Who's gonna stop me smoking cannabis??

[RootsBooster]

I for one wouldn't want to be working near a man operating a bulldozer or a crane who was as high as a kite or riding on a passenger bus or overtaking a big freight truck with the drivers in the same state. Cannabis impairs judgement just like alcohol does and if alcohol is already responsible for thousands of road deaths or accidents on the job every year why add more problems.

 

If cannabis ever by chance do become legal I hope that employers will have the right to fire anyone on the spot who shows up for work high or fails the urine test.

 

Not like alcohol does, alcohol affects you much worse.

 

I agree, no recreational drugs (inc. booze) should be tolerated while at work, the problem with the urine test is that it doesn't just test positive while you're under the influence. Cannabinoids stay in your system for around 6 weeks, I think

OK, my mistake. I shouldn't have said it makes you creative. I do think it brings out my creativity though. It's not some magic drug that can make anyone an artist.

[sccsux]

Yes well you appear to be on a personal vendetta of some kind and you were bound to agree with me because I disagreed with your current target.

 

For the record I agree with most of Bonzo's posts on this thread, I just disagree with him about weed enhancing creativity.

 

Creativity != music only (many writers use it to help relieve "writers block").

[Hots on]

No, it does not.

 

Can you find a single road death attributed purely to cannabis use?

 

Some research indicates people who have smoked cannabis drive more cautiously. Saying it's the same as alcohol is plain wrong.

 

Why are you in denial about the recent George Micheal incident? its pure luck no one was killed or seriously injured by him veering off the road, off his head on cannabis.

 

We'll never know just how many deaths occurred over the years as a result of people being stoned behind the wheel before the fairly recent notion of "drug driving" came into the public consciousness and police procedure.

[spindrift]

Mr Michael had taken sleeping pills. Cannabis did not cause the crash. Cannabis has never been cited in a RTC death as a causal factor.

[Hots on]

Spindrifts here, the thread is doomed.

[spindrift]

STUDIES had found it impossible to prove cannabis adversely affected driving, an Adelaide University researcher said yesterday.

 

Professor Jack Maclean, director of the road accident research unit, said, while there was no doubt alcohol affected driving adversely, that was not the case with marijuana.

 

"It has been impossible to prove marijuana affects driving adversely,"

 

he told the Australian Driver Fatigue Conference in Sydney.

 

"There is no doubt marijuana affects performance but it may be it affects it in a favourable way by reducing risk-taking."

 

Professor Maclean said a study of blood samples taken by SA hospitals from people injured in road accidents found marijuana was the second most common drug, after alcohol, in the bloodstream.

 

Those with marijuana in their blood, however, were at fault in less than half of the accidents.

"Alcohol was by far the most common drug and 80 per cent of those with alcohol on board were judged to be responsible (for accidents)," he said.

 

"The next most common drug, but much less, was marijuana and about 48 per cent of the people with marijuana were judged to have been responsible for their crash."

 

He said the lack of proof that marijuana was detrimental to driving was not because of a lack of effort by researchers.

 

"I can say that there are some quite distinguished researchers who are going through incredible contortions to try and prove that marijuana has to be a problem," he said.

 

Professor Maclean said some researchers also found the risk of crashing while driving at the speed limit in a metropolitan area actually decreased if a driver had been drinking but was under the 0.05 blood alcohol limit.

 

"Perhaps for some people one or two glasses of alcohol may steady them down," he said.

 

As speed and alcohol concentration rose, however, the risk of accidents rose exponentially.

 

http://ccguide.org/driving.php

[spindrift]

Cannabis may make you a safer driver by Jonathon Carr-Brown, Sunday Times, 13 August 2000

 

TAKING the high road may not be so dangerous after all. Ministers are set to be embarrassed by government-funded research which shows that driving under the influence of drugs makes motorists more cautious and has a limited impact on their risk of crashing.

 

In the study, conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory, "grade A" cannabis specially imported from America was given to 15 regular users. The doped- up drivers were then put through four weeks of tests on driving simulators to gauge reaction times and awareness.

 

Regular smokers were used because previous tests in America using first- timers resulted in the volunteers falling over and feeling ill. The laboratory found its guinea pigs through what it described as a "snowballing technique" - one known user was asked to find another after being promised anonymity and exemption from prosecution agreed with the Home Office.

 

Instead of proving that drug-taking while driving increased the risk of accidents, researchers found that the mellowing effects of cannabis made drivers more cautious and so less likely to drive dangerously.

 

Although the cannabis affected reaction time in regular users, its effects appear to be substantially less dangerous than fatigue or drinking. Research by the Australian Drugs Foundation found that cannabis was the only drug tested that decreased the relative risk of having an accident.

 

The findings will embarrass ministers at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) who commissioned the study after pressure from motoring organisations and anti-drug campaigners. Lord Whitty, the transport minister, will receive the report later this month.

 

Ibid.

Cannabis makes you a better driver - more evidence

 

"Simulated driving scores for subjects experiencing a normal social 'high' and the same subjects under control conditions are not significantly different. However, there are significantly more errors for alcohol intoxicated than for control subjects"....... Crancer Study, Washington Department of Motor Vehicles

 

Professor Olaf Drummer, a forensic scientist the Royal College of Surgeons in Melbourne in 1996 "Compared to alcohol, which makes people take more risks on the road, marijuana made drivers slow down and drive more carefully.... Cannabis is good for driving skills, as people tend to overcompensate for a perceived impairment."

 

 

 

U.S. Department of Transportation,

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

(DOT HS 808 078), Final Report, November 1993:

 

"This program of research has shown that marijuana, when taken alone, produces a moderate degree of driving impairment which is related to the consumed THC dose. The impairment manifests itself mainly in the ability to maintain a steady lateral position on the road, but its magnitude is not exceptional in comparison with changes produced by many medicinal drugs and alcohol. Drivers under the influence of marijuana retain insight in their performance and will compensate, where they can, for example, by slowing down or increasing effort. As a consequence, THC's adverse effects on driving performance appear relatively small."

[esme]

Mod Note

 

Kindly attack the argument and not the person making it.

[Hots on]

Talk to Frank

 

http://www.talktofrank.com/drugs.aspx?id=172

 

The risks

 

Even hardcore smokers can become anxious, panicky, suspicious or paranoid.

 

Cannabis affects your coordination, which is one of the reasons why drug driving is just as illegal as drink driving.

 

Some people think cannabis is harmless just because it’s a plant – but it isn’t harmless. Cannabis, like tobacco, has lots of chemical 'nasties', which can cause lung disease and possibly cancer with long-term or heavy use, especially as it is often mixed with tobacco and smoked without a filter.

 

It can also make asthma worse, and cause wheezing in non-asthma sufferers.

 

Cannabis itself can affect many different systems in the body, including the heart: It increases the heart rate and can affect blood pressure.

If you’ve a history of mental health problems, then taking cannabis is not a good idea: It can cause paranoia in the short term, but in those with a pre-existing psychotic illness, such as schizophrenia, it can contribute to relapse.

 

If you use cannabis and have a family background of mental illness, such as schizophrenia, you may be at increased risk of developing a psychotic illness.

 

It is reported that frequent use of cannabis can cut a man's sperm count, reduce sperm motility, and can suppress ovulation in women and so may affect fertility.

 

If you’re pregnant, smoking cannabis frequently may have some association with the risk of the baby being born smaller than expected.

 

Regular, heavy use makes it difficult to learn and concentrate. Some people begin to feel tired all the time and can't seem to get motivated.

 

Some users may want to buy strong herbal cannabis to get ‘a bigger high’ but unpleasant reactions can be more powerful when you use strong cannabis, and it is possible that using strong cannabis repeatedly could lead in time to more users experiencing harmful effects such as dependence or being more at risk of developing the mental health effects.

[flamingjimmy]

Creativity != music only (many writers use it to help relieve "writers block").

 

Oh I certainly did not mean to suggest that it does, it's just that's the only field of creativity I have any experience with, I haven't written any prose since I had to years ago at school, shame really, because I used to enjoy writing.