Drug legalization thread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Drug legalization thread

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Tuxedo Gin posted:

I find it really interesting that a lot of you are using the "alcohol users beat their wife and kids" example in your pro-weed conversations. I think that is pretty counter productive. Not even close to all alcohol users beat their families. That just encourages anti-weed folks to classify you guys: lazy students mooching off of society. Not a really accurate description, I'm sure.

Considering like 3/4 of adults in the US are alcohol users I doubt anyone was seriously making that argument, most of the pro-pot people in here probably are also users of alcohol to some extent. The whole "beating wife and kids" thing is just something that is widely known to happen with some alcohol abusers whereas the most horrific stories of pot abuse tend to be something along the lines of "they sit on their couch all day playing Xbox and eating Cheetoes." Neither of those are good things but one is clearly a larger problem for society than the other.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2012 19:19

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 16, 2024 06:05

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

I would definitely recommend vaping for someone who's new. Smoking will make your throat/lungs feel like they are on fire if you've never smoked anything and is obviously less healthy than other options. Edibles are great too but it can be hard to gauge the dose correctly since it takes so long to kick in whereas with vaping it's easy.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2013 19:08

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

On the subject of lovely prohibitionist arguments I just have to post this, it's been on my mind for the past couple weeks because I really think this might be the single worst/most misinformed op-ed I have ever read out of tens of thousands. Not only is this guy rabidly anti-pot but is also ardently pro-tobacco and constantly tries to downplay the risks of tobacco on his radio show. Thousands or possibly over a million people listen to this rear end in a top hat's advise on a regular basis, so with any luck some lucky souls will eschew the demon weed in favor of lung cancer and emphysema.

quote:

Marijuana: Another Gift of the Left to America's Youth
Dennis Prager

Denver television station CBS4 reports that Colorado has seen a sharp spike in marijuana use among teenagers since Colorado voters passed Amendment 64 last November legalizing recreational use of the drug. As described in The Economist, along with a Washington State measure also legalizing marijuana, Amendment 64 is "an electoral first not only for America but for the world."

That means two American states are to the left of the Scandinavian countries, Holland, and every other liberal country regarding marijuana.

CBS4 quotes a number of local high school students:

"I've seen a lot more people just walking down the street smoking (joints)," high school student Irie Johnson said.

"In high school it has kind of gotten out of hand," student Alaina Tanenbaum said.

According to the CBS4 report, based in part on data from a local drug testing lab: "Experts say the test results show that children are getting higher than ever with alarming levels of THC, marijuana's active ingredient, in their bodies."

The massive increase in both the number of users and the amount of marijuana used by young people is precisely what I, and many others, predicted.

It was easy to predict.

When something desirable is made easier to obtain, more people will obtain it. It is difficult to imagine an exception to this common sense observation.

So, legalizing marijuana is foolish because it leads to far more use of the drug and the availability of ever more potent forms. But the foolishness doesn't end there. Equally foolish is that as a society we have made peace with marijuana while making war on tobacco. This has been a classic example of upside down thinking, and we are reaping exactly what we have sown. We have produced a generation of young Americans who would never put a cigarette or cigar near their lips but who increasingly get high on pot.

Yes, tobacco -- specifically cigarettes -- kills and marijuana doesn't. But, forgive the ultimate political incorrectness, young people would do much better in life if they smoked tobacco rather than weed.

First, tobacco doesn't kill young people. When it kills, it generally kills much older people. Moreover, according to a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, if you stop smoking cigarettes by age 44, you will lose only one more year of life than a person who never smoked.

Second, regular pot smokers increasingly tune out of life, becoming what are known as potheads, or, to put it bluntly, losers.

Third, as noted in the CBS4 report, "new studies that have been published say the risk of a car accident increases two-fold after someone consumes pot." In other words, innocent human beings -- sometimes whole families -- are more likely to be maimed, paralyzed and killed by pot smokers than by cigarette smokers.

For myriad reasons, then, I would far prefer my teenager indulge in cigarettes -- not to mention cigars -- than pot. Anyone who thinks that pot is less harmful to a teenager than tobacco is fooling himself -- and his teenager.

If this is not obvious, ponder these questions: Would you rather your airplane pilot smoke pot or tobacco while flying? How would Britain have fared in World War II if Winston Churchill had smoked pot instead of cigars?

In terms of the effects of tobacco and pot on the smoker while smoking, there is simply no comparison between pot and tobacco.

What the left has done to America's youth in the last 40 or so years is so damaging as to be unforgiveable. They have ruined public school education; left them with so much debt that they will likely be the first American generation to live materially inferior to the their parents; and robbed their innocence with sex education classes, now beginning in kindergarten in Chicago and elsewhere. Now they are making marijuana available to more kids and in greater potency than ever before.

But they have left them with higher self-esteem.

MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Mar 29, 2013

# ¿ Mar 29, 2013 21:32

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Install Gentoo posted:

With the exception of speeding, all of those are always more dangerous for them and everyone around them, so they aren't safe/good drivers/

Well you can define "good/safe" driver however you'd like but if you would exclude everyone who ever does any of that stuff I think the list would be pretty drat small.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2013 20:29

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

NathanScottPhillips posted:

First of all yes, because as has been pointed out before even Marinol says on the bottle you can drive safely while taking it.

Secondly, if after 24-48 hours the THC in chronic smokers' blood was 3.2 ng/ml, then I'd wager that after 10 hours they were probably over 5ng/ml. Maybe with more studies we'd find that even heavier smokers have over 5ng/ml after 24-48 hours.

What if you couldn't drive for 10 hours after you had a beer?

No one ever even gave this a proper response other than some lunatic who said he was ok with getting a DUI 10 hours after drinking a beer. It does seem like it would be possible for a chronic smoker to be above the 5ng/ml limit several hours or more after they stopped smoking, does anyone really think they would still be impaired at that point?

Personally I'm not really worried about this so much as long as the blood test is the only means they have to test for THC, but if they developed a field test for it I could see this becoming a major issue.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2013 19:11

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

I would happily pay a "sin tax" on pot as long as the tax covered the quantifiable costs to society from pot and nothing else, I would expect this figure to be low single digits if that. Does anyone honestly think there is any chance at all that the sin tax in real life would be what I just described and not some arbitrarily high amount?

EDIT: Also, while I do not support using heavy machinery while significantly impaired on anything, I just want all sources of impairment to be treated equally based off of how impaired your are, not based off of bullshit moralizing. As someone noted before texting while driving is insanely risky as proved by multiple studies but no one seems to have the same reaction to that as they do pot :confused:

MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 19:01 on May 31, 2013

# ¿ May 31, 2013 18:56

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Delta-Wye posted:

Literally zero chance. What the hell is it with people and taxes? You pay it for the well-being of the community, not because you want to. Sin taxes are also used for more things than purely raising revenue anyways.

Sin taxes are among the worst ways to raise government revenue, it's one of the most regressive forms of taxation you can have. I'm not completely against them as stated before but I am against making them arbitrarily high as means to to try stop people from using something.

# ¿ May 31, 2013 19:03

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

In response to some guy saying he was going to use pot however he wanted, this was what he said.

echinopsis posted:

Nice argument rear end in a top hat. Who is going to pay for the psychiatric visits for psychosis or for COPD treatments? you or the taxes you paid on the weed? If so then cool but no bro is an island don't forget

But these laws should be designed for reducing harm in the face of the reality that people are going to use these things. It shouldn't encourage use in any form. That's for morons to do in they spare time

This is incredibly dumb because there's no evidence that pot actually causes psychosis if you don't have a family history of it and there is little evidence of it being a major cause of COPD. Immediately flying off the handle about psychosis and COPD over some guy wanting to smoke pot is literally dumber than screaming about cancer and heart disease when some guy says he enjoys burgers or ranting about cirrosis when your buddy asks if you want to go to a bar. There is a huge double standard where almost everyone engages in activities that cause more personal harm than marijuana smoking but it's not socially acceptable to just immediately point them out whenever someone mentions engaging in that activity.

I mean for fucks sake I live in a country that is literally eating itself to death and yet goes apeshit when Moochelle Obummer so much as mentions that this might not be a good thing, yet on the other hand wants to keep pot illegal due to health effects.

MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Jun 1, 2013

# ¿ Jun 1, 2013 23:34

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Install Gentoo posted:

There a lot of people with a family history of psychosis who in fact could end up in a bad way from it. Inhaling smoke, period, is bad for your lungs and people can develop breathing problems from it. All he said was that the costs should be covered by the taxes on marijuana. And I don't see how you can claim he has a double standard when I don't see him advocating eating whatever you want and washing it down with a ton of alcohol? You are projecting a whole bunch of strawman beliefs on him for no good reason.

The fact that some people want to keep pot banned has nothing to do with anything he said.

echinopsis posted:

I'm all for legalization and decriminalization but not so that people have better access to cannabis and want to use cannabis is a way of life, or an indentification

echinopsis posted:

I oppose cannabis use from a long term health perspective, but it's not too bad in the short term and yeah people shouldn't be punished for it. But who pays for the ambulance when johnny 16 eats too many cannabis cookies and gets scared? We live in a social society and this drug use is going to have a cost. It might be small. It's likely smaller than the cost of prohibition and/or the cost of alcohol to society. Doesn't mean it's "all good"

You will not typically hear someone say "I oppose beer use" or "I oppose cheeseburger use" from a long term health perspective without making it clear that they're talking about obesity or alcoholism, not use in general. This rhetoric is very common w/r/t pot though because people try to disguise their moral disapproval of something in the language of "health concerns." This is not at all limited to pot either, see the American right-wing and their rhetoric on casual or gay sex. This is why I brought up people who want pot to stay illegal while being incredibly unhealthy themselves because they are a more clear example of this phenomena. I can't say for certain that this is what he's doing but given his unprovoked complaints about people using pot as an "identification" or "way of life" along with "I oppose cannabis use" provides evidence that this may be the case.

Also he stated several times that "ideally no one would use pot" when again you're very unlikely to hear that about alcohol or food. Ideally people would have fun and enjoy whatever the gently caress they want in a responsible and safe manner.

MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Jun 2, 2013

# ¿ Jun 2, 2013 01:42

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

My main problem with impaired driving punishments is how incoherent the penalties are. Pot is treated exactly the same as driving drunk even though it doesn't cause nearly the same level of impairment, while texting is one of the worst things you can do yet the penalty is generally pretty light and it's rarely enforced. If the laws recognized various levels of impairment, and punished you accordingly, I wouldn't really have any issue with them.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2013 00:05

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

computer parts posted:

e: I mean, when the First Lady's whole gimmick for the past five years has been "stop eating bad food and go exercise" you can't legitimately say "nobody every says to stop eating hamburgers and watching TV".

Obesity is not simply use of hamburgers/TV though, no one cares about that at all. Most non-obese people enjoy hamburgers, TV, and alcohol regularly but not to the extent to where it causes health issues. The distinction here is that simply use of pot is being discouraged where with obesity, alcohol, too much TV, etc it's an issue of abuse or addiction.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2013 09:47

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Yeah that line stuck out to me too, and wanting to do the same for cannabis is even more disturbing. Why should reducing recreational cannabis use even be a concern for the government other than kids using? An adult using cannabis should be the absolute last thing the government should be concerned about, there are literally hundreds of things people do regularly that are more harmful to them. Also, demonizing individuals for using a certain drug is just loving stupid in any context, what the hell is wrong with you?

MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Aug 20, 2013

# ¿ Aug 20, 2013 15:38

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Jeffrey posted:

Marijuana has nothing to do with the left. Which party is more friendly is a matter of history, not ideology.

It's a social issue, which is why the people who support relaxing marijuana laws tend to be "progressives" or libertarian-leaning conservatives.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2013 15:54

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

computer parts posted:

The same reason they won't accept minorites: Because a majority of their current base won't support it. The GOP is not just party executives, it's every voter that they have, and a lot of these voters have been conditioned that Drugs Are Bad and they will gladly support someone that doesn't call for legalization and the party executives don't control the primaries, the voters do.

I think the situation for those two issues is way different, with regard to minorities it seems like the party executives are desperately trying to improve their image while the base is violently resisting. On drug issues the party executives are basically silent or unsupportive of reform while among the base there is actually a surprising level of support for dialing back the drug war.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2013 17:43

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

the black husserl posted:

I don't think tobacco companies want people smoking an plant that isn't nearly as habit forming as tobacco. I've never met a 2pack a day joint smoker (except when I chill with Juicy j i guess).

I know people who smoke a quarter a week which is a lot and plenty more who do an eighth a week, it might not be as habit forming but it can also be difficult to quit because there's little motivation to. I've been a daily smoker for about three years and just recently started to cut back because I think I've been using it too much for escapism and the money saved doesn't hurt either (quite considerable when you build up a tolerance like mine). It never negatively affected my career, strict workout/diet routine, social life, etc while being tons of fun which is part of the reason why I had been a heavy user for so long.

MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Aug 23, 2013

# ¿ Aug 23, 2013 01:46

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

To those of you that think this is purely cold political calculation from Obama, why has he been willing to go strongly in favor of gay marriage and other gay issues while refusing to make even the most tepid steps on reforming the drug war? Gay marriage is more controversial in polls than pot, the debate is much more emotionally charged and contentious, and there is a massive anti-gay lobby out there comprising of thousands of churches and countless organizations. On top of that, Obama's pro-gay stances risked putting him at odds with many black churches for example while reforming the drug war would be the single easiest thing he could do to substantially improve the plight of that community.

There have been a number of high profile blacks on the left that have recently come out criticizing Obama for having done so little to help their community, I am sure he is aware of this and how much acting on this issue would help. The only explanation is that he simply doesn't want to do it. Does anyone really think that simply rescheduling marijuana, reducing some of the federal penalties, and not loving around with states anymore over this would result in a huge pushback or some big political hit? Most Republicans are just as wary of the feds loving around in states as we are over this, they just don't care because it's stoner hippie losers.

MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Aug 27, 2013

# ¿ Aug 27, 2013 05:02

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Keep in mind that over two-thirds of Americans also support medicare-for-all universal health care.

Well UHC is obviously the right thing to do but it's not in the interests of big corporations, and that's a big factor in whether or not a certain political goal will ultimately be successful. Pot on the other hand has the potential to be a huge and profitable market, hopefully once the legal market gets up and running in CO and WA more people will realize this and advocate for further legalization.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2013 17:59

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

I thought refusing a search would prevent me from being caught ever too since I almost never get pulled over and my car had never been searched but then I got in a car crash, the cops tore apart my car while I was in the ambulance. Transporting pot in your car is risky plain in simple, I'm not even going to think about it again until it's legal here. To add insult to the injury my car is the only place I could have stored my pot where I could actually receive a criminal charge for doing so, even though I had no means on me to actually consume the pot.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2014 21:37

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

WampaLord posted:

Look, I'm not personally recommending goons go do this, it's illegal and you shouldn't do it. I'm just saying that it's going to happen and the surrounding states are going to be literally flooded with weed (if they weren't already.)

Yeah I agree, sorry I wasn't addressing that at you specifically. I just want to warn people that may be as naive as I was.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2014 21:45

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

RichieWolk posted:

Employment drug tests aren't like parole violation drug tests; they're not gonna ask to stare at your dick to make sure you're not cheating. Drug testing for your job is a joke.

My dealer actually passed one of these by using that whizzinator thing with the fake dick, that's some serious stoner dedication right there.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2014 22:47

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

goodness posted:

It's nice to look at reports of data that has been collected by people who have never been around the people they are looking at. But I actually was in jail with all these people that you say are being mistreated.

And you know what they said about it? That it is mainly there own cultures (a lot of the problem is with rap) fault in the current day. That they keep theirselves down because they do not want to see another person rise up before them in live. And this was not just 1 person, but about a 100+ group of guys that talked about this poo poo all the time.

And I am not saying it's useless to look at the problem from the outside, but you actually have to have grown with those people and interacted a lot before you can understand it.

Please explain to me how rap music and "not wanting to see another person rise up before them in live" can possibly explain how black males are incarcerated at higher rates for drug crimes than whites even if they aren't using drugs at a higher rate.

I'm not exactly expecting a coherent answer given the fact that you can't even write a coherent sentence but it's worth a try.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2014 23:19

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

goodness posted:

I am not talking about the bias in court at all though. You know that it if you don't commit the crimes, then you won't be in front of a judge being hosed?

If the laws were enforced on the entire population like they are on black males then you'd have a huge proportion of the population sitting in prison and an even larger one unable to vote. Even with our current system which fucks minorities and is "easy" on whites, we still have the highest incarceration rate in the entire world. Does that possibly suggest there is an issue or is it all DURR DON'T BREAK THE LAW :downs:

# ¿ Jan 14, 2014 23:33

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

goodness posted:

Well considering that is not what I am talking about right now, that is not my argument.

I was merely responding to all the race discussion. People always talk about the bias in court, that black males are given much harsher sentences and such. That is a problem, we all know it is. The bigger problem is that you are actually getting arrested in the first place. Work on fixing the actual problem, not the middle man.

Trying to get people to stop committing victimless crimes is a fool's errand, the law is unjust and everyone knows it, nothing you can possibly do can stop people from breaking it.

I would compare the current situation with drug laws in some ways with the situation with gay rights in the 50s and 60s (yes I know it's not a perfect analogy but bear with me). The government declared an all out war on gays and did everything possible to suppress them, did this stop gays from having sex? No, it didn't at all, the result was tons of arrests and tons of lives ruined. Ironically enough the oppression eventually forced the gays out of the closet and they started fighting back.

It didn't work because you're trying to work directly against human nature, the notion that you should respect the law because it's the law is a fantasy, that's not how it works in real life. If people think laws are unjust they will break them, no amount of heavy handedness from a government can change this.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 00:02

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

goodness posted:

But! While it is still legal, just be careful and don't do stupid poo poo. Don't drive around with drugs if you are not sober or suck at driving. Don't put yourself into a situation where there is an actual risk of being arrested.

Let's see, which one of these two goals is easier to accomplish?

1. Change the behavior pattern of drug-using minorities as a whole to be substantially more careful about their drug use, even though they probably already are a lot more careful because they know they're a target.

2. Change the drug laws.

Hmmmm this is a tough one, let me know if you accomplish #1 though because I have a few hundred other social ills that could be cured by your ingenious bootstrap method.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 00:07

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

goodness posted:

Yeah, maybe I was saying that even if you change the drug laws, the system will still be biased and black males will still be profiled and put in jail.

rear end in a top hat cops will continue to harass blacks I am sure, but whatever BS charges are brought up will be dropped in court, this happened to me even though I'm white.

The difference is unlike cops, judges actually have some accountability and it's a lot harder for them to gently caress someone over if they didn't actually commit a crime. If the war on drugs is ended it will be a LOT harder for the criminal justice system to send minorities to jail for BS reasons.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 00:57

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Religious conservatives really hate the idea of people getting high, although of course they usually exempt alcohol from their outrage. Also I have to think that a lot of these people tried pot once in college and got super high and now assume that every single time someone smokes they are always like that. There seems to be this odd perception among all of the boomers I see in real life and on TV talking about pot that one hit turns you into a drooling invalid for hours, incapable of any productive activity or even leaving the couch.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2014 15:47

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

GuyDudeBroMan posted:

So yeah, basically I agree with 90% of sitting US Senators and Congressmen on most of these issues (my tobacco stance might only be shared with 30% though, not sure). Maybe we are all secretly "trolling" you. Is that what you are trying to argue? The entire US Senate is just trolling? All the 2016 presidential hopefuls are "trolling"?

Sounds like paranoia to me.

"I'm just supporting the same position on same-sex marriage that Obama and most Democrats had up until 2012."

Can you see why this line of thinking is dumb? They're politicians for fucks sake, do you really think we don't know that? In 10 years most of the Dems will support leglaization, they operate based on dollar signs and opinion polls.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2014 19:29

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

AYC posted:

Politics is not about the best option, but about the least damaging one.

This is true but the Obama administration seems to be unwilling to do even the most minor and uncontroversial things to slowly head in the direction of legalization. Watching this video I can't really come away with any other conclusion then that Holder or Obama really think marijuana should be schedule one, its just baffling to me. Especially since Obama and Holder both know exactly how much the drug war harms the black community, yet they stand there and cheer it on as hard as they can.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/eric-holder-marijuana-debate-105505.html

# ¿ Apr 12, 2014 18:04

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Tight Booty Shorts posted:

Yup. I agree with you. But I don't think it will ever be 100% legal in the US. Ever.

I'm not a betting man but if you're going to make a prediction this dumb I'd happily put money on it. I'd say this is like saying 10-15 years ago that we'll never have gay marriage.

# ¿ May 1, 2014 22:36

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Even my friend who works for a military contractor and has a security clearance says their "random drug test" is the same day every year so it would be super easy to avoid. The only person I've talked to with a restrictive drug testing schedule was a truck driver.

# ¿ May 24, 2014 21:52

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Install Windows posted:

So your point is "you can't prove I smoked weed right then"? That doesn't matter for legal liability.

I'm not really aware of all of the technicalities of these laws but in any given office there's probably a large chunk of people taking prescription drugs that could impair a lot more than some residual THC in the blood.

If some random office worker on a legal, correctly taken prescription gets in an accident will they be held legally liable due to the possible impairment?

# ¿ May 25, 2014 06:35

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Install Windows posted:

Uh yeah dude if you're taking a prescription drug that has to carry a "do not operate heavy machinery" warning and you get in an accident involving heavy machinery? You're likely to get partial or no workman's comp.

Like do you think having a presciption for vicodin gets you to take it while operating a crane over a city street free and clear?

I don't operate heavy machinery or anything like that but we often have office workers who wander out into the production area where there are potential hazards. If I go out there and something happens and I test positive for pot I'd be in trouble, if I tested positive for vicodin (if I were prescribed) I highly doubt I would. That's the point I'm trying to make.

Edit: Like the poster above I would be drug tested in the case of any injury, so even if it were caused by someone else entirely or by somethibg falling on me I would still be forced to take the test. I basically just have to avoid injury at all costs or never ever use pot.

MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 18:07 on May 25, 2014

# ¿ May 25, 2014 17:59

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

So you see nothing at all problematic with an office worker on vicodin being injured in their normal workplace through no fault of their own losing their job because of it?

What's the point of pot legalization if any mishap at work will result in losing your job? That's a far greater threat than small amount possession charges will ever be.

MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 18:25 on May 25, 2014

# ¿ May 25, 2014 18:09

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Install Windows posted:

An office worker who "wandered" into a dangerous area by your own admission. Why the hell are they wandering into the dangerous area in the first place? Also how were they getting to and from work that day, because driving under the influence of a prescription drug like that can also get you a DWI?

Pot legalization has nothing to do with what a job might require. Alcohol's as legal as the day is long but tons of companies will fire you for drinking on the job, and not even just for getting full on drunk

I didn't say dangerous area I said an area with potential hazards, as compared to the office where there are very few. If you're really asking me why someone from the office might go into the production area I don't know what to tell you, do you think the production area manages and sets itself up?

For the record my workplace has very few accidents, but I've worked at very unsafe places before where there's a very real threat of being injured through no fault of your own, in that situation any pot use by employees would mean a high risk of them losing their job.

None of us were talking about smoking on the job, getting tested for pot can show use from as far as a month back. There's no test like this for alcohol or if there is it's not given, so that is a terrible comparison. Getting tested for pot after any accident basically means you have to choose between employment and pot use. For the average person this is a bigger threat than trouble with the police, so pot legalization is essentially meaningless.

Is your argument seriously that people should be able to completely avoid all accidents ever? If any accident results in a drug test and subsequent firing, how is that not as bad as a random drug test?

MaxxBot fucked around with this message at 19:12 on May 25, 2014

# ¿ May 25, 2014 18:59

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Install Windows posted:

You should avoid being on anything at places you can describe as "unsafe" because insurers and laws will definitely gently caress you over if they can find any way to not have to pay out full workman's comp and similar things. And you should definitely avoid being on anything if you're operating heavy equipment because you will definitely get in trouble over that.

This stuff holds true even when using 100% legal substances, it's not just weed. And no place is going to put in laws specifically granting protection to users of anything in case of accidents any time soon.

And yeah tests show you were using as far as a month back - so you were violating company policy potentially as far as a month back - so you can be fired over it because it's in the contract you signed to work there that you wouldn't be using. In cases of injury where the medical system has to get involved, yeah that's a way more fair time to test for drugs of any sort than when someone's just sitting at a desk not getting involved in anything.

There are changes in liability for various insurers and companies if it turns out some or all of the people involved in an incident may have been on something, so testing's usually a must.

This is all great advise in the context of avoiding legal issues or losing your job, luckily I'm in a position where I spend most of the time in the office and where the potentially dangerous areas have been exhaustively checked for potential safety hazards. Many people aren't so lucky and work in conditions with serious and persistent risks that are unavoidable.

Yes I am violating company policy, just like most of us are violating state laws. The point of this thread is that those laws are ridiculous and should be repealed. Considering that my employer will never, ever care about how much alcohol I drank 30 days ago, I would argue that they shouldn't care about my pot use 30 days ago either. Especially considering that we have mid-upper level management types coming in on Mondays with hangovers sometimes by their own admission, which might actually cause some degree of impairment.

All I am arguing for is consistent treatment among different substances. It's perfectly logical to be concerned that I am under the influence of a substance if I have an accident. It's absolutely illogical to be concerned about me being impaired days or weeks ago as long as my work performance is adequate and I'm not using at work.

# ¿ May 25, 2014 19:50

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Install Windows posted:

And if you work in conditions where there's serious risks, you should avoid being on anything, because you will more likely than not be hosed over whether the thing you were on was 100% illegal or 100% legal.

The laws aren't involved with why you'd get hosed over though, other than that it's illegal to operate a lot of things while "intoxicated" on anything for good reason. Company policies are free to be much more restrictive than the law in most cases, and this is usually tied to various insurance agreements the company has.

There is consistent treatment in these cases. Look, when people get tested after accidents it's usually in the form of blood tests. Blood tests for weed usage in particular can determine whether you used it within the past 24-36 hours or so, similar to the results that can be gotten for testing for amphetamines or most other drugs legal or not.

Again that's good advise for avoiding risk bit let's be honest here, what percentage of people working dangerous lovely jobs are going to enjoy some alcohol after work? Probably a strong majority of them. It seems inconsistent that no one seems to care about that but they're plenty concerned about someone smoking pot the previous day.

That saliva test with the 25ng/ml cutoff if accurate seems reasonable because from what I have seen because that would reflect use in the past several hours, which is infinitely better than a test that would go back multiple days.

# ¿ May 25, 2014 20:34

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Install Windows posted:

Lots of places care if the workers are getting hammered, even though the managers and executives are free to get away with it dude. I don't understand why you're so hung up on the idea that the only people getting hit couldn't possibly have smoked the day of or even at work - if someone truly only used a day ago their blood results are going to come out quite low, same as with alcohol or other things.

If the employer would look at that low but present THC concentration in the blood and conclude that the use wasn't that day and as a result didn't punish the employee that would be great. In reality you'd have to be quite lucky for that to be the case. You know as well as I do how different the attitudes of a typical employer are towards alcohol vs marijuana. If people were as cool with pot as you seem to think they are this thread wouldn't need to exist.

# ¿ May 26, 2014 03:02

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Install Windows posted:

Dude, the THC only stays detectable in the blood for a day in the first place, unless you used a tremendous amount of weed immediately prior to that day. And with light usage it'll stay detectable for under 12 hours.

I don't see why you think it's unfair that people might get fired for being involved in an accident and provably having used weed extremely recently, in a place where you are told you couldn't be using it. It's not like having to do a hair test where having been around someone else who smoked a year ago could return a positive.

If I can't enjoy a joint after work like I would enjoy a beer without living in constant terror of losing my job legalization is basically meaningless. If people were getting fired from their jobs for having said beer they would absolutely flip their poo poo.

You're bringing up employer policy again, as I said before that's like saying I shouldn't complain about being busted by the cops for pot because it's illegal in this state. Virtually every employer doesn't want you smoking pot, unfortunately my line if work isn't working at a marijuana dispensory so if I want to not be homeless my only option is to work at a job that doesn't allow marijuana use.

# ¿ May 26, 2014 03:16

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Install Windows posted:

If you get caught with a measurable blood alcohol level after a work accident you'd be in trouble too. If you were truly just having a joint after work it wouldn't show up on a blood test taken after you've been sent off to get blood done at work the next day after an accident.

So don't smoke pot. None of those businesses are likely to start being ok with you smoking pot even if it gets legalized federally. They're not testing you for smoking pot because of its illegality.

Earlier in the thread you said it could show up for 36 hours, so it could show up especially if I smoked a few joints, even though I certainly wouldn't be impaired the day after.

After legalization and changing attitudes I expect they will make a distinction between THC levels that would reflect smoking at work vs ones that would reflect smoking the night before. Right now many employers have an attitude that anyone who uses illegal drugs ever is human garbage, if you haven't encountered this attitude tell me where you live because I want to move.

If you really don't think employers will change their attitudes, note how even the loving FBI had admitted how hard it can be to find qualified people who don't smoke. I've also seen many anecdotal stories about software companies who no longer do any testing for marijuana.

Why do you think this thread even exists? Do you think the people in here wanting to smoke pot are all unemployed? There are many millions of people who want to smoke and be employed.

# ¿ May 26, 2014 03:32

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 16, 2024 06:05

MaxxBot: Oct 6, 2003; you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Install Windows posted:

They didn't adequately perform their job if they're causing accidents leading to serious injury at work.

So you're not an adequate employee unless you literally never make mistakes? Why are you completely ignoring accidents caused by another employee that could cause injury to someone else? They could still be tested because they were technically involved even though they weren't the cause. Also as multiple people pointed out before many places will consider something like being bitten by a dog an accident, how the gently caress do you avoid that?

# ¿ May 26, 2014 04:21

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Drug legalization thread

«‹›3 »