6 ms·

Great news. A very sound move. Indeed, marijuana is much less dangerous of a drug yet considerably harmful in cases of chronic use in unreasonably high doses th

• babyshake 2y ago
  "Also the idea of stoned people driving cars sounds scary. " Depends how stoned, but people routinely drive while using medication that affects them far more than being a bit stoned.
  • 0xDEADFED5 2y ago
    i think driving is probably already dangerous enough without adding cannabis or any other psychoactive into the mix
    • jazzyjackson 2y ago
      well then i hope you lobby your representatives for bike lanes and public transit because america is a highly medicated place
    • anonym29 2y ago
      The culture around driving in the US is the problem. Many states will hand a license to pretty much anyone over 18 with nothing more than basic reading comprehension and eyesight required. Contrast this to say, the driving culture of Germany. There, everyone (not only minors) must undergo a rigorous training that is both broad and deep in scope. In addition to everything you'd expect, they also learn vehicle maintenance, basic first aid, performance driving skills (like the kind you'd pay to learn at a racetrack in the USA), and above all else, a deep respect and appreciation for the importance of following the rules of the road, leading to rigorous adherence to driving laws and etiquette that many Americans would find borderline anal-retentive. However, the result is that I get to tell you fun facts such as the US interstate highway system having a higher rate of accidents and a higher rate of accident fatalities per vehicle-mile traveled than the Autobahn, in spite of the fact that hundreds of vehicles are hitting 180+ mph (300+ km/h) on a daily basis over there, while American highways mostly tend to be limited to 55/60/65/70/75 mph depending on state and road type.
      • yurishimo 2y ago
        This has been my experience as well. Heck, even the US adopting more of a Dutch/Belgian model would be better than what they use now. The bar to get a license is so low in the US that it's not really surprising how many people die in car accidents over there. I say all this as an American who got their license the day they turned 16. I will never forget that during the driving exam, I was given the option to skip the parallel parking section in exchange for 1 point off of my score. The alternative was, if I hit a cone marking the edge of the course, I would fail outright. Of course I took the point off and walked out with my license! This was suburban Dallas in 2010? Funny enough, in 2013 I moved to Kansas and worked in a downtown area where parallel parking was basically a requirement. I took me about 2 months to get comfortable navigating into any spot on the street without rubbing my tires or being insanely crooked. Now that I live in Europe, I'm glad I had that experience because it's served me well regularly ever since.
    • Xeyz0r 2y ago
      Well you are completely right
  • jpsouth 2y ago
    I think that also sounds pretty scary. Seeing the state of drivers in the UK, without knowing what they’re under the influence of, if anything, it’s a pretty damning sight. There is probably some form of bias here, as I don’t remember all of the good drivers, but not a day goes by where I don’t see drivers wandering into other lanes, performing dangerous undertakes, lane changes, or generally being terrible drivers, and you have to wonder why. A lot of phone drivers, for sure, a lot of ignorant pricks too, but I’d bet on a lot of inebriated drivers given their conduct. Example of a shocker I had today, I was turning right out of a resi street, a car with no indication stopped to let me out on my right, but it wasn’t safe (very tight, little visibility) so I waved him along. I stayed there for appx 30 seconds until I realised he wanted to turn into the street I was pulling out of. He didn’t indicate once. Just a completely wild disregard for any form of road etiquette, not to mention the Highway Code. I’ll report it from my dashcam, but I doubt anything will be done by my local police force. I think we need far more stringent fines and forced retests (along with removal of licence if they can’t meet the standard of a learner) for anyone committing a road traffic offence or blatantly breaching the Highway Code out of sheer ignorance.
  • mattmaroon 2y ago
    Both of the above are illegal, though very hard to enforce.
  • lambdaba 2y ago
    In response to uninformed sibling comments reflexively fearing cannabis use in drivers, see here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722956/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722956/ > Cannabis users perceive their driving under the influence as impaired and more cautious, and given a dose of 7 mg THC (about a third of a joint), drivers rated themselves as impaired even though their driving performance was not; in contrast, at a BAC 0.04% (slightly less than two “standard drinks” of a can of beer or small 5 oz. glass of wine; half the legal limit in most US states), driving performance was impaired even though drivers rated themselves as unimpaired. > This awareness of impairment has behavioral consequences. Several reviews of driving and simulator studies have concluded that marijuana use by drivers is likely to result in decreased speed and fewer attempts to overtake, as well as increased “following distance”. The opposite is true of alcohol. I'd be more weary of people under the influence of anger, benzos, or other psychiatric drugs. In my experience, cannabis is a performance enhancer in these cases, increasing awareness rather than decreasing it. After all, it does improve ADHD symptoms.
    • ineedaj0b 2y ago
      I find it far more likely it has not been studied to the degree alcohol has been, and as a larger sample of users is tested these results will change. I’ve heard every drug under the sun affect adhd for people lately, so I don’t know if that’s a divining rod for truth. Had a guy say Fentanyl really helped his adhd… hm okay. I think our definitions and condition criteria need to separate into more discerning terms for a lot of medical conditions
      • lambdaba 2y ago
        Ethanol is a poison, what, outside of prejudice, would make you find it more likely it's simply a lack of studies? Maybe it simply hasn't reached me, but I never even heard about cannabis being chiefly blamed on a car accident, mind you, people can drive recklessly sober, but, again, if anything cannabis is going to make them be more cautious. For one, surely you have heard of the "paranoia" that cannabis users often get at higher doses, where they feel distant objects are closer than they really are.
      • 2y ago
  • insane_dreamer 2y ago
    or texting or otherwise looking at their phone while driving ...
  • Xeyz0r 2y ago
    I thought that these kind of effects are discussed with patients and they aware of the risks...
• xeonmc 2y ago
  The biggest problem is not the self-harm aspect but rather the social ramifications. Regulations and social expectations of where you can smoke should be as-strict as tobacco smoking, if not more since weed is just so much more stinky.
  • riffic 2y ago
    I'd say putting a very large class of people into "the system" has produced a worse outcome than the drug itself would ever have had.
  • bdhess 2y ago
    Stinky is very qualitative. Maybe you grew up around tobacco smokers and so don’t mind the smell? I hate it. Quantitatively, marijuana smoke is less carcinogenic than tobacco smoke.
    • BenFranklin100 2y ago
      The smell from marijuana smoke lingers and travels in a way tobacco smoke does not. Most people other than users find it significantly more offensive than tobacco.
      • mattmaroon 2y ago
        Disagree. If you’re at a concert and someone smokes weed everyone is like “right on”. You smoke a cigarette and people want to fight you.
        • BenFranklin100 2y ago
          What does this have to do with how the respective smells linger?
          • mattmaroon 2y ago
            I was disagreeing more with your second sentence, however as for the lingering, I also disagree. I have a couple contractors who were working in my warehouse and smoking skunk weed the whole time. (I know, I know, but they do good work.) The smell was gone the next day. But you smoke a cigarette in an enclosed space and I’ll still smell it in a couple days. I think it must be the tar and other additives, and now I kind of want to find someone who smokes natural tobacco to come do it and see if I’m right.
• anonym29 2y ago
  While no impairment is obviously ideal, I'd much rather share the road with someone who's had a few puffs than someone on a cocktail of legal psychoactive prescription medications like antidepressants, SSRIs, amphetamines, hypnotic sedatives, etc.
• psalminen 2y ago
  Coming from a longtime marijuana friendly state, I've noticed that it has also lowered the stigma of other "hard" drugs. Since weed is no longer the socially-acceptable illegal drug, others like cocaine has taken is place. I've long wondered if this will be a trend across the country.
  • yurishimo 2y ago
    This makes sense when compared to other legal drugs. Alcohol is only seen as a problem if you get shitfaced in public. Cigarettes were/are the more acceptable form of smoking when compared to cannabis. Now that the line for cannabis is moving, it makes sense that something else will come take it's place. The real question though is, will more or less people who try cannabis now that it's legal, know when to stop experimenting when offered harder drugs? The fact that we don't see 15 year olds making bathtub moonshine leads me to believe that there is a limit somewhere for most people. Cannabis has not been difficult to get in the US for decades if you have even a modicum of self-determination. If everyone who has abstained until now suddenly gets the urge to try cannabis, I doubt that will totally destroy that self control after a few hits. Just like many people can go to a bar and know when to stop drinking even though there are likely somewhat inhibited by the drinks they have already consumed.
• int_19h 2y ago
  A typical stoned driver is someone who drives half as fast as the speed limit allows. That's how the cops spot them usually. I'm not saying that this should be legal or that it's okay to do it, but it's really much less of a problem than one would think. Certainly much less so than drunk driving.
• Xeyz0r 2y ago
  > What I'm curious about is how marijuana availability links to consumption of other drugs including hard drugs, alcohol, tobacco, tranquilizers and antidepressants. I hypothesize it may decrease these. There are so many different points of view on that topic... I think that debate will go on and on