CONAN
Well-Known Member
Agreed mostly. But not 100%. I'm sure there are plenty of folks that moved upward from weed to experiment or look for a better high or whatever. But I'd the environment is the biggest factor.
Marijuana: Facts, Myths, and plain old Stupidity.
- Thread starter TroutBum
- Start date
SaltyDawg
Well-Known Member
GVC has done an awesome job in this thread, but this one was burning at me. I just had to respond.
First off, that site is obviously biased and very anti marijuana. I think you already know that, but just in case.
Before I go into how ridiculous this is, let me give a little info.
First, the legal blood alcohol limit in Utah is .08%. Some states have .10% limits. No state has lower than Utah's .08%. You can view the limits for each state here:
https://www.ohsinc.com/drunk_driving_laws_blood_breath _alcohol_limits_CHART.htm
Now lets understand what the legal BAC limit is designed to do. It is not put in place because they feel at .08% you are sloppy drunk and unable to drive. It is put in place because they want you to either stop drinking or let someone else drive before you get to the point where you are a danger to anyone. So they know most people aren't drunk to the point they can't drive at .08%, they just don't want anyone to actually hit that point while continuing to drive. It's understandable. If I'm sloppy drunk at .08%, then I must also be pretty drunk at (legal to drive) .07%. So they make the legal limit low enough that if you ever do get pretty drunk, you'll be well over the legal limit and should not have been driving.
In short, .08% is not drunk at all for most people. I am not saying I agree or disagree with this limit, just trying to put it into perspective what it actually means. I know you probably have never been drunk in your life, so you probably have no concept of what .08% actually is. In the real world, it's maybe slightly buzzed for someone with a low tolerance, and even less buzzed for someone with a high tolerance. Probably fine to drive in both cases, but the line had to be drawn somewhere and this is where it is drawn legally in Utah. And again, I am not complaining about it so lets not start a discussion about that, I only wanted to put into perspective what .08% BAC actually is in practice for those who have only seen it written and never felt it.
So, now, on to marijuana...
I don't smoke weed anymore. I quit back when I started having kids. But I do know a bunch of old hippies who have been smoking everyday for 50+ years. These people have as great of a tolerance as you can probably get. And these people never smoke a whole marijuana cigarette (I'll refer to it as a joint going forward) by themselves. Most of the time they just load up a pipe (which I'll call a bowl going forward) and take a few hits, saving the rest for later. In the event a joint is rolled, same thing, they take a few hits and save the rest for later. They will smoke a whole joint if there are several of them all sharing it. But even then, a lot of times 3 or 4 of them will only smoke part of a joint and save the rest for later.
So when I read your link and I see a statement like this:
"Data have also shown that while smoking marijuana, people show the same lack of coordination on standard "drunk driver" tests as do people who have had too much to drink (8)."
I click on the "8" that they use as the source for their info, and I see it is
"Liguori, A.; Gatto, C. P.; and Robinson, J. H. Effects of marijuana on equilibrium. psychomotor performance, and simulated driving. Behavioral Pharmacology, 9:599-609, 1998."
So after searching the net for that particular study, I can't find it. GVC was apparently able to locate some info on it, and it said (per GVC's post) the effect of smoking one whole marijuana cigarette (3.96% THC) on brake latency and equilibrium is equal to that of someone with a BAC of .05 driving at the same speed.
So, lets put that into perspective. In a nutshell, it is saying that someone who smokes way more weed than most weed smokers would consider normal, would still drive like someone who is way under the legal limit of even the strictest DUI laws. And this is for people travelling at the same speed. Studies (posted earlier in this thread) have shown that weed smokers tend to slow down when driving, which makes it even safer.
So how does that prove that smoking weed makes driving dangerous? From what I can tell, they are saying that it is actually pretty safe. But they are somehow trying to spin that into marijuana being dangerous because they are a biased site.
CONAN
Well-Known Member
No surprise this question was avoided.
Not that I haven't done it for many years (last time was in Hawaii 3 years ago, and only to go down to the bottom of the hill of the ranch we were staying on to go to a mini mart to get some groceries...I would have declined if it were on a road with any sort of traffic), but not that much slower. I'd say I'd go the speed limit or 5 MPH less on the highway, though I'm pretty conscious about being in the left lane when I'm not passing. I was also super paranoid when driving, which is probably a good thing on the road, so I'd find myself glancing at the dashboard every 5 seconds to make sure my speed was correct.
That being said, the worst thing about driving stoned (IMO) is the lack of concentration that can happen when you're stoned, and if you lose concentration you can easily rear end someone else, or hit a pedestrian, or blow thru a light or whatever. Not good, and why I don't do it anymore (not to mention I just hate driving in general and try to avoid it). However, what makes alcohol so bad is that as a central nervous system depressant people literally cannot control a car when they've had too much to drink, try as they might. Plus it also has that "I'm drunk, I'm awesome, I know what I'm doing" factor that exacerbates the situation. Which is why there isn't much of a comparison between driving drunk and stoned (though in both cases there is a degree of intoxication that must be considered), even though both are a bad idea since in general operating heavy machinery being nothing but sober (and frankly, not tired or totally preoccupied with anything else) is a bad idea.
SaltyDawg
Well-Known Member
Nate did a good job answering it but I guess I will anyway.
First off, I will say that if it was enough of a decrease, you'd see people getting pulled over for it left and right, and therefore getting busted for driving while high. It almost never happens, so it must not be that much slower.
Specifically, I would say Nate was pretty much dead on. Most people drive 5-10 MPH over the speed limit (when sober). When high, people tend to go somewhere between 5 MPH under the speed limit, and 4 MPH over (I would actually set my cruise control to be about 3 or 4 MPH over when high so I didn't look suspicious).
So it's not a big deal. It's just not the same as people who drink alcohol and drive way too fast for their condition.
Not sure why you thought I was dodging the question, lol. I just didn't think it was significant enough to respond to.
CONAN
Well-Known Member
Ya right not buying it. You take every opportunity you can to yak it up and you hate anyone having the last word so I know you were just dodging cuz you are a moron on this one.
You said Nate was dead on and Nate said the thing with weed is your lack of concentration. Slowing down 5 mph does not change that. Slowing down 5 mph does not help your impaired judgment, impaired motor coordination, decreased alertness, distractibility, and so forth and so on.
So some guy high on weed is impaired at 65 mph but he goes 60 and all the sudden he is fine? No way. You're dumb.
I always find it hilarious how defensive you potheads get about your usuage. Some of the effects must be permanent.
SaltyDawg
Well-Known Member
I never said weed makes you impaired at 65 MPH. I said that where alcohol tends to make people speed, weed tends to make people slow down. And in general, slower driving is safer.
My contention is and has been all along, that weed doesn't impair driving. At least not enough to where a law should be made to outlaw it.
Gyp Rosetti
Banned
Funny. I slow down when I've drank alcohol. Thanks for speaking for everyone though.
freakazoid
Well-Known Member
Agree completely. I've only smoked pot a handfull of times in the past ten years, but as I've mentioned before, I was a daily user for years when I was younger. During those years, I used to drive while stoned all the time. I never had an accident while stoned, but I'm rational enough to admit that I've definately had times when I was very lucky that something bad didn't happen. I find it hard to believe that anybody with any experience with pot would make the claim that it doesn't impair driving ability. The only thing I can guess is that Salty is in denial. Either that, or he is smoking some really, really low-grade ditch weed, or perhaps oregano.
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We tend to get defensive when people want to put us in jail for our usage.
I also tried unsuccessfully to find more details on the Liguori, Gatto, and Robinson study. But here's what I said to GVC in a PM after he made the same complaint that you did that reference:
"I still don't see large problems with the NIDA website. As far as the driving issue goes, perhaps they overstated things. I read a bit more about it and agree that driving after using marijuana doesn't seem to be as dangerous as driving after drinking alcohol... but that doesn't mean it's not dangerous at all. The three studies cited in the Wikipedia article indicate as much, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_cannabis#Effects_on_driving (Refs 37, 38, 39)."
LogGrad98
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When dealing with a 2000 pound projectile wouldn't it be best to not be impaired in any way shape or form?