I JUST OUTFOXED THE POLICE HAW HAW

And this wasn't in like northern California or anything either. It just baffles me completely

Small amounts of cocaine or heroin or any stronger drugs out there, though -- no leeway whatsoever. 'Tis good. I can trust a highly intelligent, extremely mature individual with a joint, but not with a line of Bolivian marching powder or a needle full of dope.

Me need sleep now. Sleep sleep GLORIOUS sleep. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

:(

ps - I was ok to drive.

http://www.varsity.utoronto.ca/archives/119/apr13/news/high.html

there's been all kinds of research about the relative safety of driving stoned or drunk. actually i remember from about 2 years ago a hilarious story on the BBC about some research by an anti-drugs charity which had to be abandoned because, in their simulated tests, the stoned drivers had fewer accidents than the sober ones. because, like, they were going slower etc...

Yes.

It may be irresponsible, dangerous and a really bad idea, but if no one gets hurt then nothing horrible has happened, IMO.

alcohol = like coffee x 1000000 for mark s

The Italian police pulled him aside and none of them spoke English. They were asking him all sorts of questions, which he couldn't answer because he didn't understand the language. He was completely perplexed, and late for his flight. They led him to a room and searched his bag over and over, sorting through everything, asking him more and more questions to which his only reply was "no drogas! no drogas!".

Unsatisfied, they gave him a full body cavity search.

After a very long time and an exceptionally thorough search, they gave up and let him go. He just barely made his flight.

Thinking about it later, he figured that he must had pot packed in the suitcase at some earlier time, and the smell lingered enough for the dogs to pick up on it.

So, when you travel, be careful not to use any bags that you've ever had pot/drugs in.

i'm going to assume that no one you've ever known has been killed or injured or even inconvenienced by a drunk driver then.

unless prop. 284 passes, and we all pray it will

i believe you were probably playing loud music and disrupting the community jon

which is not a crime

(xpost w jess)

the point i was getting at is that if you don't smoke, you don't know how it affects you when you're driving. I'm not saying it's perfectly alright to drive stoned, but I think y'all are overreacting a touch.

My point was not that it's okay to drive drunk or high. My point was that it is overreactionary to chastise someone for almost killing someone if they didn't, in fact, almost kill someone. Did you just gloss over the part where I said it was "irresponsible, dangerous and a really bad idea"?

but if no one gets hurt then nothing horrible has happened, IMO.

which seems to be playing rather fast and loose with ideas of chance and fate and responsibility.

i'm not trying to come off like a stern granny arguing the inarguable point from the vantage of moral superiority here. i have driven drunk when i was younger (and before alexis' accident), but the crushing blow of that incident really made me rethink such things. so you're right that it's all a "personal choice" but that doesn't mean i can't disdain peoples disregard.

anyway, this is my last post on this thread.

the cell phone point is moot. and, as an aside, in s.a. you get an immediate fine if yr caught talking on your cellphone while driving.

i won't let myself/the person at the wheel drive under the influence of anything (i slipped up once - i let a friend drive me around after we'd been drinking - and i hate myself for it). i'm no 'regular', but i have been (not-very) stoned in a car (nb. the driver wasn't): i remember panicking quite severely when i became convinced that we were going in the wrong direction, too slow, too fast etc.

you can point me at some vague statistics telling me how it's 'not all that bad' and so on, but i know it'd be a mistake to trust a stoned *me* to get from pt A to B safely, and i don't know why i should assume that the stranger coming round the corner handles drugs better than i do.

caffeine
ephedra
ritalin
aderol
speed

SAYIN'

(I almost typed outfozing the police.)

Absolutely. You shouldn't drive stoned. But acting like Jon was the devil incarnate cuz he smoked and then drove 3 hours later is just stupid. Weed is a seperate, distinct drug. It does not produce the same effects as alcohol and equating the two is foolish.

hugz!

and being high is what caused the accident?
yes, on more then one occasion.

like they were swerving into an oncoming lane or something?
Thats twice a yes. Well, one was a turn that just never finished and ended up going through a bus shelter. The other was a swerve right into the middle of the other lane on a straight road at 6 in the morning.

All the rest of the times just involved booze.

THEY HAVE DRIVE THRU PACKIES IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH
Drive through beer stores also exist in Nova Scotia.

Ya, i realized that later. Still, it's a bad thing to do, but I don't think it makes you 'a complete and utter twat'. I reserve that for fuckers who drive 90 miles an hour, changing lanes every two seconds not using a turn signal, riding on the shoulder to get around traffic, etc. You know, bad ACTIONS, not potential for bad actions.

I was/am very high...I was so fucking baked.

Jon later in thread:

I hadn't smoked for like 3 hours. ... I wasn't even fucked up, just tired and probably smelled like weed.

Look, I'm not going to get into whether it was right or wrong for you to be driving under the influence, Jon -- maybe you were okay to drive, I dunno -- but there's something disingenuous about this backtracking. At the top of the thread, you admit to STILL being high when you posted.

exploding a grenade in a public place != firing a single bullet into a building != dropping a water balloon from the tenth story of a high rise

jon being "very high" + "so fucking baked" when it's him vs. the cops but being "ok to drive" when it's him vs. ilx is the epitome of 11th grade lame

I used to wonder if attempted murder should carry the same sentence as murder.

Anyway, there's not much difference between doing something irresponsible, dangerous and a really bad idea and being a complete and utter twat.

I have driven a bit stoned once. I wouldn't do it again. I felt safe and yeah really slow but until I see a body of scientific research saying that it does not impede one's driving performance I'm not going to chance stoned self-assessment and some anectodal 'yeah, the squares pulled the research' evidence.

Oh - I remember now. I once ran across the tarmac in Peckham Rye Park with a pushchair and a toddler I was babysitting because we both enjoyed it but then we hit a pothole and it somersaulted over and luckily he was only just post-verbal and was unable to tell tales on me.

Media stories on the UK drugged driving roadside test:
Reuters: British Police Plan New Drug Tests For Drivers www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1105/a12.html
Irish Independent: Drug Test Drivers To Walk The Line www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1108/a04.html

1983 National Highway Transportation Safety Administration study: Stein, AC et al., A Simulator Study of the Combined Effects of Alcohol and Marijuana on Driving Behavior-Phase II, Washington DC: Department of Transportation (1983)

1992 National Highway Transportation Safety Administration study: The Incidence and Role of Drugs in Fatally Injured Drivers, by K.W. Terhune, et al. of the Calspan Corp. Accident Research Group in Buffalo, NY (Report # DOT-HS-808-065) www.drugsense.org/tfy/nhtsa1.htm

1993 National Highway Transportation Safety Administration study: Marijuana and actual Driving Performance, By Hindrik WJ Robbe and James F O'Hanlon. Institute for Human Psychopharmacology, University of Limburg www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/general/mjdrive.htm

1998 University of Adelaide and Transport South Australia study: www.netaxs.com/~sparky/policy/highway.htm

1999 University of Toronto Study: http://newsandevents.utoronto.ca/bin/19990329a.asp

For a better way to test people for impairment, read this: www.pdxnorml.org/performa.html

For a 1986 Australian study comparing alcohol and marijuana, go here: www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/mjdriv1.htm

For a UK Department of Transport report on Cannabis and Driving: http://www.dft.gov.uk/roads/roadsafety/research98/road/3b.htm

Another good reference for marijuana and driving: www.mapinc.org/pdxnorml/Exposing_12_1095.html

For a more amusing look at the combination of drugs and driving, go here: www.techno.de/mixmag/interviews/Driving_on_drugs.html

But I wouldn't brag about it...

2. after being chastised by people who are better than him (or see no reason to bother phrasing things any other way) he backtracked and began to say that he didn't really mean the bit about 'fucking baked' which is also understandable, he doesn't want to be seen as a completely inconsiderate and liable shithead

3. after he makes this attempt to conform to the ILE social norm he is criticized further for 'backtracking' and being 'disingenuous' as if he were running for office or something. Is he supposed to just stand by his original statement? "Yeah I was FUCKED UP, whaddya gonna do abt it?" I doubt that would go over well.

My point: Jon is probably well ashamed of himself ANYWAY since he nearly got arrested in the incident and is not very likely to go out driving 'fucking baked' again really soon whether you get on your high horses or not. It just makes you look like smug assholes.

Like it or not we ALL KNOW that driving under the influence of drugs such as alcohol, cannabis, speed et al. is A TERRIBLE AWFUL IDEA. Nobody here is really trying to say that you can just do it with no worries or defending the practice of rolling about the neighborhood while "fucking baked."

people's chastisement of jon has less to do with them being "better than him" and more to do with the fact that this is one of those crimes that had the potential to turn into a harmful situation for ANYONE in the vicinity rather than just the central decision-maker

there've been *numerous* drug and alcohol threads where people have discussed their heroic intake levels at length, so i hardly buy into your assertion that people are being self-righteous because - as has been articulated by a number of people on this thread already - we've ALL made bad decisions before

the idea is that you learn from them, though. so if you make a bad decision, get into a sticky situation as a result and then post a thread *boasting* about it (thereby demonstrating you didn't learn much from your good luck) i'm gonna find it hard to be sympathic when someone else reminds you that driving under the influence of drugs is a "terrible awful idea"

(Also, the story wasn't that funny, but what story is whose punchline involves "I had loads of drugs"?. Also, that story wasn't much funny, and I'm elaborating, yes, I'm elaborating still...)

I mentioned Fort Myers upthread, so I think it's U+K that I tell you that, yes, the drive-through liquor store pictured in National Geographic twenty years ago is still there.

I MEAN REALLY

KEEP IT TO YOURSELF