I’ve stopped hanging out with people who couldn’t keep themselves from doing drugs in my presence. I don’t mind drinking (although I hate hanging around with drunks, and there is a world of difference), but drugs are illegal, and I refuse to jeopardize my own health, safety, and clean criminal record by being in proximity with people engaging in illegal behavior. I’ve lost a few good friends this way, but I’m better off without them.
I doubt you’ll want the reasonable answer, because it’s just saying, “No thanks,” and passing it along.
I would also suggest you meditate on the question, because it doesn’t sound like you’re living an examined life in this area.
If you hand my best friend a joint, he will try to put it out on your bare skin. He’s big enough and bad enough that most people don’t make the same mistake twice.
Ah yes, because the proper response to generosity is assault.
Seriously, this is your “best” friend and that doesn’t bother you?
Is it just me or is the obvious solution to check before getting into a car, “Will there be herbs burning, it’s a problem for me?”, take a taxi, not an attitude, if the response is not what you wished to hear.
Your car, different story, of course.
Unexpected appearance of new passenger taking liberalities? Speak up, “Sorry, I wouldn’t have accepted this lift knowing this activity would occur, can you please refrain till later?”
If you’re inquiries are not met with honest answers, if your request is not respected, you should not catch another ride with these persons.
But truly, if you are really seriously concerned about these issues, remove yourself from such a target rich environment and quit hanging out with people with whom you do not share the same ethical standard or life style choices.
I’m not the one handing him the joint. 
Maybe you missed “try to.” I’ve never seen him actually burn anybody (except maybe some hair). Somebody will hand him a joint, he’ll say, “I don’t smoke” (which I should have said in my first post, I meant to,really I did 
). If they hand it to him agian, he just assumes that since they know he does not smoke, they want him to put it out. He used to put it out in an ashtray, or drop it the ground & step on it, but people kept passing smoke to him.
Besides, what are you gonna do, call a cop? :dubious:
“Yeah, I was smoking this joint, I handed it to him. He said no. So I passed it on. When it came back around to me I took another toke. I handed it to him again and he tried to burn me with it!”
:rolleyes:
You gotta love the Army.
My solution has been to find new friends. Been through this 2-1/2 times. First time was in Junior High, when most of the neighborhood kids I’d grown up with started using.
2nd time I was a 20 something and realized, when I started spending more time around him, that one of my fairly good friends was a coke head. Unfortunatly, I spent more time around his crowd than I shoud have because I had a serious case of the hots for one of the women. Took about a month to find out she was even better in bed than my fantasies, and far nuttier otherwise than I ever would have dreamed. Very good lesson in perils of thinking with my dick.
Last time was when I was invited to a party by a couple of guys I knew professionally. Shortly after the nose candy came out, I rememembered I needed to be somewhere else, and didn’t accept any invitations after that. (I count this as the “half”)
My husband and I belong to an international social organization that has a chapter in our city. We used to host a cinema evening in our home. Sometimes we drew a couple dozen people, and often they were people we didn’t know very well.
Once a guy came to our cinema party and promptly laid out several lines of cocaine on our coffee table. We were aghast that anyone would do this in the home of strangers, and we asked him to leave. He did, but he mocked us for being puritanical jerks.
IMHO, the best way to avoid being around illegal drug usage is to choose your friends carefully.
As stated above, no they don’t. If you’re not using it or have it in your possession, you’re fine.
As it should have been. You were being a jerk. It’s not your car and if the owner is fine with usage in his car, then you should accept that. If you don’t like it, don’t simply destroy the property of others – get out and walk.
Again, no they don’t. If you like these guys and your only objection to their behavior is that they are exposing you to some sort of legal liability, then relax. There is no need to be so paranoid. Simply refuse the joint and go on with your life. There is no need to change friends if this is the only behavior with which you object. They smoke pot. So what? They aren’t harming you in any way. In fact, it seems as if they may want to distance themselves from you since you are the one destroying the property of others.
Good grief.
I know this is not GQ. But - in MY opinion - the posting of such a confident assertion does a terrible disservice to the reader, when the confident assertion is out and out wrong.
If a passenger is smoking a joint, you believe the driver is legally criminally liable somehow? No. That is absolutely untrue.
If a passenger is handed a joint and merely hands it off to the next person, without taking a hit, you believe the passenger is not guilty of any crime at all? Wrong again.
If anyone is interested in a short discourse on the law, possession (both actual and constructive) I’ll be happy to oblige. But the short answer is that despite the wealth of knowledge apparently conferred by having “…a lot of family member in Texas Law enforcement,” the above commentary regarding criminal law is seriously flawed.
Can you briefly summarize the law concerning actual and constructive possession, so that we all can see how right you are about this?
From my understanding, unless the person has control of the property wherein the illegal activity is taking place, he’s not in any danger. As I stated in my post, if it’s not his car or house he won’t be cited for possession. If he’s at someone else’s house or in their car, then he should just chill out because nothing will happen to him. If it’s his property, of course, he’s free to do what he wishes.
I no longer use, in recovery and a bit too old but a friend of my wife’s relative was visiting and hell bent on smoking. After asking him not to twice I told him he could go smoke it by my back fence. He was surprised when he discovered that we share that fence with the police dept’s parking lot. Oops.
That’s not true.
There are two problems to be analyzed here.
If our hero is passed a joint, and immediately passes it to someone else, is he guilty of a crime? And could he be convicted?
If our hero is simply sitting between people who are passing a joint back and forth, is he guilty of a crime? And could he be convicted?
In the first hypothetical, he is guilty of possession. He has had actual, knowing, physical possession of the marijuana. The crime is complete the moment he takes the joint. It doesn’t erase itself the moment he passes it on.
The second hypothetical is a bit more complicated. While he is technically not guilty of a crime, he is exposed to potential criminal liability, because an over- zealous officer may charge him with constructive possession. In Virginia, constructive possession may be established by “evidence of acts, statements, or conduct of the accused or other facts or circumstances which tend to show that the [accused] was aware of both the presence and the character of the substance and that it was subject to his dominion and control.” Powers v. Commonwealth, 227 Va. 474, 476, 316 S.E.2d 739, 740 (1984). Occupancy of the premises where the illegal drug is found is a factor that may be considered in deciding whether the accused was in possession of the illegal drug. Walton v. Commonwealth, 255 Va. 422, 426, 497 S.E.2d 869, 871 (1998). Possession need not be exclusive; it may be shared. Gillis v. Commonwealth, 215 Va. 298, 301-02, 208 S.E.2d 768, 771 (1974). Dominion and control may be inferred by circumstance. The Commonwealth is not required to disprove every alternative hypothesis for the placement of the contraband. See Brown v. Commonwealth, 15 Va. App. 1, 10, 421 S.E.2d 877, 883 (1992).
The reason our hero is not technically guilty in our second hypothetical is that he never exercised dominion and control. We know that - it’s our hypothetical. But the circumstances that would be placed in evidence could lead a jury to conclude that he did. In any event, it’s sufficent to establish probable cause to arrest him.
And that is exposure to legal liability.
I’d say the OP is being ridiculously over-sensitive about the issue. On the other hand, his friends ought to respect his over-sensitivity and not smoke around him. Although I might add conditions to that if the smoker is in his own home, and you’re his guest.
Dude, aside from have family members in law enforcement; Watch any given show of “Cops” and you will see with out a doubt that the driver absolutely is resposible for ALL activities going on in his or her car. The ONLY way a driver could get out of this is if the passenger is willing to confess that the illegal substances are indeed his or hers.
At least thats how it works here in Texas.
I’m willing to capitulate that there may be some obscure laws out there that if a cop really wanted to be an ass, he could bust everyone in the car. But for the most part you are wrong sir.
Bottom line is: If you’re just a non-smoking bystandard in a car full of pot smokers; You will not get hauled off to jail or given a citation or anything like it. Yeah, sure the cop could give you a public intox; but they wont, because they KNOW it will get thrown right out of court.
I certainly don’t consider dumping a joint lit unannounced in a car any ruder (in fact, I see it as far less so) than firing the thing up in the first place. And my understanding of the law is far more in line with Bricker’s than any of the other faux scenarios posted here.
While I’m aware that possession sanctions have mellowed somewhat since the two years to life felony proscriptions of my youth here in Texas in the late '60s (under which I bagged a felony bust - I’m sure that experience has colored my perception). Any pot bust, however mild the legal consequences, would terminate my job.
Second hand smoke? Eh, I hadn’t really considered that, but I suppose it’s a threat as well (as I am subject to testing).
I guess the real question here is how do you deal with people who, whether thinking about it or not, expose you to risks inherent in their lifestyle that you would not, by your own actions, normally be exposed to?
The easy answer, offered above, is to get new friends. Well, that’s not necessarily the easy answer.
On preview I see that SHAKES has posted:
In my experience that is completely in error.
Care to elaborate?
Sure. My experience is that a non-smoking passenger in a car in which marijuana is discovered will be hauled off to jail along with everybody else in the car, whether the pot was communally available or not.
That’s just the street bust.
IANAL, but my experiences have been that when it can be established that the pot was freely circulating and everybody in the automobile should have been aware of its presence, then everybody’s guilty. When it can be established that perhaps not all passengers in the car would have been aware of the marijuana’s presence, then a possessor must be identified for prosecution to proceed. Possibly Bricker can expound on that.