Posted on 07/04/2011 9:29:45 AM PDT by Signalman
Deadly repercussions have continued to accompany growing medical marijuana use in California. The Los Angeles Times reports on statistics showing the surging number of car accidents involving high drivers over the last decade, which local law enforcement attribute to the growing number of medical marijuana users:
“The most recent assessment by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, based on random roadside checks, found that 16.3% of all drivers nationwide at night were on various legal and illegal impairing drugs, half them high on marijuana.
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.”
While President Obama has gone from a hands-off approach to now pushing federal prosecution of anyone in the business of growing or supplying marijuana for medical patients, the medical marijuana movement continues to pick speed as now one third of all states allow such sales. The growing legality of medical marijuana seems mind-boggling considering most states don’t even have a formal standard on the amount of the drug drivers should, if at all, be allowed to have in their blood.
“While 13 states have adopted zero-tolerance laws, 35 states including California have no formal standard, and instead rely on the judgment of police to determine impairment.
Even the most cautious approach of zero tolerance is fraught with complex medical issues about whether residual low levels of marijuana can impair a driver days after the drug is smoked. Marijuana advocates say some state and federal officials are trying to make it impossible for individuals to use marijuana and drive legally for days or weeks afterward.”
The call for a standardized system to judge impairment is debated by national leaders in law enforcement, as some feel the current system works well to identify impaired drivers, and any future legal limit or medical test would not bring about major change. However federal officials and local prosecutors argue that the lack of a standard makes convictions harder to obtain.
“In October, a San Diego jury acquitted Terry Barraclough, a 60-year-old technical writer and medical marijuana user, on manslaughter charges in a fatal crash that occurred shortly after he had smoked marijuana.
A blood test showed he had high levels of active marijuana ingredients in his blood, but the jury heard conflicting expert testimony from toxicologists about the possible effects.
Martin Doyle, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted Barraclough, said the acquittal showed that the lack of a formal legal limit on marijuana intoxication makes such prosecutions tough.”
Over 500,000 Americans currently use legal medical marijuana. Do you want to share the road with any of them?
Those drugs cause far more impairment and are far more dangerous than cannabis.
If you and a doctor agree that cannabis helps you, you should be allowed to use it responsibly. I just don't understand the argument of singling out this one plant when far worse has been legal for decades.
$. Billion$ and billion$ of $. Whores on both sides of the street will fight like demons to keep it.
>>> More Accidents with Drugged Drivers As Medical Marijuana Use Grows
Sounds reasonable. But on the other hand I’ve never heard of a brawl where one pothead smashes his baggie on the bar and with the sharp edges carves up the face of another pothead.
I understand that but I think when we let the debate fall to those who impose their opinions as fact, listen to distorted statistics, and find reason to suspend freedom and liberty behind any little rock we pay a heavier price. The same BS is used for global warming, gun control, TSA and more. FR could strip me if it wanted but my love of freedom far outweighs the people that make a living from pot laws and prisons or people that just don’t know the truth. I’d no more trade liberty for a FR membership than a WWF card.
I actually agree with everything you are saying. It’s probably about the only debate in regard to the freedom, liberty, and rights of which you speak I have walked away from on this site. HOwever, I have been burned so badly here in the past by some of those posters that I did it for self preservation and the fact I refused to defend those who would strip others of freedoms and liberty. Selfish, probably, but unlike the others, I don’t go on those threads and play tit for tat as I was subjected to for quite a few years here. I just stay out of the conversation most of the time.
If cultivation of pot were not a felony for even small amounts, most would grow it themselves. Then again, it takes a special sort of genius to ban the growing of plants and inflating the price to astronomical levels.
“Then again, it takes a special sort of genius to ban the growing of plants and inflating the price to astronomical levels.”
Some would grow it but not most. Most people don’t distill their own scotch or ferment their own wine.
The war on drugs is a failure, agreed. Drugs are an evil upon our society and legalizing them won’t help. I’ve seen the difference pot smoking has on people, you will never convince me that it is harmless.
Most people don’t moonshine because a) it’s pointless when you can go to the liquor store and get a ton of booze at a pretty cheap price and b) it’s a little more involved and risky than growing a plant. I believe stills can blow up in your face and if the booze isn’t made right you can go blind (or get sick or die or whatever) from drinking the stuff.
With pot, growing is pretty simple. Most people don’t do it because the laws against it are ridiculously harsh. In Colorado growing a single pot plant is a potential class 4 felony, which is the same class of felony as certain types of sexual assault, large scale theft, kidnapping, and other crimes that are actually like crimes. It’s absurd that growing a single pot plant in the eyes of the state is equivalent to sexual assault, but it is and that scares people off from growing.
If they made jaywalking a class 4 felony in this state, I probably wouldn’t do it. It wouldn’t make the law any less awful and it wouldn’t make the fact that someone could go to prison for it for 2=6 years any less a total travesty of justice, but I do guarantee it would cut down on jaywalkers.
I would never make the claim that pot smoking is “harmless.” But this country allows people to do a lot of things that are not harmless, and frankly, different people can do the same thing with varying degrees of harm to themselves. Not everyone who drinks is a violent stone cold alcoholic who gets the DTs when they aren’t drinking, and not every pot smoker is a Jeff Spicoli caricature living in his mother’s basement and not able to form a basic sentence in his head.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2744822/posts
What they should be worried about.
I, too, was very hesitant to try medical cannabis for this very reason. I’ve seen Cheech and Chong and I’ve seen the movies and TV - this is NOT like this! I ingest my medicine and my experience has been, especially now I’m off all the morphine I’ve been on for over a decade, that I am clearer than I have ever been. I feel, see, taste so much differently and in a great way! My pain is taken care of and I am doing things I haven’t done in years!
I, too, was afraid to try this. I was pleasantly surprised and I will not give this up. If this is high, I do like it! But it’s not like what the media portrays. Do yourself a favor and try it. Your body will thank you!
Also, are they attributing the accident cause to be marijuana use in every accident where it was found to be a present, regardless of what other factors were present, or even whether the use was attributed to the at-fault driver?
I've seen them play games with statistical data that attempts to attribute accidents to alcohol use if there was any alcohol used by any of the drivers involved, regardless of whether they were found to be at fault or not. I expect they'd do the same with stats on marijuana use if it suits them.
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