Actually, I had already thought of it, but didn’t post it. Clearly there are levels of intoxications.
This would only be for offenses where the person was seriously impaired.
I don’t know exactly what the cutoff would be, but lets say a BAC of 0.2. That is pretty hammered… There is probably some good debate to be had where to put that level. Clearly it is not indicated for someone who had two glasses of wine with dinner and are just barely a 0.08.
Still, I would support fundemental changes in the way bars are run… here would be a good example… bars don’t get parking lots. Paid transport only to and from. Ok, gotta make a provision for designated drivers, but you get the idea.
The big point is, I strongly support measures that punish for behaviour that is a threat to others.
Anyway, kabbes, he was talking about a second offense penalty. One has already had the chance to learn to be extra careful. When in doubt - don’t drive.
I suppose one could consider mitigating circumstances - such as if you’re rushing someone to a hospital or something.
This is the point: sleepiness, alcohol, and drugs can all cause car accidents. Roads would be safer if no-one did drugs, or drank, or took medication with side effects involving sleepiness. But making all the above illegal (or having the government kill off those who use any of the above) is not the only measure which can be taken to that effect. Stricter penalties for those who drive under the influence of any of these substances, rather than for those who simply use them, might be just as effective.
these “drug” threads are all pointless and a waste of time. some asshole always has to lump coffee and beer and cigarettes in with herion, pcp and crack.
yeah, yeah, yeah-- sure, they are all drugs.
are you people really trying to use the argument, “since i take tylanol, its okay to shoot smack” or “drugs are bad, so we have to kill the coffee drinkers!”?
somehow, i think some of you just miss the point, and NO, im not going to show it to you…
During the early parts of the 20th century, opiates and cocaine where comletely legal. Just as legal as alcohol. Care to take a guess of at which actually cause the most problems?
Did you know it was common practice for Doctors to deliberately hook alcoholics on opiates? Why? When they did this, it pretty well ended the domestic violence problems of these patients. Civil disturbance problems as well. And the health problem were much more manageable.
and gatopescado, what you have presented is clearly a straw man arguement. That is not what is presented.
The real arguement is different is several fundemental ways.
No one argues that anyone SHOULD shoot up heroin.
The central point is that prohibition makes matters worse when two condition are true.
2a) Some people are going to do these things no matter what.
2b) Demand is going to create a dangerous black market condition.
In fact, there are a number of drugs that are MUCH safer in almost every measurable way than tobacco and alcohol.
"But no matter how powerful the analogies between alcohol prohibition and contemporary drug prohibition, most Americans still balk at drawing the parallels. Alcohol, they insist, is fundamentally different from everything else. They are right, of course, insofar as their claims rest not on health or scientific grounds but are limited to political and cultural arguments. By most measures, alcohol is more dangerous to human health than any of the drugs now prohibited by law. No drug is as associated with violence in American culture–and even in illicit-drug-using subcultures–as is alcohol…
…But even more reassuring is the fact that the major causes of opiate addiction then simply do not exist now. Late nineteenth-century Americans became addicts principally at the hands of physicians who lacked modern medicines and were unaware of the addictive potential of the drugs they prescribed. Doctors in the 1860s and 1870s saw morphine injections as a virtual panacea, and many Americans turned to opiates to alleviate their aches and pains without going through doctors at all. But as medicine advanced, the levels of both doctor- and self-induced addiction declined markedly"
I am still looking for a cite that specifically supports my claim… However, I have heard that line several times on TV show such as Nova, or something on TLC, etc. I am sure I will find the magic combo in the search engines soon.
"Late in the 1800s, morphine was prescribed commonly as a sub- stitute for “alcohol addiction”; the practice continued until late in the 1930s. Dr. J. R. Black, in a paper entitled “Advantages of Substituting the Morphia Habit for the Incurably Alcoholic,” published in the Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic in 1889, had the following praise for morphine in the alcoholic treatment regimen:
[Morphine] “is less inimical to healthy life than alcohol… [It] calms in place of exciting the baser passions, and hence is less productive of acts of violence and crime; in short-the use of morphine in place of alcohol is but a choice of evils, and by far the lesser-On the score of economy the morphine habit is by far the better. The regular whisky drinker can be made content in his craving for stimulation, at least for quite a long time, on two or three grains of morphine a day, divided into appropriate portions, and given at regular intervals. If purchased by the drach at fifty cents this will last him twenty days” (Brecher, 1972)."
Yes, of course, you’re absolutely right. Cigarettes don’t cause hundreds of thousands of deaths every year. And no one ever drinks beer–shucks no, not good old beer–and then drives into the side of a school bus or beats up their wife or gets pregnant when they didn’t really intend to. Alcohol in all its forms is safe and harmless and should be subsituted for mother’s milk for little babies. It doesn’t cause cirrhosis of the liver, and college students never O.D. on alcohol and die.
I don’t know what I was thinking. Some drugs are illegal, and are therefore bad, and other drugs are legal, and are therefore good. There is no need for any actual facts, we just need to consult our wise legal codes, and everything will be made clear to us.
Why are you guys going after gatopescado and Justinh? Let’s look at this from a different perspective and use it to our advantage. They are, after all, two people for whom the DARE program actually seems to have worked.
Anyway gatopescado asked a valid question, albeit in a manner not suitable for GD, and he deserves an answer. He wants to know why people always lump caffeine and tobacco with PCP and heroin. It is a good question, and the answer is quite simple. The mechanism of addiction is the same for alcohol is the same as it is for heroin. No human needs heroin, the same way that no human needs alcohol. If back in the early 20th century the powers that be had decided to ban alcohol and tobacco, gatopescado would be here asking ‘why does some asshole always have to lump heroin and cocaine with alcohol and tobacco?’. It is all a matter of perception.
As far as Justinh, he originally posted a really BAD idea. But, I don’t wanna go after him. I really think his heart is in the right place. I am hoping his heart will stay in this debate a bit more and maybe at the least clear up some really big, really common misconceptions.
As far as getopescado question, (one of the really big misconceptions) I thought when I put this in, that was more or less covered.
Actually, scotth, I studied the drug and alcohol abuse at university, both from a historical and psychological point of view. Much of what you’ve said is quite similar to what I learnt back then. And very admirably researched and cited.
