Let me guess, you don’t smoke pot very often?
Inexperienced smokers and inexperienced drivers definitely should not be driving while high. For people who are experienced at both, being high is a distraction of about the same magnitude as listening to the radio or drinking a soda. I know someone who made a living for 5 years by driving stoned every day, and I’d rather be in the car with him than with, say, anyone over 65.
YMMV, but the effects of pot on me got more pronounced over the period that I smoked. First few times, if I’d been a driver (I wasn’t), I probably could’ve driven safely afterwards. The last few times, I wouldn’t have trusted me with a can-opener.
I note that the DOT study cited by CarnalK tested something relatively simple - they had the subjects follow a lead car, and measured following distance and lateral motion. No decisions required.
And that’s exactly what would worry me; in my latter days of smoking pot, I would lose track of the beginning of a sentence I was saying, before I got to the end. (Which was why I quit.) I could probably have followed that lead car OK, but I sure wouldn’t have wanted to drive in a real traffic situation, involving adapting to changing circumstances, with that little continuity of thought.
What’s funny is that the alleged determining factor here is “experienced pot smokers”. Yeah, that’s just great, let people who are already intoxicated make the decision whether they’re experienced enough or not.
“Hey, man, I do this all the time”. Gee, I never heard that before. :rolleyes:
Read your own cite, you dumb cunt.
Wow, you two! You sure know how to harsh a buzz. Calm down. Here, have a cookie.
Mmmmm…'luci’s cookies.
Hmmmm…that doesn’t sound right.
So this beatnik is in his pad, see, about to smoke some “reefer” when he looks out his window and sees The Man coming to roust him. So he quickly stuffs the “mary jane” into the cuckoo clock just before the bust down his door.
Well, they look and look, and don’t find anything, and are just about to leave when its ten o’clock, and the little bird comes out and says:
“Hey, baby! Any of you cats care what time it is?”
Careful! Careful!
You’ll don’t want to start the dreaded “joke thread in the Pit.”
Yeah, except the pot smokers have CITES to back them up, genius. And these aren’t just controlled studies. See here (all cites are on the bottom of the page) :
Similar results can be found in Australia:
Those are hard numbers. They don’t lie. There’s no “well maybe the test subjects were all just good stoned drivers or had lousy pot” you can say to explain that one away.
To those who think that pot is a danger on the roads, please explain those numbers to me. I also asked for an explanation in the last thread in this subject, but, unsurprisingly, nobody came forward with one.
Read your own cite, you dumb cunt.
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Well, I’m not Dio, but If I was, I’d ask you to read the fucking cite!
In other words, marijuana does slightly impair driving ability, but, at the same time, the pot smoker’s high level of compensation for those effects negates (or more than negates, based on the accident reports) the impairment. Understand now?
WRT to the political aspects of this thread, I’m not too big on blaming someone for his kid’s pot use (Democrat or Republican), but I will note that at least Gore was honest about his own marijuana use in college. GWB dodged and weaseled out of every drug-related question thrown at him.
Obviously, I did. Otherwise I wouldn’t have found the relevent quote.
Listen, asshole. Does or does not marijuana impair your driving ability? Yes or no?
The cite says yes. In fact, every study I’ve ever seen says yes. Now, you may be aware of this impairment while being high, which means you’ll be extra careful on the road - but you’re still impaired and if you do need to react, you’re not going to react as swiftly as you might need to.
Driving while high is not a good idea. Although, I’d rather the person be high and extra careful then one of those dipshits that swerves in and out of traffic going 15 mph faster than everyone else.
The cite says yes, but qualifies that answer. Fucking learn to understand what you read. Compensation negates impairment and the accident studies prove it. I’m waiting with baited breath for someone to address those numbers, but, like I said, it didn’t happen last time and likely won’t happen this time.
In controlled studies, I suppose. But can those studies be extrapolated to real life? The accident studies suggest that the answer to that one is a solid “no.”
What I’d like to see is a study comparing illegally stoned drivers to legally sleepy drivers. That would be interesting…
I fucking understand what I read. The fact remains that you are impaired. Now, you may be extra-special careful while driving with your impairment and end up being safer, but it’s not some magical property of pot that automatically makes you a safer driver. And it’s a tendency, as well. It’s not a universal trait of marijuana users that they all share.
I’d also imagine that someone who has had several drinks and is aware of their impairment will also be extra cautious on the road. In fact, that has been the case with one or two people I know who have done just that.
As for the numbers, what’s there to address? There’s no doubt in my mind that people who are aware they are under the influence and take special precautions to address that are safer drivers than a sober person making a call and putting on their lipstick and not paying attention to the road.
That said, if you have knowingly taken a substance that will impair your ability to drive, you should stay off the road.
I asked about smoking pot, not driving while high. My feelings about that are the same as my feelings about alcohol.
The thread has drifted significantly since I made my first post, but at the time it was still about hypocrisy, not drug or alcohol use, and it is by reason of their hypocrisy that I would not advise my children to emulate either W. Bush or Gore.
No, but you’ll find that the people who drive poorly on marijuana (read: inexperienced or occasional smokers) don’t want to drive. I really wish I could say the same for alcohol.
Then shouldn’t we criminalize putting on lipstick while driving, eating while driving, drinking a soda, changing the radio station, changing CDs, having a conversation, smoking a cigarette, being sleepy, or any one of the hundreds of other bad things that sober drivers do?
If not, why should stoned drivers be labeled DUI and dealt harsh penalties, while drivers who were distracted (to a slightly greater degree, even) for other reasons get charged with a lesser offensive, such as careless driving?
I might add that the stoned drives could have also been distracted by the very same things that distracted the sober accident-causers, meaning that marijuana may not have even been a factor at all in those accidents.
Also bear in mind that THC testing isn’t the exact science that BAC testing is. It’s impossible to narrow down the exact time the driver smoked. It’s very likely that a significant portion of the accident causers who tested positive for THC weren’t even stoned when they caused the accidents.
The answer is NO, you stupid, worthless fuck. Learn how to fucking read. Marijuana DOES NOT cause car accidents.
I’d just like to add that Al Gore’s son is to be commended for being cool enough to smke a little grass. To quote Dennis Miller, don’t you remember the fuckheads who wouldn’t touch the pot?
Al Gore is also to be commended for raising a cool son instead of a repressed little nazi.
Is Al Gore’s son to be commended for his DUI as well? Or maybe his 40+ MPH violation of the speed limit?
I’m glad you can justify assholish behavior, Dio. Although I must say that it takes ignoring other significant facts to do it.
As previously mentioned, Dio, the cite says yes, even though it qualifies that answer.
Oh, and one other thing, Dio. If you think doing drugs is cool, then you must think that Noelle Bush is the coolest person on Earth.