Calif. court: Medical pot not OK at work

[mattskramer]

I disagree that pot is "less" dangerous. It is nor more or less so than alcohol.

I do agree if alcohol is legal, there's no real reason for pot to be.

Lots of things are dangerous and unhealthy. It all comes down to where we draw the line. Tobacco cigarettes are bad for you. Alcohol is bad for you. Eating a diet low in fruit, fiber, and vegetables but high in fat is bad for you.

 

[nibor]

To continue arguing over this shit is ridiculous..........TOTALLY RIDICULOUS............WILL ALCOHOL OR PILLS SAVE OUR NATION..............OR EVEN GET US BACK ON TRACK.................hemp obviously isn't the only thing that this nation needs...........but it WILL provide a helluva start.............and as a farm owner, I'll stand with the fathers of this nation everyday!!!!!!!!!

The world has been allowed to slice and dice us at will, I don't give a fuck who's responsible for it, I want to stop it and reverse it................I provided plenty of evidunce how we can do it, but between all the different drugs that everyone is on, maybe we're to high to save it.............

Yous want to go to war, we can't go naked........................without steel maybe we can make arrows and spears at least out of hemp stems............rocks are plentiful....................

 

[Foxfyre]

I've posted examples of field tests. Why don't you take a minute and think about their application

No field test exists to measure the level of marijuana in a person's system nor can it evaluate whether the person is about to zonk out or how fast he or she is assimilating information, etc. Some people come off a high and resume 'normalcy' with no apparent after effects. Others become extremely tired, sleepy, fatigued. (That is what is speculated happened to that engineer who crashed his train killing several people.)

Many alcoholics exhibit little or no visible symptoms of intoxication or obvious impairment even after consuming large quantities of alcohol. Usually a field test will tag them but not always. The breathalizer always will though. There is no comparable way to test somebody using marijuana.

The right to use marijuana should be an unalienable right. The right for employers or governments to insist on zero tolerance should be not only commended, but should be a no brainer. So yeah, if you're gonna stay home and mind your own business, tune out and turn on to your heart's content. But if you're gonna drive or work, you better have accommodating cops and bosses out there.

And I am definitely a zero tolerance advocate.

 

[Shogun]

Indeed, i get that very impression with all of your threads complaining about yearly drunk driving deaths.


did you even read my link or is this where we fall back on ASSUMPTIONS about personal examples?

 

[Steerpike]

Many alcoholics exhibit little or no visible symptoms of intoxication or obvious impairment even after consuming large quantities of alcohol.

If you aren't exhibiting any symptoms, the police aren't going to be able to field test you anyway, so what's the difference? In both cases, there needs to be some visible evidence of intoxication for the police to take the next step.

 

[Foxfyre]

If you aren't exhibiting any symptoms, the police aren't going to be able to field test you anyway, so what's the difference? In both cases, there needs to be some visible evidence of intoxication for the police to take the next step.

You can smell the liquor on their breath, find the open container in the car, or note erratic behavior sufficient to stop the driver. Some people are then able to compose themselves sufficiently to at least borderline walk the chalk line or whatever. But they can't fool the breathalizer.

In any case marijuana can exist in detectable quantities long after the person is 'sober' and there is no way to detect if the exposure is recent or not. This makes it difficult to determine if a person using pot is significantly impaired to be a danger to himself or others. That is what makes it different from alcohol or other controlled substances. The only way to ensure that the public is protected is a zero tolerance policy if the person is engaged in any activity in which he could be a danger to others. Otherwise, he should be able to fry his brain or do whatever he wants to do on his own turf and time.

 

[Steerpike]

You can smell the liquor on their breath, find the open container in the car, or note erratic behavior sufficient to stop the driver. Some people are then able to compose themselves sufficiently to at least borderline walk the chalk line or whatever. But they can't fool the breathalizer.

You can smell when someone has been smoking pot. And not all police have breathalizers in the field, so that's not a failsafe. You can find "open containers" of pot in a car if the person has it with them (just like alcohol), and you can note behavior sufficient to stop a driver if a person under the influence of either pot or alcohol is exhibiting it.

Your points of differentiation are not real differences.

 

[Paulie]

I disagree that pot is "less" dangerous. It is nor more or less so than alcohol.

I do agree if alcohol is legal, there's no real reason for pot to be.

Gunny, it's gotta be less dangerous than alcohol. You can drink too much alcohol and die. Not so with pot. You can become physically dependent on alcohol to the point where quitting will kill you. Years ago, a family friend was so addicted to alcohol, that when he went straight cold turkey, he lost his mind and walked in front of a moving bus and got killed. That wasn't before weeks worth of intense DT's. This is not so, with pot.

Cigarettes? Yeah, maybe, because of the tar inhalation. Alcohol? No way.

 

[Foxfyre]

Gunny, it's gotta be less dangerous than alcohol. You can drink too much alcohol and die. Not so with pot. You can become physically dependent on alcohol to the point where quitting will kill you. Years ago, a family friend was so addicted to alcohol, that when he went straight cold turkey, he lost his mind and walked in front of a moving bus and got killed. That wasn't before weeks worth of intense DT's. This is not so, with pot.

Cigarettes? Yeah, maybe, because of the tar inhalation. Alcohol? No way.

Your relative may have suffered from alcoholic hallucinosis but he didn't suffer from DTs for weeks unless he was intermittently drinking during that time. DTs generally last from 2 to 4 days, at most 10 days. It is true that a person can die of alcohol poisoning while there is no verifiable lethal dose of marijuana at least that would be possible to attain. However, smoking marijuana while drinking alcohol can magnify the effects of both. Marijuana also inhibits natural reflexes so that you are likely not to vomit excess alcohol making alcohol poisoning more likely.

Unless something else kills you first, and alcohol abuse does contribute to many deadly diseases, the prognosis for chronic alcoholism is insanity and death. Marijuana has no such prognosis, but produces poor memory function, impairs judgment, slows reflexes, and can produce extreme fatigue and sleepiness while it can also contribute to some serous diseases, produces lowered birthweight in babies if used by pregnant women, etc. etc. etc. Kids who smoke pot will likely delay the onset of puberty. A joint of marijuana will produce immediate psychological effect in most people while one cocktail or beer won't cause serious impairment in most people. Therefore it is generally far more safe to drive or engage in other hazardous activity after a cocktail or a beer than it is after smoking a joint.

My concern here, however, is not which is the more dangerous for the individual, but which is likely to be the more dangerous for others. If the cop finds that open container or smells liquor on your breath but you blow less than a .8 or 1.0 depending on your state laws, you won't be cited for driving drunk. There is no way to tell for sure with marijuana unless there is a zero tolerance policy.

 

[Shogun]

NO one is suggesting that teenagers or pregnant women start smoking bongs anymore than legal alcohol, DESPITE ITS similar hazards to both. Again, take a look at field tests being developed or don't. Indeed, the effective intoxicant in one cocktail is probably a universal measure and makes sense to compare with a joint! Wanna compare smoking a joint to a full night of bar hopping fun? After all, since we are blowing comparative intoxicating influence out of propertion maybe you'd like to compare a single joint with an average amount, per customer, that sales reciepts from any given bar report is the amount of alcohol actually consumed before our yearly drunk driving stat gets another double standard year. After all, people who go to bars are NOT having a single drink any more than criminalizing pot is prohibiting stoners from driving.


good grief.

TAHNKSFUCKINGGIVING can also produce "poor memory function, impairs judgment, slows reflexes, and can produce extreme fatigue and sleepiness". Can we ban turnkey now since people have to drive home after ingesting tryptophan?

 

[Angel Heart]

The % of alcohol in the blood and being conceded drunk is either .08% or .10%

If someone was to blow a .8% they would most likely be dead. At 1.0% I promise they would be dead.

And all states are now at the .08% being drunk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content

 

[RetiredGySgt]

The % of alcohol in the blood and being conceded drunk is either .08% or .10%

If someone was to blow a .8% they would most likely be dead. At 1.0% I promise they would be dead.

And all states are now at the .08% being drunk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content

Ya around .2 your gonna be getting close to alcohol poisoning. Depends on the person. Think .3 is pretty close to everyone dieing if the blood is that high.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

I was close. The blood alcohol level that medically will kill half the population is .4


http://www.intoxikon.com/Pubs/Facts on ALCOHOL POISONING_4_7_05.pdf


Also around 20000 people a year die due to alcohol poisoning or directly related to drinking to much alcohol. This does not include drunk driving accidents and such.

 

[Angel Heart]

But yet it's the legal one. Marijuana has yet to kill anyone. Makes no sense to me.

 

[Angel Heart]

We had a lady here in Oregon blow a .72% last month.

http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_011008_news_drunk_driver.bd32848.html

Woman arrested for blood alcohol level 9 times over limit

11:02 AM PST on Thursday, January 10, 2008

Associated Press

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. -- Authorities say a woman found in a car in Klamath County had a blood alcohol level of .72 percent, nine times greater than the legal limit for driving.

Sheriff Tim Evinger said it's rare to see readings higher than .30 percent. Levels of .40 percent to .50 percent are considered lethal.

Evinger said Terri Comer, 42, had been heading to her home in Keno last month, southeast of Klamath Falls.

An off-duty deputy found her in the car, which had plowed through about 100 feet of snow. Ambulance workers had to break a back window to rescue her.

Evinger said she was unconscious for 12 hours but released after a day in the hospital.

He said she was charged with drunken driving.

Few days before that another blew .52%

Woman arrested for extreme DUI once starred in music video

04:31 PM PST on Thursday, January 3, 2008

By kgw.com Staff

An Oregon woman who was recently arrested for drunk driving and tested seven times over the legal limit starred in a Brooks & Dunn country music video 15 years ago, according to the Smoking Gun Web site.

Meagan Harper, 30, can be seen dancing in a skimpy outfit in the 1993 “Rock My World (Little Country Girl)” video, shot when she was just 15 years old.

According to the Smoking Gun, the video was shot near Portland. The song is from the album "Hard Workin' Man."

Harper, whose blood alcohol level was .55 percent during her latest brush with the law, has multiple drunken driving convictions.

 

[Taomon]

But yet it's the legal one. Marijuana has yet to kill anyone. Makes no sense to me.

None, other than some prescription drugs would lose sales, cancer patients would less likely go to chemotherapy, the paper industry would take a hit (no pun intended) because marijuana makes a better paper and rope.

But the fast food industry would see an increase in sales. Ben & Jerry's would come out with 105 new flavors, and of course, the alchohol industry would suffer...and maybe that is the real reason why alchohol is legal and pot is not.

 

[nibor]

None, other than some prescription drugs would lose sales, cancer patients would less likely go to chemotherapy, the paper industry would take a hit (no pun intended) because marijuana makes a better paper and rope.

But the fast food industry would see an increase in sales. Ben & Jerry's would come out with 105 new flavors, and of course, the alchohol industry would suffer...and maybe that is the real reason why alchohol is legal and pot is not.

Why would the paper industry take a hit, they'd only be changing resources,and more readily available and easily replacable, do you realize how many acres of forests can be saved for other better uses?

 

[Taomon]

Why would the paper industry take a hit, they'd only be changing resources,and more readily available and easily replacable, do you realize how many acres of forests can be saved for other better uses?

I agree, but I think the lumber industry would pitch a fit - so I misspoke when I said the paper industry. I meant the lumber industry.

 

[nibor]

I agree, but I think the lumber industry would pitch a fit - so I misspoke when I said the paper industry. I meant the lumber industry.

Well in actuality I could care less what the lumber industry has to say, here in the northeast, timber being cut IS FREAKIN' EXPORTED TO CANADA TO BE SAWN..................what the hell's up with that, we can't even finish a tree anymore????????????

 

[RetiredGySgt]

But yet it's the legal one. Marijuana has yet to kill anyone. Makes no sense to me.

MJ most definately has killed people. It has ruined lives and it has inspired crime.

Tell those hikers in remote areas of Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and California never seen again or found shot to death for the affront of walking where illegal growers of pot were so paranoid they murder anyone that comes within smelling distance. Tell the Hawaii Police and National Guard fired on when they finally had enough and raided the hidden sites to try and stop the murders.