Smoking a joint and driving.

[Yetman]

My mrs said she saw a prog the other night where the plod were stopping people and testing them with various methods (pupil size charts and stuff) and some people who were obviously off their tits passed ok and were left to carry on. One guy who’s car stunk of weed, had bad red eye and although he passed all the tests, they took him in anyway (although I’m not sure what they could charge him with based on that evidence alone?).

I don’t get red eye, but I might stop smoking while driving over xmas. Getting pulled with your car stinking of weed is pretty much bang to rights.

 

[baldrick]

As has been stated, very little time has been devoted to the effects of driving whilst blazed whilst we all know about the incontrovertible dangers of drink driving.

True, but while it's not been studied, I don't think that taking anything that changes your perception is a particularly good idea if you're going to drive.

I don't drive, but I have refused to get in a car with a driver who has been smoking a lot. it didn't make me any friends, to put it mildly, but i'm not going to take that risk. One or two spliffs i'm not too bothered about, but a night of endless toking and then getting behind the wheel of a car is not a good mix, imo.

 

[aqua]

I don't get why people are arguing about driving under the influence of anything.

Cars are heavy, people are fragile. End of.

Why bother? Why put it down to chance or stubborness?

Just don't chance it. Tis stupid no?

totally agree with this

 

[Crispy]

When I was young and stupid I drove from Bath to Bristol after a night of heavy smoking. That was the last time I did that, because I literally 'came to' half a mile from my destination, with no memory whatsoever of the intervening time. Scared the crap out of me.

 

[Griff]

Used to a lot about 15 years ago.

Had a morning toke round a mate's a few months ago before the 3 mile drive home, and didn't like it one little bit and couldn't wait to get home safely.

 

[skyscraper101]

There's a Bill Hicks sketch in this

 

[thursdog]

i wonder people feel about prescription meds and driving?

i know plenty of people who are driving whilst heavily medicated, one of my neighbours has a pill tray and takes daily largactyl, orlanzapine, diazepam as well as others i cant remember, she swallows a handful of about a dozen pills three times a day....and drives a car.

i know the 'correct' procedure , the doc gives you a prescription for meds that might impair your driving ability and along with the paper he's obliged to tell you to inform dvla that your on this medicine, they then act accordingly ....maybe suspending your licence.....but what if the doc neglects to say anything....even if he does perhaps people like my neighbour have other things on their mind (being bipolar an' all)

at least smoking pot makes you a bit wary and more likely to err on the side of caution when driving, some of these prescription pills just put you on a fluffy little cloud....until the moment that your cloud becomes a motor vehicle involved in a collision that is

 

[Spymaster]

Did it a few times when I was a kid.

Wouldn't do it now and if I couldn't stop them, would grass anyone who I believed to be drugged and driving to the OB just as I would a drink driver.

I've had a mate killed by a stoned driver.

 

[*Miss Daisy*]

i wonder people feel about prescription meds and driving?

i know plenty of people who are driving whilst heavily medicated, one of my neighbours has a pill tray and takes daily largactyl, orlanzapine, diazepam as well as others i cant remember, she swallows a handful of about a dozen pills three times a day....and drives a car.

i know the 'correct' procedure , the doc gives you a prescription for meds that might impair your driving ability and along with the paper he's obliged to tell you to inform dvla that your on this medicine, they then act accordingly ....maybe suspending your licence.....but what if the doc neglects to say anything....even if he does perhaps people like my neighbour have other things on their mind (being bipolar an' all)

at least smoking pot makes you a bit wary and more likely to err on the side of caution when driving, some of these prescription pills just put you on a fluffy little cloud....until the moment that your cloud becomes a motor vehicle involved in a collision that is

Very good point thursday! good post.

largactyl, orlanzapine, diazepam

I have had those drugs and the largactyl knocked my sox off - i was like a zombie! god noes how someone can drive on them,

...and people who cant see properly and are too proud/lazy/skint to get new glasses.

 

[Kanda]

...and people who cant see properly and are too proud/lazy/skint to get new glasses.

Again, just as bad as drunk drivers.

 

[thursdog]

Very good point thursday! good post.


I have had those drugs and the largactyl knocked my sox off - i was like a zombie! god noes how someone can drive on them,

...and people who cant see properly and are too proud/lazy/skint to get new glasses.

my neighbour takes these meds and they dont seem to affect her, obviously they do in some way and if i had any one of them i'd be on my back .....in my previous post i quoted some research that said that seasoned smokers that had smoked performed no worse in a test than straight people...


....and surely that the point?

not how much of any substance youve consumed but your competence .
my neighbours takes medication for her condition, medicated she can drive well .
me i can drive well after a few joints because i have learned the skill, i'm competent and any competence test would show me to be so.
a rough correlation exists between competence and alcohol levels hence the law, no correlation exists between competence and cannabis , meaure the blood and my levels will tell you either i smoked a weak joint this morning or had a fierce sesh on the bong on tuesday.

competence is what we must examine.


interestingly the govts advice to tired drivers is to drink some strong coffee, in other words take a drug that positively effects your ability.

 

[Nixon]

I don't do it but I have a friend who sometimes will give me lifts to college.He gives me a lift in exchange for being his spliff builder and his spliff holder and his police watcher,but I never mind too much.It's proper wake and bake style at like 7 am driving through the fucking countryside.

We never get fucking baked either,because it's in a car and shit..and concentration is fucking needed.One spliff between us or something.Less people are on the road at that time too,which is nice.

Even if I did have a car I wouldn't fucking bother..

 

[Radar]

My mrs said she saw a prog the other night where the plod were stopping people and testing them with various methods (pupil size charts and stuff) and some people who were obviously off their tits passed ok and were left to carry on. One guy who’s car stunk of weed, had bad red eye and although he passed all the tests, they took him in anyway (although I’m not sure what they could charge him with based on that evidence alone?).

I don’t get red eye, but I might stop smoking while driving over xmas. Getting pulled with your car stinking of weed is pretty much bang to rights.

Exactly..

If there are obvious signs there has been toking in the car then so be it.

What I'm leery of is being pulled over for whatever reason, passing the impairment test (like above) and still being tested for by-products. Because as we all know, those by-products can be detected weeks after said toke and well after being impaired. If the roadside cop takes a dislike to you and pushes things through then you're screwed.

 

[Brainaddict]

I find it funny that some people are actually arguing about whether smoking weed slows your reaction times and demanding proof. I mean, it would be nice to have a scientific study proving it, and while we're at it, why don't we do a scientific study to find out where bears shit?

 

[thursdog]

I find it funny that some people are actually arguing about whether smoking weed slows your reaction times and demanding proof. I mean, it would be nice to have a scientific study proving it, and while we're at it, why don't we do a scientific study to find out where bears shit?

from my earlier post

<<There are three conditions under which marijuana can be shown to impair general psychological performance in laboratory subjects. They are:
1. by giving it to people who have never had it before;
2. by giving people very high doses that they are not used to
(or giving it orally to people used to smoking it); and
3. by giving people very hard things to do, especially things that they have never had a chance to practice while under the influence of the drug.
Under any of these three conditions, pharmacologists can demonstrate that marijuana impairs performance. And if we look at the work being done by NIMH-funded researchers, all of it fulfills one or more of these conditions. In addition, the tests being used by these scientists are designed to look for impairments of functions that have nothing to do with why marijuana users put themselves in an altered state of consciousness. People who get high on marijuana do not spontaneously try to do arithmetic problems or test their fine coordination.
What pharmacologists cannot make sense of is that people who are high on marijuana cannot be shown, in objective terms, to be different from people who are not high. That is, if a marijuana user is allowed to smoke his usual doses and then to do things he has had a chance to practice while high, he does not appear to perform any differently from someone who is not high. Now, this pattern of users performing better than nonusers is a general phenomenon associated with all psychoactive drugs. For example, an alcoholic will vastly outperform a nondrinker on any test if the two are equally intoxicated; he has learned to compensate for the effects of the drug on his nervous system. But compensation can proceed only so far until it runs up against a ceiling imposed by the pharmacological action of the drug on lower brain centers. Again, since marijuana has no clinically significant action on lower brain centers, compensation can reach 100 percent with practice.>>

 

[Crispy]

Abscence of proof is not proof of abscence.

For now, I'll rely on my own experience, which is that when I'm stoned, I'm an uncoordinated, clumsy, forgetful, mind-wandering waster who shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of anything bigger than a tricycle.

 

[sojourner]

All the smokers on here are saying the same thing...apart from me

I've smoked daily since I was 15, and I'm nearly 40. In my 20s and 30s I'd drive stoned, no problem. Looking back on it, I was mostly safe, but it does alter your consciousness, no matter how much you say you smoke and how used to it you are. I've tried it again lately, and realised that

 

[Brainaddict]

general psychological performance

What's the definition of this? Does it include physical tests? If not then its irrelevant.

 

[Brainaddict]

Abscence of proof is not proof of abscence.

For now, I'll rely on my own experience, which is that when I'm stoned, I'm an uncoordinated, clumsy, forgetful, mind-wandering waster who shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of anything bigger than a tricycle.

Quite.

I'm also a smoker and that's why I don't think people should smoke and drive.

Having read this thread, I stand - as I often do - in complete awe before the human capacity for self-delusion under the guidance of self-interest

 

[hiccup]

I've driven whilst stoned a few times. Usually found it a very pleasant, serene experience. Remember one lovely floaty drive back from work in Earls Court to Ealing at about 1am. Also, dissolving into giggles trying to find my way out of a Sainsburys car park with a mate.

In retrospect, would've been a lot less serene if I'd run someone over and killed them.

Wouldn't do it these days. Easy thing to say whilst stone cold sober and not needing to get home late at night though I suppose.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Anyone who thinks its in any way different to drink driving is a fucking moron.

 

[sam/phallocrat]

do you really mean that?

 

[fela fan]

Anyone who thinks its in any way different to drink driving is a fucking moron.

Well in that case i'm a fucking moron.

Alcohol for a start deadens your consciouness, while dope heightens it.

Driving in the sticks with a spliff and some great music on, windows down, is one life's greatest pleasures. Absolutely not the same on the booze.

Fucking moron i am.

 

[Griff]

Driving in the sticks with a spliff and some great music on, windows down, is one life's greatest pleasures. Absolutely not the same on the booze.

I used to think like that, but maybe it's because I smoke less or am getting older, it's not so pleasurable

As mentioned earlier in this thread, having a sesh with my mate a few months back, crashed there, woke up, had coffee and bacon sarnies followed by a cheeky spliff then the 3 mile drive back home was bizarre.

A journey I do every week to Waitrose and back, all of a sudden it looked strange and unrecognisable. I didn't know where I was.


Like I say I'm getting older, and it wasn't a nice feeling in my head. I've driven stoned on many occasions but that was a wake up call.

 

[Crispy]

Alcohol for a start deadens your consciouness, while dope heightens it.

Driving in the sticks with a spliff and some great music on, windows down, is one life's greatest pleasures.

Jesus H. Christ

 

[Yetman]

I used to think like that, but maybe it's because I smoke less or am getting older, it's not so pleasurable

As mentioned earlier in this thread, having a sesh with my mate a few months back, crashed there, woke up, had coffee and bacon sarnies followed by a cheeky spliff then the 3 mile drive back home was bizarre.

A journey I do every week to Waitrose and back, all of a sudden it looked strange and unrecognisable. I didn't know where I was.


Like I say I'm getting older, and it wasn't a nice feeling in my head. I've driven stoned on many occasions but that was a wake up call.

If I felt anything like that I wouldnt drive. Another thing with weed is you tend to know how stoned you are - with booze, the more you get drunk the more confident you seem to get that you are 'fine'

 

[fela fan]

Jesus H. Christ

This feels like deja vu.

 

[fela fan]

Like I say I'm getting older, and it wasn't a nice feeling in my head. I've driven stoned on many occasions but that was a wake up call.

I had a wake up call too. It happened to be a particularly, and unusually, strong batch of grass that was fed to me. But the real bad thing was that i was on a fast two lane road with lots of cars. Never again.

But in the sticks with just the odd car every few minutes or so and my normal strength weed, no worries. Just a great feeling about life.

 

[Crispy]

This feels like deja vu.

Too right. Remind me never to get in a car with you.

 

[nino_savatte]

I don't drive but I certainly won't get on my bike if I've been smoking (not in London at any rate).