4 ms·

I'm speaking in comparison to THC. We are talking about order of magnitude differences with THC, especially in the blood after smoking or vaporizing. The differ

I'm speaking in comparison to THC. We are talking about order of magnitude differences with THC, especially in the blood after smoking or vaporizing. The difference between a little drunk and very drunk is only a factor of 2, probably less. I don't even think it's possible for a human to be 4 times as drunk as another also drunk human and survive. The best way to think about tolerance to alcohol is buying a small constant headstart, while THC is better modeled as a difference of rates depending on tolerance. I think most people will find that model useful, and the numbers (BAC) support that as a rule of thumb calculation. Somehow you disagree that my model is accurate enough, but also agree that a constant cutoff is a good heuristic for legal intoxication from alcohol.

dpark 1y ago
I have no idea about THC tolerance in comparison with alcohol. The numbers I see some people claim to consume is in your order of magnitude range vs what beginners are advised to use so it’s believable. > Somehow you disagree that my model is accurate enough, but also agree that a constant cutoff is a good heuristic for legal intoxication from alcohol. It’s not that I think your model isn’t accurate enough. It’s that I think your model is not consistent. A few extra drinks is enough to go from just barely under .08 to .16. If an alcoholic can run nearly double the alcohol intake (and double the BAC) of a nonalcoholic I don’t agree that this is nearly the same. I agree with the constant cutoff because a constant reasonable limit is easier to administer. Less subjectivity for law enforcement is a good thing. I would probably support for the same for THC. “But I consume so much that I have a really high tolerance!” Ok, that’s not everyone else’s problem to deal with. Don’t drink if you’re over the limit.
- everforward 1y ago
  They cant run double, it becomes clearer as the baseline goes up. At .16, the alcoholic would be up at .32 and at serious risk of dying from respiratory suppression. They’re more used to being drunk, but that doesn’t avoid the physical reality of alcohol toxicity. It’s very different than THC where a 10x tolerance is pretty normal for a new user vs a heavy user. Relative to alcohol, that would be .08 vs .80 which is like twice the lethal limit. Thus it’s very hard to set limits because one persons residual use from 6 hours ago is enough to get another person stoned off their ass. I don’t really have solutions there though.
  - dpark 1y ago
    I was using your “a few drinks more”. 4 standard beers over 2 hours supposedly puts a guy around .08. 3 more puts him at .16. But yeah, the near double drinking can’t continue because the alcoholic will just die at some point. The THC thing is tough and I will leave it to experts and (more likely) politicians to hash it out. I’m not sure I want more reliance on field sobriety tests though. “His eyes were glassy and he was slurring. No, the camera can’t really capture the glassy eyes and don’t really pick up the slurring…”
seec 1y ago
> I don't even think it's possible for a human to be 4 times as drunk as another also drunk human and survive. Considering some of the scores I have seen from the local police I beg to disagree. They have caught people with so much alcohol in their blood that your average person would probably be in a comma. And I think your position on THC is irrational and probably motivated by your emotions. I have smoked quite a bit and been around quite a lot of stoners, and they all think this way (oh, I'm used to it, no effect) but my experience tells me otherwise. It's the power of magical thinking, but even a regular user is quite impaired, right after the first joint. I personally have been able to test this, with a quite lower performance in video games, even though I felt I was doing quite good. Stats said otherwise. And I can assure you that I was quite a heavy user at that time, since my brother was growing the stuff and I was getting it for free basically. In my experience most cannabis users are quite irrational around the stuff because they want it to be magically better than what it is. But in the end, it is no better than alcohol and, in some ways, much worse: the effects last longer, pushing into the next day, which is what I believe happens in those accidents. The users believe they are more in control than they really are and their reaction times are quite worse, which would be actually very easy to measure...

dpark 1y ago

I have no idea about THC tolerance in comparison with alcohol. The numbers I see some people claim to consume is in your order of magnitude range vs what beginners are advised to use so it’s believable. > Somehow you disagree that my model is accurate enough, but also agree that a constant cutoff is a good heuristic for legal intoxication from alcohol. It’s not that I think your model isn’t accurate enough. It’s that I think your model is not consistent. A few extra drinks is enough to go from just barely under .08 to .16. If an alcoholic can run nearly double the alcohol intake (and double the BAC) of a nonalcoholic I don’t agree that this is nearly the same. I agree with the constant cutoff because a constant reasonable limit is easier to administer. Less subjectivity for law enforcement is a good thing. I would probably support for the same for THC. “But I consume so much that I have a really high tolerance!” Ok, that’s not everyone else’s problem to deal with. Don’t drink if you’re over the limit.

everforward 1y ago
They cant run double, it becomes clearer as the baseline goes up. At .16, the alcoholic would be up at .32 and at serious risk of dying from respiratory suppression. They’re more used to being drunk, but that doesn’t avoid the physical reality of alcohol toxicity. It’s very different than THC where a 10x tolerance is pretty normal for a new user vs a heavy user. Relative to alcohol, that would be .08 vs .80 which is like twice the lethal limit. Thus it’s very hard to set limits because one persons residual use from 6 hours ago is enough to get another person stoned off their ass. I don’t really have solutions there though.
- dpark 1y ago
  I was using your “a few drinks more”. 4 standard beers over 2 hours supposedly puts a guy around .08. 3 more puts him at .16. But yeah, the near double drinking can’t continue because the alcoholic will just die at some point. The THC thing is tough and I will leave it to experts and (more likely) politicians to hash it out. I’m not sure I want more reliance on field sobriety tests though. “His eyes were glassy and he was slurring. No, the camera can’t really capture the glassy eyes and don’t really pick up the slurring…”

seec 1y ago

> I don't even think it's possible for a human to be 4 times as drunk as another also drunk human and survive. Considering some of the scores I have seen from the local police I beg to disagree. They have caught people with so much alcohol in their blood that your average person would probably be in a comma. And I think your position on THC is irrational and probably motivated by your emotions. I have smoked quite a bit and been around quite a lot of stoners, and they all think this way (oh, I'm used to it, no effect) but my experience tells me otherwise. It's the power of magical thinking, but even a regular user is quite impaired, right after the first joint. I personally have been able to test this, with a quite lower performance in video games, even though I felt I was doing quite good. Stats said otherwise. And I can assure you that I was quite a heavy user at that time, since my brother was growing the stuff and I was getting it for free basically. In my experience most cannabis users are quite irrational around the stuff because they want it to be magically better than what it is. But in the end, it is no better than alcohol and, in some ways, much worse: the effects last longer, pushing into the next day, which is what I believe happens in those accidents. The users believe they are more in control than they really are and their reaction times are quite worse, which would be actually very easy to measure...