Just one more reason pot will never be legal

[phantom_patriot]

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=35670&provider=top

[shady lane]

fuck, that headline oughtta be a crime.

[lynnpoint]

You know those two guys were seriously about to get their grub on. and in what was probably less than an hour they were in the hoosgow. buzzkill.

[shoetick]

They say a cloud of marijuana smoke wafted into the restaurant, and they spotted the two men -- smoking what one of the detectives described as "the biggest marijuana cigar your ever saw."

So did they just see the smoke and know it was pot smoke or did they smell it. and what's the deal with calling it a cigar and not a blunt. Some narcotics detectives those two are.

[jack frost]

Stoned people probably account for at least 5% of all post-6 PM fast food sales.

Pot: It's Just Good Business

[phantom_patriot]

don't get me wrong, I'm pro 4:20 all the way. but when people do stupid things like smoking and driving, it sets the legalization cause back.

If yer gonna toke, toke, but do it responsibly.

IMO the laws governing pot should be the same as the laws governing alcohol use. 21 and up to use and stiff penalties for driving while stoned.

[jack frost]

21 and up to use and stiff penalties for driving while stoned.

I agree in theory but in practice, a lot of people including myself drive a lot more cautiously while stoned.

And absolutely nothing should be "21 and up". 18 and up or nothing - if you're old enough to vote, live on your own, and die for your country, by God, you deserve a cool Coors 16 ouncer at the end of your day.

[Nardis]

Damn, where's Geckofile when you need him?

Shouldn't be no problem in driving stoned, says the University of Toronto (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/03/990325110700.htm).

If you want to get all worked up about dangerous driving habits, perhaps your efforts would be better focused on those who choose to drive and talk on cell phones (http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4006610).

[phantom_patriot]

18 and up it should be, you're right. don't know what I was thinking when I typed 21 and up.

as for the driving while stoned study. I'm sure those facts are accurate, however, you've got to make Mr. and Mrs. Joe sixpack out there think something is actually being done. kind of like the bullshit stories we hear coming out of Iraq that "things are getting better".

[Gnaw Parker]

I seriously cannot drive while stoned. It feels like I'm driving on a cat's tongue.

[The Skillet]

I agree in theory but in practice, a lot of people including myself drive a lot more cautiously while stoned.


Green cube for making me think of Bill Hicks.
Once upon a time, after a very smoky party, I'm driving home. I was a little paranoid, constantly thinking "I gotta slow down...I'm driving way too fast...Dear Jesus, I'm never gonna make that curve at this speed." I had a white knuckle grip on the steering wheel. I pried my eyes from the road to check my speed. I was going TWENTY miles per hour down what is my home town's equivalent of Kingston Pike. Then, realizing that I might look a teeny tiny bit suspicious, I tried to speed up. I couldn't do it. I had to pull over and call someone to pick me up. Basically, IMO, if you can't get out of my way when I'm careening out of control at TWENTY mph, you deserve to be hit.
I also once slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting a moth.
Really, it's just best for me to stay home...

[gypsy]

i know people who swear they drive better stoned. they might be right. but that's one area of life i'm pretty straightedge about. my dad's parents were killed in a car accident when i was 9, and one of my close childhood friends permanently brain damaged at the age of 13. i don't like cars, period. i never lose sight of the fact that i'm strapped into a metal box, going very fast, very close to other metal boxes going very fast. as you can imagine, being stoned does little to alleviate that.

so, like, if you drive stoned, be very fucking safe about it. and don't hit me, my wife or my kid. thx.

[jack frost]

I sympathize with you, Jess, but I honestly think that elderly drivers are statistically more dangerous than anyone. I've seen old people do some really insane shit on the road.

[gypsy]

oh, no doubt. there's lots of dangerous drivers out there whose danger is unrelated to intoxicants.

[Georgia]

I seriously cannot drive while stoned. It feels like I'm driving on a cat's tongue.


Gnaw,
I tried to cube you and I've got to share the love around before it'll let me.
That said, the image of driving on a cat's tongue is fantastic.

[rikki]

You people stay the hell away from my cats!

I think the driving while stoned thing is a mixed bag. Stoners certainly drive slower, which is inherently safer, but they are also more likely to do the things distracted drivers do -- turn the wrong way onto one-way streets, not notice stop signs, forget the words to "Thank God for North Knoxville" on the way to Senor Taco, etc.

[Quince]

Pot: It's Just Good Business

Some of the stonedest shit I have come across in a while, straight outta the marketing mainstream:

http://www.fourthmeal.com

[metulj]

Sometime in 1991, I was somewhere north of Abingdon, VA, returning from the all-night Godzilla/Mothra/Ultramanathon (no shit, they used to have one) at the Moonlight Drive-In. My buddy John was drunk as a skunk, so as I wasn't drinking, but sho' was smokin', the decision was made that I would drive his '77 Chevy Caprice Classic back to school. I rolled up the shake and the guys in that Nebraska-sized back seat passed it around. Seconds after my friend Stacy tossed the roach out the window, a Washington County sheriff's deputy hit us with the lights. So I pulled over. The deputy taps on the window and I reluctantly rolled it down. The car was reeking, but he seemed oblivious.

"Do you know how fast you were going?"

"No, sir" -- giggles in the back, followed by the muffled grunts of people trying to maintain.

"Well, this is the interstate and we have speed limits. You were going 15 miles an hour."

The backseat erupted in laughter.

I gave a couple of shut-the-fuck-ups to those guys and turned my attention to the cop as best I could.

"Well, I am sorry officer. I wanted to be safe."

More giggles.

"I am going to follow you to campus. And you'd better not even weave one bit."

We were about 3 miles from the dorm. That was the longest three miles of my life. When we got to campus, my friends bailed out of that car like rats leaving a ship. The cop hit is lights and took off from the parking lot and I sat there for a long time taking it all in. Why did he let us go? The car was a moving felony.

[straps]

We as a species should not be allowed to operate a ton of glass and steel full of gasoline and other inflammables at a mile per minute surrounded by other jack hole monkeys doing the same in the narrow confines of concrete walls and steel barriers, especially armed with nothing but the social trust that said monkeys will stay within painted dashes because we showed we could and promised to be good when we were 16 years old, even if that promise is over sixty years by gone. On the phone, eating fast food, sober or otherwise, we just shouldn't trust us people to be good behind the wheel. As long as Maury can make a living by showing the same paternity test show over and over, as long as someone thinks two back to back episodes of "Yes, Dear" in syndicated re-runs is a good idea, as long as warning labels need appear on hot coffee cups, as long as elected officials can seriously think the best thing for their constituents are more giant balls in the sky and giant empty conference centers, as long as we still get frustrated trying to find sun glasses as they sit on top of our heads, can we really put trust in the skills and judgements of us humans?

I have never met anyone that would admit to being a bad driver. Most would say that they are a pretty good driver. The closest to admission of fault is usually something like "Well, I know I've gotten a few tickets and an accident or two, but I am not that bad" or "I'm not as bad as so and so or such and such people." I see perfectly sober nut jobs everyday trying to kill someone on the roadways. Hell, I may be the nut job you see everyday. I think I'm a pretty good driver.

That being said, yes, I drive. I drive to work everyday. I drive to rehearsals, and shows, and downtown, and everywhere in a really decrepit mini-van that is begging to fall apart. I am a hippocrite. But the least I can do is not drive drunk or stoned.