Marijuana users can drive just fine -- vote yes on Prop 19

I learned many things during my college years (1966-71) at San Jose State University. One was that heavy marijuana users, a.k.a. "stoners," could drive just fine while under the influence.

I can personally testify to this. Oh, man, I sure can.

This fact is politically relevant since opponents of California's Proposition 19, which would legalize and tax marijuana in Oregon's neighbor to the south, are promulgating ridiculous claims about stoned drivers killing people if Prop 19 passes.

On average, a drunk driver kills someone every 45 minutes. Recreational marijuana use in fatal crashes will increase if Prop. 19 passes. It will be legal for a driver to get high right before taking the wheel. It will also be legal for passengers to smoke pot as they drive on the freeway or in your neighborhood.

Stand against the legalization of recreational marijuana. Keep California safe. Time is running out.

There are many myths about marijuana. One that's debunked by the Drug Policy Alliance is marijuana use is a major cause of highway accidents. It isn't.

How do I know? I'm alive.

And I never even got into any sort of auto or motorcycle accident while driving around the San Francisco Bay Area in various states of psychedelicized consciousness for the better part of two years during the most intense period of my getting high in college phase.

Me and my friends would zip up to "the City" in my 57' VW bug with smoke pouring out of the windows. Ditto when we'd drive over curving roads in the Santa Cruz mountains in the middle of the night.

I'd much rather be out on the road with people who have imbibed marijuana than with alcohol drinkers. If legalizing marijuana in California leads to more stoners and fewer drinkers, this will make the streets safer, not more dangerous.

Sure, some say that marijuana is stronger now than it was back in the 60's. The Drug Policy Alliance says this is another myth. Even if it isn't, my extensive experience with all sorts of pot varieties in my college days showed me that it's possible to drive safely no matter how stoned you are.

I'll accept that this may not be true for everybody. But by and large, a marijuana user who has had "way too much" is going to be a far better driver than a drinker who has had "way too much."

If the No on Proposition 19 folks are so concerned about highway safety, they should be campaigning to make drinking alcohol illegal.

However, there aren't any good reasons to keep marijuana illegal. Just many reasons to legalize it. The No on Prop 19 campaign is deep into paranoia. They should chill out and realize they've lost touch with reality.

That's what not using marijuana will do to you. Scary!

Comments

[Tim]

Thank you. Sadly I am stuck in the bible belt here in Alabama. Working on that.

[Rain]

Besides which alcohol is also legal but it's not legal to drive under the influence which is the same law that will stay in place with any drug someone uses. I am sure a lot of drunks get by with it for years also but if they get in an accident or seem to drive impaired, they get nailed which is how this will be. I'd vote yes also if I lived there.

[phastphil]

I can remember my friend sitting at a stop sign waiting for it to turn green. LoL - the sixties were so much fun.

[tucson]

Brian (and dear readers),

Despite your being as left as Sandy Koufax, I'm sure we'd get along just swell if we we were out camping or whatever, even though I am a "keep the government out of it as much as possible" type of guy and I think Obama is bad for America. We'd find common ground somewhere.

Like this: I am with you on legalizing marijuana. Legalizing it would solve more problems than it would create, I think.

But, imo you are simply wrong about weed not impairing drivers. I too have inhaled my share of the stuff and know whereof I speak.

I had the same experience phastphil described waiting for a stop sign to turn green. In my case it actually did. Another time I spent about 20 minutes trying to fit my keys into the ignition of a car that wasn't even mine... "Whoa, this isn't even my car! Far out!". Another time I was at a familiar intersection and couldn't remember where I was going or which way to turn. Really weird. Another time I couldn't decide if I actually went to the store for something or just imagined it. My vocabulary from 1965 through 1968 consisted mostly of "far out", "intense", "wow" and "I'm really stoned/loaded". Early on I said "groovy" a lot, I'm embarrased to admit. I don't recall ever saying "groovy baby" like Austin Powers, but I might have.

Back to my point. I recently saw a TV documentary where they had people drive an obstacle course straight (meaning 'not under the influence' for you straight people) and then drive it high on weed. When stoned, the drivers thought they were doing fine, but they scored lower on the tests.

I can speak from recent experience as this summer, after a hiatus of decades I experimented with marijuana to determine its efficacy for certain medical conditions. Besides, I was on a road trip with my son and friends. We called it bong bonding.

I tried a number of different sativa and indica varieties including Blue Dream, Grape Ape, Jack Herer, AK-47, Blue Goo, Green Crack and Alaskan Thunder Fuck. I could not locate my beloved Panama Red from the sixties, nor Ice Pack, nor Acapulco Gold, the stuff of legend.

To sum it up subjectively, marijuana slows my reaction time, impairs coordination, alters time-space perception and visual acuity. My mind tended to wander from the task at hand onto various tangents and I coughed a lot (vaporizers eliminate much of this). It did help somewhat with low back pain but increased tinnitus (bummer). Overall, it was not beneficial for me. I discovered I was "high" all the time anyway and weed just clouded the issue. I definitely should not drive when stoned... Definitely. I am confident in saying others should not drive stoned either.

But they will. Oh well. 20% of drivers on the road at any given moment are impaired to varying degrees by some substance, medication, or health condition. That's just the way it is. Best to be alert to deal with their mistakes by not being fucked up yourself.

Nevertheless, one cruise on your Suzuki after a few tokes of Alaskan Thunder Fuck could be an intense experience. Just once. Then you tell me if it was safe or not.

Over and out.

[kevin]

weed does not change the death rates in driving at all. your probably just on of those people who smoked weed and got really paranoid and never did it again and blamed everything bad that ever happened to you on it. but the weed didnt do anything you just didnt smoke enough

[DJ]

Another point of view:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pot-drivers-20110703,0,5540871,full.story

excerpts:

- Experts say they don't know what level of marijuana impairs a driver, but statistics show that fatal crashes involving drugged drivers have jumped. Law enforcement puts much of the blame on the growth of medical marijuana use.

- In California alone, nearly 1,000 deaths and injuries each year are blamed directly on drugged drivers, according to CHP data, and law enforcement puts much of the blame on the rapid growth of medical marijuana use in the last decade. Fatalities in crashes where drugs were the primary cause and alcohol was not involved jumped 55% over the 10 years ending in 2009.

- Marilyn Huestis, a toxicologist and one of the nation's top experts on marijuana at the National Institute on Drug Abuse who is directing several research programs, said she believed there is no amount of marijuana that a person can consume and drive safely immediately afterward. Supporters of marijuana legalization agree that the drug can impair a driver, but argue that the effects wear off in a few hours. Huestis, however, said research was showing that the effects of marijuana can linger.

[DJ]

interesting...two of nine studies did not concur with the following headline:
"Smoking pot a few hours before driving may almost double crash risk"

excerpt:
- When results from the nine studies were grouped together, the risk of driving under the influence of marijuana was nearly twice that of driving while unimpaired. In seven of the nine studies the risk of a crash went up when drivers had smoked marijuana within a few hours of the accident. The other two studies found that the risk of having a collision while under the influence was lower than that of sober drivers.

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-marijuana-car-crashes-20120210,0,586391.story?track=icymi