that’s the scene you want to be in (I think that legal concerns would be less important that just not having fun with that kind of crowd).
But, (while I am not encouragin illegal acts in any way) in general, law enforcement considers occasional pot-smoking to be a fairly low priority. An even far lower priority is associates of occasional pot smokers.
Respectfully, I suggest that fear of legal liabilities for being around occasional pot-smokers is not particularly rational, and may be based on some emotional grounds.
Hell with legal ramifications - for me it’s a health risk.
If anyone brings it into my home, they leave. Immediately. If they’re exceptionally fortunate and/or beloved, I’ll open the door first. I made someone climb down the fire escape (where they were sitting smoking their joint) rather than walk back through my apartment once.
If you are a good enough friend you feel comfortable enough to light up an illegal pharmaceutical in my presence, you should know me well enough to be aware of my health risk. If you’re not that good a friend, then lighting up anything in my house without permission is hugely rude and you deserve to have to shinny down the fire escape.
As for the car, I’d have the driver pull over and I’d find a cab. Or something. If pulling over isn’t an option, if I get even the hint of a chance, it goes out the window. So sorry. I might reimburse for financial loss resulting therefrom, but my health trumps your urge to get high.
I’ve always had people ask me if I minded, even when I was a passenger in their car. When I do mind I say so, and it’s not an issue.
If people who do smoke have a problem with refraining when you have some legitimate concerns about liability (and maybe other things), then they are either a) jerks, or b) addicts.
