‘Nearly 5% of US adults reported driving under the influence of marijuana in 2018, according to a CDC report.’
And 8% under the influence of alcohol.
And ??% under the influence of a distraction.
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Whether you drive under the influence of a controlled substance is a mark of whether you’re a functioning addict or just an addict. (Yes, I know marijuana isn’t physically addictive, but it is mentally addictive. When used daily, it affects your brain chemistry, effectively becoming self-medicating for depression.)
A functioning addict is the guy who drinks a six pack each evening, or the woman who drinks a bottle of wine each evening, or the person who smokes a little weed after they put the kids to bed and settles down in front of the TV at night. They wait until they’re home for the day and not planning to go anywhere before they have their first drink or puff. Functioning addicts pay their bills on time, and they don’t miss work because they’re hungover. They don’t take stupid risks that put their loved ones in jeopardy.
If you wake-and-bake in the morning, or can’t wait until you’re home for the evening to take your first mind-altering substance, regardless of what it is, you have a problem, and if you don’t believe me, you also have a problem with denial.
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And I’ll bet the actual number is a lot higher. I’ve known several hard core drunks who would never admit they ever drove after having too many. “I can handle my liquor.”
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would you apply for a job if they said you could not drink alcohol on weekends?
companies will not hire you if you test positive for weed.
companies can deny your application if you fail a test or do not agree to not smoke weed.
alcohol has no lingering effects? get smashed on the weekend and no effects on monday morning?
thc stays in your bloodstream for 30days? does it affect your motor skills and reasoning ability after years of use?
weed is not illegal. but you cant use it and work for my company.
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I have noticed that I smell pot a lot more in my afternoon commutes these days than I used to. It’s caused me to change my “legalize drugs” stance to “legalize drugs, but if you have to smoke the drug, you can only do it at home.” I would extend this to tobacco products as well, in an ideal world.
There are some jobs like that. Standby pilots can’t drink unless they’re released from being on call for a day, because they don’t know when they’re gonna be called to substitute for a scheduled pilot. The federal law is 8 hours between your last drink and flying, but many airlines push that to 12 hours. If they drink, they risk getting called out during that window and having to turn down the trip.
I do think we need to be a little careful (and we have been through this before) about who we are branding an addict. Someone who has a glass of wine at a restaurant is not waiting to get home until they drink, but they are also not an alcoholic just because they had wine with dinner. Claiming addiction when none exists is not helpful to the cause.
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I agree, and that is why I carefully made the distinction of saying someone who cannot wait until they get home to get their fix has an issue. If you have a designated driver, and choose to have a bottle of wine with your dinner at a restaurant, I have no problem with that kind of responsible use. I also have no problem with responsible adults who drink a glass of wine with dinner and then drive an hour after consuming the drink.
In the end, it’s pretty easy to say, “no thanks, I’m driving, but you go ahead and order a drink for yourself; I can wait until we get home.”
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I don’t know of any company that does that. However I have heard of people who worked for Budweiser and were at a bar and some manager spotted them drinking a competitors beer - fired on Monday.
The reasoning behind that is because weed was illegal in most states. My company will deny employment because of weed because we have contracts with the Federal government and weed is still a federal crime. We have contracts with the Feds and they dictate some or our rules.
Isn’t Bud owned by the Dutch now like Shell? They are supposed to be woke.
The other thing with pot is that it is not only illegal still in some states, but it tends to stay in the body for some days/weeks afterwards. It’s not like alcohol that after 12 hours or so there is no trace and no effect. It also still remains to be seen whether there are long term brain changes due to the use of pot. Just what we need is more zombies at work and on the highways. Just to be clear though, I don’t believe employers should have any hold on what people do after 5:30. period.
We were subject to random drug tests at work, usually applied to persons with a cdl, I had one and got a few calls to test. mandatory drug and alcohol test after an accident. A few people got busted for alcohol after fellow employee or supervisor observations, no pot busts as I recall, but everyone new the rules.
In my Province, its legal to smoke weed but if you are caught driving under the influence,the fines will be the same as a drunk driver.
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I more took it to mean there are the high drivers, plus the drunk drivers, plus the distracted drivers, and they all three combine to make a pretty hazardous picture on the roads.
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I’m just to the point now where I ignore terms ending in “phobia” or “ism”. Just too much made up stuff.
Way back though there was a hilarious TV program, maybe it was part of SNL when it was funny, or Carol Burnett but I really don’t remember. At any rate they gave phobias and isms to some of the common things we do every day. Things like when making a night bank deposit, we (I) always open it a second time to make sure the envelope was deposited in the box. Same thing with mailing a letter. It was really funny and went on for about ten minutes.
Dude, that just read like someone that had been doing a bit too much weed. Remember the time when…
I recall around back when was in high school or so , Motor Trend or maybe Car&Driver did a test of driving on a special course of course of drivers who smoked a doobey vs ones who had a drink. All the ones with a drink under their belt did worse than when with out a drink. Many of the doobey drivers di better. Of course they say these days the weed is a LOT different than 50 uears ago…
I work in an ER…based on what we see come in as overdoses, I can say with certainty that all drugs, even marijuana, are a lot different than they were 50 years ago. And when a personal acquaintance who was a hippie and smoke more than the weight of his old VW bug in weed gives it up because you can’t trust the dealers today not to cut anything into it…
Speaking of VW Bugs and all that can go wrong if you drive while smoking the Devil’s lettuce…
I’m sure that’s just a root beer in his hand.
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Time to grow your own again. “Overdose” is a very generic term that disquises what has actually happened when dealers put stuff in their product that should not be there. These are people that can’t be trusted not to try to maximise their profits at the cost of the welbeing of their clientele. (Oh kinda like the big Pharma guys) I recall a course that during the preceding decades (50s 60s) the profession with the highest opiode use was doctors and they also had the lowest death rate, they were using product (morphine I guess) that was pure and of known dosage. That has stuck in my head all these year. I do not know what is going to happen w/ all the stuff thats going on. I can just worry about the youth and keep my fingers crossed.
Not always…you can have an overdose on anything…prescription meds, OTC meds, Antifreeze, etc. Overdose isn’t just referring to illicit drugs (and you can have an overdose on an illicit drug that hasn’t been cut or modified with anything)
Big Pharm doesn’t help anything, but it’s the insurance companies that are running and ruining healthcare
Amen to that. And hope when people do stupid stuff with drugs, they aren’t behind the wheel where they could harm or kill others