Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: so as i understand it: your saying all the same regulations as alochol ? I don't think that would necessarily be perfect, but it would be an acceptable place to start. Ok I think we may have found some common ground - Putting aside the debate on the legalality of it (since i do bevlieve thats a matter of opionon at this point) If it were made legal - I believe there should be strick regulations on it (just as there is alochol) - I think 21 should be the limit - The only fuzzy part is this: A "Legal Limit" - Should there be an acceptable legal limit ? or should you not be able to go in public if youve smoked in the last few hours ?  what do you think ?

Why not the same rule as alcohol? If you aren't posing a hazard to anyone, or disturbing the peace, what difference does it make? What real point is there in arresting someone just because he is sitting on the park bench while drunk?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: The people that smoke pot all the time - and are more conerned about getting pot legalized than defending their 2nd amendmant rights - Even if POT was legal . . you would complain about the taxes . . about the "over" regulation of it - 1 - How would police officers be able to tell "how high you are" - TO MY KNOWLEDGE (correct me if im wrong) - There isnt and sobriety test for pot...   Same tests as for alcohol or any other drug a combination of the DAR 7-step process and the NTSA approved SFST. Pulse HGN Nonconvergence Verticle Nystagmus Rhomberg Pulse Walk & Turn Pupilary comparison. One Leg Stand. Pulse Marijuana influence will show up as distorted time estimation, dilated pupils, elevated pulse, & non convergence.  Then those biggest indicators of impairment; observed driving, traffic collisions, and drivers statements. If you think the list includes dilated pupils, that would be erroneous. Marijuana doesn't dilate pupils. Good marijuana does, ditch weed doesnt. Your information is about 15 years behind the times. Pupils do not become dilated, however, which was previously believed. Accurate measurements of pupil diameter after smoking marijuana have actually shown that there is a slight decrease in pupil size, but the change cannot be seen without precise instruments (McKim 1991). sulcus.berkeley.edu/mcb/165_001/papers/manuscripts/_584.html ETA: Also, getting stopped by the cops will cause an elevated pulse.

I have 13 years of experiance and thousands of evals/blood tests that say otherwise.  In this case you reasearch is wrong. Next time you are hanging out with some friends with some good quality weed check for yourself.

Quoted: I have 13 years of experiance and thousands of evals/blood tests that say otherwise.  In this case you reasearch is wrong.

I will go with the research, thanks. Personal evaluations of such things are way too subjective to be useful. People with myopia often have what appear to be dilated pupils.

Next time you are hanging out with some friends with some good quality weed check for yourself.

I would hate to try to even estimate the number of people I have seen smoking pot over the years. A couple hundred thousand were at Altamont (1969) alone. No such consistent effect from weed.

As for that elevated heart rate as a sign, it is true that marijuana accelerates the heart. But that also happens with any caffeinated drink, and just when the person gets pulled over by the cops. It stands to reason that the heart rate would go up even further if the cop asked to check their pulse.  So that one would be completely unreliable for detecting marijuana intoxication, as well.

Quoted: That's a clear sign that you have a limited education on the topic, from my experience.

FYI, you're coming across as, "If you don't agree with me, you're ignorant."

It's not generally a very effective way to influence people to your point of view.

Quoted: An observation I noticed there is a difference in the train of thought concerning pot vs alcohol threads. I was reminded of another thread when I read this one. People that drink at least realize that drinking and driving is wrong, regardless of weather they do it or not. The potheads claim that not only does pot not interfere with judgement or reaction time - it actually makes everything better! Which brings me to the next observation. When this topic comes up the first thing the potheads do is compare pot abuse to alcohol abuse and ask "what would you rather be around, potheads or drunks". In other words the reference is to the abusive pot smoker. Why is that? Because there just aren't that many people that smoke pot occasionally. There are people that claim to smoke pot occasionally but in reality there is no occasion too sacrad to not have to smoke some pot first to enjoy. Going to the movies? Lets's smoke a joint first! Have the day off? Gotta make sure we have some pot! Sex? Well, you get the idea. I've already read the replies from all the other theads about the phd's that have smoked pot ever since they were 16, and how there is nothing wrong with smoking a joint at home on your day off, but I didn't get off the bananna boat yesterday and the truth of the matter is the potheads I know don't have PHd's and they don't smoke a joint at home on their day off, they smoke every chance they get and insist that there is nothing wrong with getting high and driving, because pot makes everything better! In other words, there is no occasion so important, so sacred, that pot smoking should be detered, if only for this one instance, until a better time.

And that shouldn't suprise anyone, because the main interest that ADDICTS have is feeding their addiction and a predeliction to deny that they are addicted. If they are willing to arrange their entire life around ingesting this drug, then they are slaves of the drug.

Quoted: Quoted: That's a clear sign that you have a limited education on the topic, from my experience. FYI, you're coming across as, "If you don't agree with me, you're ignorant." It's not generally a very effective way to influence people to your point of view.

You may think that way about it. But, I tell you what. You get any Las Vegas casino to take that bet and I will own the casino before the week is out.  Been through it enough times to draw a valid statistical sample, I assure you.

If you read the major research yourself you will see why I say it. This statement is nothing new, either. Nixon handpicked his law-and-order conservative friends to study the subject in the biggest commission report ever done by the US Government on the subject. They did two years of research and came to the same conclusion long before I ever said it. The real drug problem, they said, was the failure of our public officials to read the most basic research on the subject.

In a perfect illustration of their point, Nixon refused to read his own commission's report.

Quoted: Quoted: An observation I noticed there is a difference in the train of thought concerning pot vs alcohol threads. I was reminded of another thread when I read this one. People that drink at least realize that drinking and driving is wrong, regardless of weather they do it or not. The potheads claim that not only does pot not interfere with judgement or reaction time - it actually makes everything better! Which brings me to the next observation. When this topic comes up the first thing the potheads do is compare pot abuse to alcohol abuse and ask "what would you rather be around, potheads or drunks". In other words the reference is to the abusive pot smoker. Why is that? Because there just aren't that many people that smoke pot occasionally. There are people that claim to smoke pot occasionally but in reality there is no occasion too sacrad to not have to smoke some pot first to enjoy. Going to the movies? Lets's smoke a joint first! Have the day off? Gotta make sure we have some pot! Sex? Well, you get the idea. I've already read the replies from all the other theads about the phd's that have smoked pot ever since they were 16, and how there is nothing wrong with smoking a joint at home on your day off, but I didn't get off the bananna boat yesterday and the truth of the matter is the potheads I know don't have PHd's and they don't smoke a joint at home on their day off, they smoke every chance they get and insist that there is nothing wrong with getting high and driving, because pot makes everything better! In other words, there is no occasion so important, so sacred, that pot smoking should be detered, if only for this one instance, until a better time. And that shouldn't suprise anyone, because the main interest that ADDICTS have is feeding their addiction and a predeliction to deny that they are addicted. If they are willing to arrange their entire life around ingesting this drug, then they are slaves of the drug.

Whom did you erroneously assume was addicted to anything?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: so as i understand it: your saying all the same regulations as alochol ? I don't think that would necessarily be perfect, but it would be an acceptable place to start. Ok I think we may have found some common ground - Putting aside the debate on the legalality of it (since i do bevlieve thats a matter of opionon at this point) If it were made legal - I believe there should be strick regulations on it (just as there is alochol) - I think 21 should be the limit - The only fuzzy part is this: A "Legal Limit" - Should there be an acceptable legal limit ? or should you not be able to go in public if youve smoked in the last few hours ?  what do you think ? Why not the same rule as alcohol? If you aren't posing a hazard to anyone, or disturbing the peace, what difference does it make? What real point is there in arresting someone just because he is sitting on the park bench while drunk?

Usually if a park has a lot of drunks on benches it's a bad sign, the same as a neighborhood with a lot of drunks staggering around it. If I have to explain the coorelation then you won't understand.

As to the topic about how terrible prohibition was, I lived in a dry county for a little while and it really wasn't all that bad. Contrary to the current falacious reasoning, the roads weren't clogged with drunks because they had to drive to the next county to get drunk. It was a nice clean little town. There were a lot of people that would have been considered poor but the poor areas were not consumed by blight and crime.

It was Greenville Ala in case anyone wonders.

Quoted: Usually if a park has a lot of drunks on benches it's a bad sign, the same as a neighborhood with a lot of drunks staggering around it. If I have to explain the coorelation then you won't understand.

Yeah, I understand that it looks bad. But the USSC already decided a long time ago (Sundance case, I believe) that it was unconstitutional to arrest people for simply being alcoholics. Besides, putting them in the drunk tank doesn't really do much to solve the problem. Nobody gets cured of an alcohol problem in jail.

As to the topic about how terrible prohibition was, I lived in a dry county for a little while and it really wasn't all that bad. Contrary to the current falacious reasoning, the roads weren't clogged with drunks because they had to drive to the next county to get drunk. It was a nice clean little town. There were a lot of people that would have been considered poor but the poor areas were not consumed by blight and crime. It was Greenville Ala in case anyone wonders.

One county doesn't prove much. As for your assumption about drunks on the road, the number of drunks on the road went up during alcohol prohibition. You might say that was just due to more cars being around and that might be partially true. But, at the same time, the arrests for public intoxication, disorderly conduct, and similar alcohol-related offenses broke all previous records by a margin of at least thirty percent during prohibition. You can read some research on the subject at Did Alcohol Prohibition Reduce Alcohol Consumption and Crime? It includes various tables of stats to illustrate what happened.

You will find that, among other things, it caused the biggest teen drinking epidemic ever seen in the US. That was one of the major reasons it was repealed.