Police say they can tell if you are too high to drive. Critics call it ‘utter nonsense’
Police say they can tell if you are too high to drive. Critics call it ‘utter nonsense’
Police decide who ingested exactly which drugs based on a 12-step collection of clues gathered by staring into suspects’ eyes, pinching their muscles, taking their blood pressure and watching closely how they walk and talk and balance.
Archived at https://archive.is/89dmG
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The problem is there is no legal threshold for marijuana like there is for alcohol. If they think you are at all intoxicated they will take you in. Never admit to a cop that you have ingested marijuana in any capacity if you are pulled over.
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Also, don't lie about it. Just respectfully refuse to answer any questions about it.
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reminds me of STFU Friday!
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Or just don't drive high
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Police will surely never harass you if you're not actually doing anything wrong /s
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That's my point though? Making the decision to drive under the influence and getting stopped by the police are completely separate events. And you only have control over one of them.
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Pot stays detectable in your system much longer than alcohol. People have been busted for DWI even though they weren't actually high at the time. That's the point here.
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Whoosh
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But this thread is about bashing the police, not about being a responsible adult!
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Having trouble following along? Just read slower, maybe comment less
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Yeah, my bad, it's lemmy world. I really need to stop stumbling into this cesspool.
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Marijuana stays in your systen for a very long time since it is a fat soluable drug, so even if you smoked 2 days ago and you're stone-cold sober, you will still test positive for THC.
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Well actually those are metabolites of cannabinoids, not active cannabinoids themselves. Alcohol too has metabolites in the body we could test for, which would show up a few days after drinking.
But yeah the tests all test for metabolites which can show up literally months after smoking for heavy users. But technically we could test the blood for active cannabinoids. I just don't know how feasible that is to achieve in quicktesting of any sort. And since you can build a huge tolerance to weed, that wouldn't tell us a lot either. With alcohol, you can't really build a tolerance. The difference in the amount heavy users can consume without seemingly being impaired compared to a novice user who almost drops from a single hit versus the difference in how much alcohol a proper career alcoholic compared to a teenager could? Snoop Dogg could outsmoke most people, but even the most experienced alcoholics wouldn't really have an edge against other people. It's purely the size which matters at that point, really, the bigger the person and the more fat they have, the more booze they'll be able to take.
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You're incredibly wrong about alcohol tolerance. When I was a massive alcoholic I drank roughly a liter of vodka every day. It took me about a half liter to be about to function as a human. If you talked to me after half a liter you would have no idea if it weren't for the smell.
These days I drink once or twice a week, if at all. If I drank half a liter of liquor I would be fucking blackout shitfaced.
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Yeah, but you were still drunk. You would get physically about as impaired as the regular person. Not equally as, because there's certain parts you get accustomed to. But more or less.
The lethal dose would be roughly the same. You would be able to drink more, and stay conscious longer despite the impairment, but you would be impaired.
I'm Finnish and from a small town and I definitely know alcoholics. My third cousins and their father have an insane "tolerance" to alcohol, insofar that they can get incredibly drunk. They don't have a tolerance in the sense that they consume several times more potent alcohol several times more than me at a faster rate without being as impaired.
If you talked to me after half a liter you would have no idea if it weren’t for the smell.
I believe this is true for most people, but I would know. I know I'm tooting my own horn on an pseudonymous forum, but having driven a taxi in Finland for years and being pretty perceptive in general, I would know. But I do believe you that most wouldn't know. However, you would have an impaired reaction time, you'd have an impaired balance, etc etc.
With weed, there's a huge difference, and people who have bad experiences generally just had a very strong experience, because someone who's a regular smoker gave them a hit, and since monkey see monkey do, they took roughly a similar hit, thinking "one can't hurt, he's taken several", and then ended up being silly high and feeling even feeling nauseous (a lot of the people in my generation tried weed first time when drunk, which is an even worse idea, as alcohol in your blood actually makes you more high, affecting how liver handles cannabinoids, albeit very lightly).
So yeah I am generalising, alcohol does have a tolerance, but compared to weed, it's really non-existent. I can smoke a huge bowl and I won't even get puffy red eyes. If some of my non-smoker friends are even in the same room, they get lazy for the rest of the evening, and if they take a hit, I won't let them take a large one. With alcohol, no matter how experienced you are, people still drink fairly similarly sized drinks of roughly the same strength. You don't see people chugging four bottles of whisky glass after glass in a party of a few hours and then walk out of there, you know?
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I think we have different definitions of tolerance. I enjoy the insight into your Finnish life. I'm US. My grandparents hosted a Finn on foreign exchange while my mom was in university. Even as a child I remember they would exchange letters and talk about her.
I don't want to argue, I just want to say that weed and alcohol is a wonderful combination. It's just too bad people decide to try it while drunk. Recipe for a bad night.
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Yeah if one is trying weed for the first time, they really should smoke first and then start drinking. But a lot of people only worked up courage through drinking all night, then take a massive hit from some super strong strain. Not good.
Yeah I mean I agree with you, there is tolerance, obviously, but I'm trying to show the difference in tolerance in relation to cannabis. The scale is just so wildly different that in terms of the type of tolerance you can build with cannabis, that type of tolerance does not exist for alcohol. Is what I was saying.
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I think I finally understand, this takes some time for me sometimes. I got lit up by what seems like you had no understanding of alcohol tolerance by saying it's all dose vs body weight. Since alcohol tolerance was a big part of my life I weighed in as expert counsel.
I'm quite skilled at evading mandatory drug tests if you'd like any tips should you need work here.
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Don't drive and stay in the basement.
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Not sure why this is downvoted and honestly really fucking hate how smokers get a pass on this tolerance bs.
Don't get high and drive. Don't drink and drive. There is absolutely no grey area. Not because of interactions with police but because you could fucking kill someone.
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So because I’ve consumed a legal substance I’m no longer able to drive a car ever again? What are you on about
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You're kind of missing the point. You're correct on principle but the issue is how to actually regulate it and create laws around it. Im totally in favor of media campaigns with that point, it is a north star. Thats what they actually do in California. Still, someone can be .02 BAC and be be fine to drive. I'm sure there's some alcoholics that can be over .08 and pass a coordination test, due to their tolerance. The .08 is the law for a good reason though.
The only way to do that for thc would be a blood test, to the best of my knowledge. I don't think that's practical. The answer is definitely NOT police discretion though.
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