Pitting Jane Says and Terminator Gold 3000 - by Manhattan's Request

The BBQ Pit
81

Strange how habitual marijuana users always defend their habit by saying “well, look at THAT, it’s legal and it’s not as bad!” Even if true, it’s not a very logical defense. It doesn’t actually say anything at all about marijuana, and you always run the risk of losing the argument to some teetotaler jumping up with “well, then THAT should be illegal too.”

If someday you become an H.R. director, then you can make your judgment about the relation of alcohol abuse to job performance and institute policies the way you see fit. Maybe it is more detrimental to work than marijuana, maybe the employer’s making a bad decision with his policy, but he’s still free to make that bad decision.

The other thing to consider, though, is the effects of alchohol are varied. One can drink a couple beers watching the football game Monday night and not get drunk or in any way intoxicated. You can drink for reasons like taste that have nothing to do with getting intoxicated and you can moderate it so that you are ok after use. It’s certainly possible to smoke say…ONE drag off a joint…and not get high. But who the hell smokes pot for any reason other than to get high? It sure ain’t the taste. You smoke, you get high, and you’ll be that way for a while no matter what you do. OTOH, it’s possible to drink every day and never get drunk. If you smoke pot even occasionally you will be high at some point. So evidence of alcohol usage doesn’t really tell you anything about that person unless you know his particular style of drinking: casual, or binge? You don’t know if that person is ever drunk. Evidence of potsmoking tells you that person does become high. To an employer, this might be enough to make the judgment call that the potsmoker is potentially unreliable, and he’ll hold out on the alcohol user until he knows more. It’s his call.

82

Think that if you must - me, I do in fact hold to speed limit whenever possible (I will go faster to avoid an accident). Maybe 5 over - but blowing it by 15 mph? No, I can’t justify that, either.

As I’ve said before - if you’re smoking that joint in your own home, or some other place where you won’t affect anyone else adversely I don’t give a damn. Really, I don’t. But as soon as your actions might negatively impact someone else… then I do have opinions on the matter.

Just for the record - drug (of any kind) use and flying do not mix well. A drug (any drug) can have effects on your system long after you come down from the high. Sudafed, for instance - normally considered pretty harmless - has been found to be a contributing cause in several helicoptor crashes. Smoking reduces the body’s ability to process oxygen, in some cases to the point that a pilot’s vision can start to be impaired as low as 5000 feet above sea level, particularly at night. Alcohol not only has stronger effects at altitude, but the dehydrating effects are not good for clear thinking or fast reactions, either. Hence, the regulation of at least 8 hours between your last drink - no matter how small - and taking the controls.

As a result - in general if you fly often you drink seldom. Since I’ll spend from 7 in the morning to 8 or 9 at night at the airport many weekends that leaves damn little time for drinking.

Drunk/drugged pilots - despite recent publicity - are rare. Most are found on the post-mortem drug test rather than before they board the plane. Is that because they cheat … or because it’s just fucking dangerous to do shit then fly?

It’s all about choices, folks. If you choose to participate in certain activities - piloting a plane, driving a school bus, etc. - you may have to give up the drugs. If you don’t want to give up the drugs, you may not be able to participate in some activities either for reasons of safety or law. I get frustrated at spoiled brats who can’t understand that no, you can’t do both. Don’t like the law? - work to get it changed. But there will always be some occupations that are not compatible with either drug use or drug abuse.

Do I think a stockboy at WalMart falls into that category? Well, maybe if he’s driving a forklift. Not if he’s stacking rolls of toilet paper. Don’t like the fact a particular employer gives drug tests? Go work for someone else. Vote with your feet. There are lots of jobs that don’t require the testing.

83

You still don’t understand.

If you have a LEGITIMATE prescription for, say, Percocet and you come up positive for Percocet you’re still in the clear – in fact, it confirms that it’s a valid test.

Way back when, if someone came in for a drug test but had a legit script for something like Percocet (this is why you’re supposed to be asked if you’re on something from a doctor) we’d mark that down on a form and go to a more sensitive test that could distinguish between Perc and other stuff. Have Perc? That’s OK and expected. Come up clean with everything else? That’s cool. Have THC, PCP, and methadone as well? You’re fucked.

Of course, not everyone uses the more sensitive (and more expensive) test - some will just delay the test till you’re off the stuff, others will just toss the sample.

So your anecdote proves nothing.

84

Ditto

85

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Broomstick *
Think that if you must - me, I do in fact hold to speed limit whenever possible (I will go faster to avoid an accident). Maybe 5 over - but blowing it by 15 mph? No, I can’t justify that, either.

[quote]
Then, law or no law, I would advise you to stay off Route 4 at rush hour. A car going 5 over will be easily the slowest car on the road most mornings, and as a result will be the greater safety hazard.

Since you keep hammering this one into the ground, I’ll ask: why do you need to all but give up drinking, just to fly on weekends??

I mean, what modest drinking I do is mostly after I get home in the evenings. Seems there’s plenty of time for an ale or a stout in the typical p.m., rather than essentially giving it up and getting all Church Lady about it.

86

Actually, it’s been a bad fucking week. Not that that matters.

Nope, I normally rant about the people who piss me off. Are you finding it so hard to believe I actually do find you contemptible?

I’m sorry - did you mistake me for a Nice Girl, perhaps? Have I done or said anything to make you believe I am a particularly sweet and pacifistic human being?

And no, I don’t talk that way “all the time”. Occassionally I let actions speak louder than words. If you have any doubts of whether or not the folks at my house are “nice” people you can ask the motherfucker who tried to steal my pickup today (I did mention it’s been a bad week, didn’t I?). You can find him at one of the local hospitals. No, we do not own a gun. I don’t have to own a gun to be One Bad Bitch.

Four years in the drug rehab industry taught me to recognize a bullshitter. “People skills” do not require me to be a doormat.

What pisses off the likes of you is that I AM right. You advocate breaking the law, then cheating to cover up the fact. As I said - I don’t give a damn what you do in your own home - but what you’re advocating (if it actually worked. which it doesn’t) would enable drug addicts, as opposed to casual users or responsible users, to evade the safety net society erects to keep shitheads out of positions where they might hurt someone else. Or are you going to whine you’d only recommned Mega-Flush Platinum 50000 to “casual” potheads but NEVER breathe a word of it to a “real” junkie? It’s like passing out designs and supplies for pipebombs at a high school - it’s irresponsible. And THAT is why you’re a sleazeball - you’re irresponsible and enabling.

That wasn’t “instructions”, that was a “suggestion”. Actually, I’ve pitted plenty of folks without being requested to do so - so feel honored, you’re an exception to the rule.

I said “nasty, vicious things” because I sincerely find people who advocate “flushing” to enable drug users and abusers to cheat on drugs tests to be floorscrapings. It’s not a matter that I disagree with you - I really do find you vile and disgusting. I’ve seen the damage done by both the shit sold as a “flush” and the attitudes that make it somehow OK to use and abuse as long as you “get away with it”. It’s EXACTLY the same sort of justification used by junkies to excuse their contemptible, illegal, and immoral actions.

Don’t like that analogy? Here’s another one - you’re like a fence for stolen goods. You didn’t actually steal anything, you just help keep the thieves in business. You’re not actually an addict, right? You just give them suggestions on how to keep using without getting caught.

Then why are you here now?

Sometimes just a little bit is all it takes. Get this through your thick skull: I loathe the practice of “flushing” to cheat drug tests and think those who promote it are either dupes or assholes. So… decide. Are you a dupe or an asshole?

You wish I was that pathetic.

Tell me - isn’t pathetic when someone who normally doesn’t inhabit the Pit is down here groveling and sniveling trying to get someone who finds them disgusting, pathetic, and on the level of shoe-scrapings to apologize? Any other lost causes you indulge in?

87

Broomstick and others: I’ve been out of this thread for a while, and I’ve just reviewed my posts. I think I came across as a bit of a jerk. When I posted my comments it was late, and I was a bit stressed out. Just wanted to say sorry for coming across so harshly, I didn’t intend to sound so arrogant.

88

Same here. What little drinking I do is either on the holidays, or after I get home from work. How does this contradict anything I’ve said? The question I was answering was why don’t I drink on the weekends.

89

Yeah, but you said you had to all but give up drinking altogether (“And I did most certainly enjoy my beer, stout, vodka, and single-malt scotch in those days prior to taking the stick.” (emphasis mine)) - and expected everyone else who flew to abide by similar standards. So by only saying why you don’t drink on weekends, you left a lot of territory unaccounted for, in terms of why you were now denying yourself those pleasures, and expected others similarly situated to hold themselves to a similar standard.

So I gather then that you do still periodically enjoy such beverages, and that flying (combined with normal driving) hasn’t necessitated that you go for weeks between beers or whatever, whether you actually do so or not.

90

One last post, and I am washing my hands of this ridiculous affair.

I must not have made myself clear about the “kid”, Broomstick, but what I meant was no insurance = no doctor = no script. He was no longer being prescribed what he was taking. I am aware that a drug test cannot differentiate between my Percocets and your Percocets.

Okay, you are able to find someone “contemptible” because their opinion regarding a perfectly legal substance differs from yours, mostly because of your FOUR YEARS :snicker: of substance abuse treatment experience. You are a self-styled “bad bitch” :wink: who apparently caused someone to be hospitalized due to your brutal beating very recently, all over your pickem-up truck. I bow before your self-righteous bad ass.

FTR, I am “here” because you attempted a little flame at me. I won’t ask you to point out where I have groveled and/or snivelled, because it can’t be done. I asked you to be a decent human being, but the order was too tall for you. I pity you. It must suck to be so angry all the time.

91

While I don’t share quite the same level of intense feeling about your behavior as Broomstick does, it did not escape my notice that she did explain to you why exactly she felt your actions and/or attitudes were contemptable. If you want to gloss over that part, and simply imply that she came down on you so strongly because she’s a “bad bitch” or just in a bad mood, no one can stop you. But it seems to me that there’s a whole bunch more to it than that, (and she did spell it out for you). Ignoring it won’t make it go away.

92

You know, I love a glass of wine every once in a while-it’s relaxing and it tastes good.

HOWEVER-I am on Paxil and Ritalin, and I am advised that alcohol counteracts my meds. Therefore, I only have a drink on special occassions.

Does it suck? Well, not really, only in that I wish I could try a daquiri or something like that. I also have to really watch my caffeine intake.

Drinking also tends to make me incredibly sleepy.

So, I deal with it, and I tend to abstain. Priorities, that’s the whole point of this thread, I think. What is more of a priority.