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kleinbl00  ·  2521 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Scientists Still Seek A Reliable DUI Test For Marijuana

    Christine, the officers all decided, would be a danger behind the wheel. In real life, they would have arrested her.

    "Yeah, she'd be going to jail," said Rich Armstrong, an officer with Colorado State Patrol.

    But things weren't so clear with the other volunteers. A lot of the officers had decided they wouldn't arrest Eugene Butler or a volunteer named John (who also asked that we not use his last name); both men aced the same roadside tests Christine flunked, even though they, too, had just smoked a lot in the RV.

Yeah. So.

The road to my grandparents' house is the most dangerous drunk driving road in the United States. It looks like a graveyard from all the roadside memorials. By the time I'd graduated high school I'd lost two classmates... and maybe a dozen of my classmates had lost siblings or parents to drunk drivers. Just three weeks ago a friend of mine lost her uncle, her aunt, and three cousins to a drunk driver.

Meanwhile I commuted 30 miles a day on motorcycle through post-legalization LA and lemme tell ya - enough people are stoned on the 405 that you smell weed from on-ramp to off-ramp. It's like a slow-rolling Phish concert. And I was never even scared.

Alcohol predictably fucks up your reflexes and judgement. Weed does not. If you think you can be stoned and drive, because you've been stoned and driven, you're probably right. LA drivers are terrible but I've seen no evidence that they're objectively more terrible on weed. Alcohol? Fuck to the yes.

It took me a while to figure out what all the white latex gloves were for. I'd see people driving around like Michael Jackson and couldn't figure it out. Then I realized that if you smoke a joint with only that hand and jettison the glove and roach when you get pulled over, they can't bust you for paraphernalia. They can't bust you for possession. They can only bust you for what you do, not what you have, which means unless they feel like fighting you over a field sobriety test in court, you're gonna skate.

And I'm 100% cool with it.