5 ms·

Police have been doing field sobriety tests that don't rely on chemical detection for a very, very long time. Examples: walk a straight line, follow the light w

Police have been doing field sobriety tests that don't rely on chemical detection for a very, very long time. Examples: walk a straight line, follow the light with your eyes, close your eyes and tell me when 30 seconds have passed, stand on one leg, and so on.

yolesaber 10y ago
Yes and they are incredibly inaccurate and rely entirely on subjective judgement from the cop's perspective. Full disclosure: I have been pulled over and arrested for "driving while ability impaired" (essentially the non-alcohol DUI) When I was going to school in upstate NY, I was pulled over as I drove my friend home. The cop thought we smelled like weed (fair enough, my friend had some on him, I was sober and not holding). So he pulls me out of the car and makes me do a "field sobriety test" which consisted of the following (no joke): -Standing on one leg for 10 seconds -Walking in a straight line in the dark while he flashed a light at you like a strobe -Having to close your eyes and then open them when you "thought" 30 seconds had passed -Having to recite as much as the alphabet backwards as you can I'm not a coordinated person in general but I had never been pulled over or issued a traffic ticket before. But they then use this circus act as the basis to say "Hey, time for a blood test because you might be high" and then they take you to a hospital. You can refuse the blood test but you get your license suspended for like a month immediately and I needed to drive to work and school. I hadn't smoked in a bit so I thought I'd be good for the blood test and that I'd be fine in court. Of course, it's fallacious to use the blood sample because it can have trace THC from days ago. So you, like I did, can get slapped with a charge based on the fact that you smoked last weekend and then - how dare you - decided to drive days after the fact. I had to go to court and then was found guilty based on this erroneous evidence. I had to go to "addiction counseling" where the psych told me I exhibited absolutely no addictive symptoms yet I still had to attend. I got one of my scholarships revoked simply based on the charges against me. I had to pay fines and then sign statements at the end of my "counseling" that I would refrain from drug use and be a productive member of society (it actually was worded like that). I'm not really sure what the solution is. It will be interesting to see what the accident rates / fatalities from stoned drivers are in the coming years. All I know is the current system is a farce and only used to drive revenue to the state.
- beat 10y ago
  Do you think legalization will cause usage to increase? Seems to me just about anyone who would use marijuana in the first place is already using it. I don't expect an increase in consumption per capita at all.
  - yolesaber 10y ago
    Yes, I think we will see a mild increase. I even know some people who started smoking once it was legalized in their state (they were very cautious about run-ins with the law because of family history). I've been smoking since I was 17 and smoke pretty much every day still. However I think what is more important is that it's becoming more accepted and legitimized so that there can be worthwhile and meaningful studies done about the drug and the habits of its users, including driving accident statistics.
  - mikestew 10y ago
    Anecdata alert: it increased my usage, and that of my wife. From "none", because didn't need the legal hassles even if the risk was practically non-existent in the Seattle area if you had some sense, to "pretty regular use" now that it's legal in WA. By far the biggest reason for the switch was because the hassle of tracking down weed just wasn't worth the hassle. Now the store is on the way home, takes an extra five minutes to pick some up. So legal weed is driving us all to be pot heads, right? I mean, look at us: kindly middle age couple who are nice to animals and pay their taxes, and now they're smoking that whacky weed on the weekends! Meh, we're not the ones you needed to worry about in the first place. If it ain't weed, we'd be in Woodinville on Sunday doing wine tastings and driving home after (well, we wouldn't, but I see it every weekend). Our community is much better off if instead my wife and I sit home on a Saturday night smoking a bowl and playing video games. Are we representative? I have absolutely no idea. But surely we're not the only two people in the entire state of WA who said, after the retail stores opened, "ya know, haven't bought a 1/4 ounce in decades, but I used smoke weed back in the day and I kind of enjoyed it. Now that it's legal, think I'll swing by that new store on the way home tomorrow."
    - 10y ago

yolesaber 10y ago

Yes and they are incredibly inaccurate and rely entirely on subjective judgement from the cop's perspective. Full disclosure: I have been pulled over and arrested for "driving while ability impaired" (essentially the non-alcohol DUI) When I was going to school in upstate NY, I was pulled over as I drove my friend home. The cop thought we smelled like weed (fair enough, my friend had some on him, I was sober and not holding). So he pulls me out of the car and makes me do a "field sobriety test" which consisted of the following (no joke): -Standing on one leg for 10 seconds -Walking in a straight line in the dark while he flashed a light at you like a strobe -Having to close your eyes and then open them when you "thought" 30 seconds had passed -Having to recite as much as the alphabet backwards as you can I'm not a coordinated person in general but I had never been pulled over or issued a traffic ticket before. But they then use this circus act as the basis to say "Hey, time for a blood test because you might be high" and then they take you to a hospital. You can refuse the blood test but you get your license suspended for like a month immediately and I needed to drive to work and school. I hadn't smoked in a bit so I thought I'd be good for the blood test and that I'd be fine in court. Of course, it's fallacious to use the blood sample because it can have trace THC from days ago. So you, like I did, can get slapped with a charge based on the fact that you smoked last weekend and then - how dare you - decided to drive days after the fact. I had to go to court and then was found guilty based on this erroneous evidence. I had to go to "addiction counseling" where the psych told me I exhibited absolutely no addictive symptoms yet I still had to attend. I got one of my scholarships revoked simply based on the charges against me. I had to pay fines and then sign statements at the end of my "counseling" that I would refrain from drug use and be a productive member of society (it actually was worded like that). I'm not really sure what the solution is. It will be interesting to see what the accident rates / fatalities from stoned drivers are in the coming years. All I know is the current system is a farce and only used to drive revenue to the state.

beat 10y ago
Do you think legalization will cause usage to increase? Seems to me just about anyone who would use marijuana in the first place is already using it. I don't expect an increase in consumption per capita at all.
- yolesaber 10y ago
  Yes, I think we will see a mild increase. I even know some people who started smoking once it was legalized in their state (they were very cautious about run-ins with the law because of family history). I've been smoking since I was 17 and smoke pretty much every day still. However I think what is more important is that it's becoming more accepted and legitimized so that there can be worthwhile and meaningful studies done about the drug and the habits of its users, including driving accident statistics.
- mikestew 10y ago
  Anecdata alert: it increased my usage, and that of my wife. From "none", because didn't need the legal hassles even if the risk was practically non-existent in the Seattle area if you had some sense, to "pretty regular use" now that it's legal in WA. By far the biggest reason for the switch was because the hassle of tracking down weed just wasn't worth the hassle. Now the store is on the way home, takes an extra five minutes to pick some up. So legal weed is driving us all to be pot heads, right? I mean, look at us: kindly middle age couple who are nice to animals and pay their taxes, and now they're smoking that whacky weed on the weekends! Meh, we're not the ones you needed to worry about in the first place. If it ain't weed, we'd be in Woodinville on Sunday doing wine tastings and driving home after (well, we wouldn't, but I see it every weekend). Our community is much better off if instead my wife and I sit home on a Saturday night smoking a bowl and playing video games. Are we representative? I have absolutely no idea. But surely we're not the only two people in the entire state of WA who said, after the retail stores opened, "ya know, haven't bought a 1/4 ounce in decades, but I used smoke weed back in the day and I kind of enjoyed it. Now that it's legal, think I'll swing by that new store on the way home tomorrow."
  - 10y ago