Dui In California

Wrong. Possessing marihuana in any quantity remains a Controlled Drugs and Substances Act violation, unless possessing a medicinal exemption.

I don’t think this is going to be a problem, as Marijuana is decriminalized in Canada – you need something like 2 ounces (that’s a lot, to those of you who have never smoked ever in your life) – or you need it bagged for re-sale and distribution.

But seriously, maybe being stoned while driving isn’t nearly as bad as being drunk… but it’s still not as good as being fully alert and in control of your senses.

I realize some people report heightened sense of alertness and concentration resulting from paranoia and this offsets the loss in reaction time. But if these people just concentrated when they weren’t stoned than they’d be even better drivers since uhmm they won’t be stoned.

As per the Ritalin comment, military pilots have been using amphetamines to improve their performance since WWII so that particular drug may actually improve the driving skills of some.

In my younger/stupider days I drove while smoking pot and in my experience it does not adversely effect your performance.

In a few months a willing defendant and a good lawyer will have this law struck down, as the studies show that roadside sobriety testing is much less reliable/valid than even a lie detector.

There are more legal drugs that scare me more than marijuana. Geodone, Ritalin, Wellbutrin and hosts of pain killers, oxycontin and lortab shoot even OTC items like Benadryl. I would prefer a stoned driver to someone all dosed up on a good antihistamine or pain killer.

Is this really true? It could be viewed a nasty conflict, as it is would no longer be in MADD’s interest work as hard as possible against drunk driving: success on their part would lead to reductions in their revenue.

As for Jamaican road safety, well, I’d hazard that driving skills get better the closer on gets to the tropics if for no other reason than all the unskilled drivers have already been killed off. I driving tours through Central America and Greece were all it took to convince me that, if I drove there regularly, I’d be dead in a year. Crazy, crazy people…

Conversely, driving in Scandinavia was surreal for the same reason.

Heck, you might even die!

Shall we pass a law against that, giving the police power to stop cars at random and check for holes in your head, any power tools within arms reach of the driver, and if found, seize the vehicle and arrest the miscreant?

Or should we ask some more fundamental questions:

How many people have drilled holes in their head today? While driving a car? How many consequent victims of this habit are there? If there is a issue, are there existing laws that can be brought to bear on the problem?

I find myself as disgusted with this posturing as ethermal appears to be. DUI is DUI. Why make a distinction between one drug (e.g., alcohol) or another (e.g. ‘brownies’)? Nail them all to the wall.

In Jamaica, the taxi drivers are as stoned as I think any human can get. I saw them in the morning hot boxing the toyata van/taxi then saw the same guys in the afternoon hot boxing, then in the evening hot boxing when I hired them to take us to Rick’s cafe. The taxi driver’s eyes were as red as a tomato, but he was one hell of a driver, his concentration was amazing.

A stoned driver is not as dangerous as a drunk, but this issue rapidly becomes MADD or nothing, and as an attorney who spends a lot of time in Court, I’ve noticed that MADD policies have oft been enacted into law, and like any pressure group, their ideas are not practical in a Court.

MADD has a head tax on every DWI in my area with a “Victim Impact Panel”, which they have had written into law that each guilty defendant MUST attend. So now MADD gets $75 per defendant. I have no problem with goverment probation, etc, but that a private group now gets a shot at the defendant is improper. Since it’s DWI law, though, it’s OK (!).

It is legal to drive with alcohol in your system. The purpose of a breath test is to make a conviction a slam – dunk. You don’t have to prove intoxication, which varies widely from individual to individual.

The practical problem with MJ laws is that you can’t prove current intoxication with anything but a blood test. Urine can show last week’s weed. The result is some states have “zero tolerance” laws, which are great for prohibition but don’t prove you are baked now on the road.

I’ve heard stories ranging from “the cop then tossed the weed and wrote me a bunch of other tickets” to “I had one roach and now have six months of urine testing probation and $2000 in fines”.

Anyone who has ever read any of the “research” as funded by the US Govt knows that there is basically no real research. Try to get MJ from the DEA for legit research………you won’t, no matter who you are.

I’m amazed that up until now you COULD sorta get away with it…..

If there was any actual scientific reasoning in play here, marijuana wouldn’t be illegal in the first place.