You’ll see a commercial raising the attention that DUI’s are dangerous on the road, but you won’t see a commercial about the dangers of alcohol consumption. Who needs alcohol any way, what medicinal value does it have, don’t people drink it just to get high? Marijuana is demonized and someone will say, ” its only for getting high”!
I’m fine with letting people have their alcohol as long as they don’t take away my mild sedative because some people take certain medicines or they have ailments and they can’t drink alcohol, so how are they suppose to take the edge off, with opiates or benzodiazepines? Even if some people can get benzodiazepines or opiates, not all can, so they are stuck sober all of the time, but Marijuana would give them a choice and a chance to unwind and relax.
That’s the best argument you have? Personally, it doesn’t bother me if you want to smoke. The only problem I have with it is that we do not have a good way to test for being under the influence. I’ve handled too many claims that have related to operating while under the influence of marijuana. If not for the fact that it is illegal in this state, I’m not sure that the operator would have been convicted of OWI. And don’t tell me you are a good stoned driver. That’s a lie or you are too stoned to realize how awful you really are.
Cannabis does cause some impairment, however studies have shown that consumers tend to overestimate this impairment, and that they compensate for it with added caution. Alcohol tends to do the opposite, consumers perceive their impairment to be less that what it actually is and often become overconfident, aggressive, and careless. [Robbe and O’Hanlon. 1993; Robbe. 1995]
In 2015 the U.S. government completed the largest case controlled study to date regarding DUI of cannabis and crash risk. It involved over 9,000 cases and controls spanning a 20-month period. It found that cannabis use while driving is not associated with increased crash risk once adjusted for confounding variables such as age, race, gender, and the presence of other drugs, including alcohol:
“This analysis shows that the significant increased risk of crash involvement associated with THC and illegal drugs shown in Table 3 is not found after adjusting for these demographic variables.”
Further, they found that cannabis did not add to the crash risk for drivers under the influence of alcohol:
“As was described above, there was no difference in crash risk for marijuana (THC)-positive drivers who were also positive for alcohol than for marijuana (THC)-positive drivers with no alcohol, beyond the risk attributable to alcohol.”
They found that alcohol significantly increased crash risk:
“at moderate alcohol levels (0.05 BrAC) risk increases to double that of sober drivers, and at a higher level (0.10 BrAC) the risk increases to five and a half times. At a BrAC of 0.15, the risk is 12 times, and by BrACs of 0.20+ the risk is over 23 times higher.”
Compton and Berning. DOT HS 812 117. Drug and Alcohol Crash Risk. U.S. Department of Transportation – National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 2015.
That said, at some point one could be high enough to significantly increase crash risk, something roughly the equivalent of 0.08% BAC, and DUI laws should reflect that. However it is rare for anyone that high to want to actually drive a car, whereas it is commonplace for someone very drunk to attempt to drive.
SOURCES:
–Robbe and O’Hanlon. DOT HS 808 078. Marijuana and actual driving performance. U.S. Department of Transportation – National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 1993.
–Robbe H. Marijuana’s effects on actual driving performance. HHMRC Road Research Unit, University of Adelaide. 1995.
Nobody can deny the Medical effectiveness of Medical Marijuana. Below is a small sampling of Professional Medical Organizations Worldwide that attest to Medical Marijuana’s effectiveness and Support Legal Access to and Use of Medical Marijuana. . Along with over 20 U.S states that have legalized medical marijuana.
Are they ALL wrong?
International and National Organizations
AIDS Action Council
AIDS Treatment News
American Academy of Family Physicians
American Medical Student Association
American Nurses Association
American Preventive Medical Association
American Public Health Association
American Society of Addiction Medicine
Arthritis Research Campaign (United Kingdom)
Australian Medical Association (New South Wales) Limited
Australian National Task Force on Cannabis
Belgian Ministry of Health
British House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology
British House of Lords Select Committee On Science and Technology (Second Report)
British Medical Association
Canadian AIDS Society
Canadian Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs
Dr. Dean Edell (surgeon and nationally syndicated radio host)
French Ministry of Health
Health Canada
Kaiser Permanente
Lymphoma Foundation of America
The Montel Williams MS Foundation
Multiple Sclerosis Society (Canada)
The Multiple Sclerosis Society (United Kingdom)
National Academy of Sciences Institute Of Medicine (IOM)
National Association for Public Health Policy
National Nurses Society on Addictions
Netherlands Ministry of Health
New England Journal of Medicine
New South Wales (Australia) Parliamentary Working Party on the Use of Cannabis for Medical Purposes
Dr. Andrew Weil (nationally recognized professor of internal medicine and founder of the National Integrative Medicine Council)
State and Local Organizations
Alaska Nurses Association
Being Alive: People With HIV/AIDS Action Committee (San Diego, CA)
California Academy of Family Physicians
California Nurses Association
California Pharmacists Association
Colorado Nurses Association
Connecticut Nurses Association
Florida Governor’s Red Ribbon Panel on AIDS
Florida Medical Association
Hawaii Nurses Association
Illinois Nurses Association
Life Extension Foundation
Medical Society of the State of New York
Mississippi Nurses Association
New Jersey State Nurses Association
New Mexico Medical Society
New Mexico Nurses Association
New York County Medical Society
New York State Nurses Association
North Carolina Nurses Association
Rhode Island Medical Society
Rhode Island State Nurses Association
San Francisco Mayor’s Summit on AIDS and HIV
San Francisco Medical Society
Vermont Medical Marijuana Study Committee
Virginia Nurses Association
Whitman-Walker Clinic (Washington, DC)
Wisconsin Nurses Association
Additional AIDS Organizations
The following organizations are signatories to a February 17, 1999 letter to the US Department of Health petitioning the federal government to “make marijuana legally available … to people living with AIDS.”
AIDS Action Council
AIDS Foundation of Chicago
AIDS National Interfaith Network (Washington, DC)
AIDS Project Arizona
AIDS Project Los Angeles
Being Alive: People with HIV/AIDS Action Committee (San Diego, CA)
Boulder County AIDS Project (Boulder, CO)
Colorado AIDS Project
Center for AIDS Services (Oakland, CA)
Health Force: Women and Men Against AIDS (New York, NY)
Latino Commission on AIDS
Mobilization Against AIDS (San Francisco, CA)
Mothers Voices to End AIDS (New York, NY)
National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual And Transgender Association
National Native American AIDS Prevention Center
Northwest AIDS Foundation
People of Color Against AIDS Network (Seattle, WA)
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Whitman-Walker Clinic (Washington, DC)
Other Health Organizations
The following organizations are signatories to a June 2001 letter to the US Department of Health petitioning the federal government to “allow people suffering from serious illnesses … to apply to the federal government for special permission to use marijuana to treat their symptoms.”
Addiction Treatment Alternatives
AIDS Treatment Initiatives (Atlanta, GA)
American Public Health Association
American Preventive Medical Association
Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights (San Francisco, CA)
California Legislative Council for Older Americans
California Nurses Association
California Pharmacists Association
Embrace Life (Santa Cruz, CA)
Gay and Lesbian Medical Association
Hawaii Nurses Association
Hepatitis C Action and Advisory Coalition
Life Extension Foundation
Maine AIDS Alliance
Minnesota Nurses Association
Mississippi Nurses Association
National Association of People with AIDS
National Association for Public Health Policy
National Women’s Health Network
Nebraska AIDS Project
New Mexico Nurses Association
New York City AIDS Housing Network
New York State Nurses Association Ohio Patient Network Okaloosa AIDS Support and Information Services (Fort Walton, FL)
Physicians for Social Responsibility – Oregon
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Virginia Nurses Association
Wisconsin Nurses Association
Health Organizations Supporting Medical Marijuana Research
International and National Organizations
American Cancer Society
American Medical Association
British Medical Journal
California Medical Association
California Society on Addiction Medicine
Congress of Nursing Practice
Gay and Lesbian Medical Association
Jamaican National Commission on Ganja
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Workshop on the Medical Utility of Marijuana
Texas Medical Association
Vermont Medical Society
Wisconsin State Medical Society
Fear of Medical Marijuana Legalization is unfounded. Not based on any science or fact whatsoever.
So please, all prohibitionists, we beg you, give your scare tactics, “Conspiracy Theories” and “Doomsday Scenarios” over the inevitable Legalization of Medical Marijuana a rest. Nobody is buying them anymore these days. Okay?
Furthermore, if all prohibitionists get when they look into that nice, big and shiny crystal ball of theirs, while wondering about the future of Medical Marijuana Legalization Nationwide, is horror, doom, and despair, well then I suggest they return that thing as quickly as possible and reclaim the money they shelled out for it, since it’s obviously defective.
The prohibition of marijuana has not decreased the supply nor the demand for medical marijuana at all. Not one single iota, and it never will. Just a huge and complete waste of our tax dollars to continue criminalizing sick patients and senior citizens in pain for choosing a natural, non-toxic, relatively benign plant proven to be much safer than daily handfuls of deadly, toxic, man-made, highly addictive, narcotic pain pills and other pharmaceuticals.
If prohibitionists are going to take it upon themselves to worry about “saving us all” from ourselves, then they need to start with the drug that causes more death and destruction than every other drug in the world COMBINED, which is alcohol!
Why do prohibitionists feel the continued need to vilify and demonize marijuana when they could more wisely focus their efforts on a real, proven killer, alcohol, which again causes more destruction, violence, and death than all other drugs, COMBINED?
Prohibitionists really should get their priorities straight and or practice a little live and let live. They’ll live longer, happier, and healthier, with a lot less stress if they refrain from being bent on trying to control others through Draconian Marijuana Laws.
Not studied long enough, you claim? Did you know Marijuana is perhaps the most studied therapeutic substance on Earth? It’s true:
“Despite the US government’s nearly century-long prohibition of the plant, cannabis is nonetheless one of the most investigated therapeutically active substances in history. To date, there are over 20,000 published studies or reviews in the scientific literature referencing the cannabis plant and its cannabinoids, nearly half of which were published within the last five years according to a keyword search on PubMed Central, the US government repository for peer-reviewed scientific research. Over 1,450 peer-reviewed papers were published in 2013 alone. (By contrast, a keyword search of “hydrocodone,” a commonly prescribed painkiller, yields just over 600 total references in the entire body of available scientific literature.)”
Let’s Open Our Eyes, End The Lies, and Legalize Nationwide!
So the doctors think that sick people who have not harmed anyone but themselves should be jailed simply because they took a medicine the doctor didn’t like. There is a name for people who think like that, but it isn’t “doctor.”
We have updated our privacy policy to be more clear and meet the new requirements of the GDPR. By continuing to use our site, you accept our revised Privacy Policy.
You’ll see a commercial raising the attention that DUI’s are dangerous on the road, but you won’t see a commercial about the dangers of alcohol consumption. Who needs alcohol any way, what medicinal value does it have, don’t people drink it just to get high? Marijuana is demonized and someone will say, ” its only for getting high”!
I’m fine with letting people have their alcohol as long as they don’t take away my mild sedative because some people take certain medicines or they have ailments and they can’t drink alcohol, so how are they suppose to take the edge off, with opiates or benzodiazepines? Even if some people can get benzodiazepines or opiates, not all can, so they are stuck sober all of the time, but Marijuana would give them a choice and a chance to unwind and relax.
That’s the best argument you have? Personally, it doesn’t bother me if you want to smoke. The only problem I have with it is that we do not have a good way to test for being under the influence. I’ve handled too many claims that have related to operating while under the influence of marijuana. If not for the fact that it is illegal in this state, I’m not sure that the operator would have been convicted of OWI. And don’t tell me you are a good stoned driver. That’s a lie or you are too stoned to realize how awful you really are.
Legalizing Marijuana will not create a massive influx of marijuana impaired drivers our roads.
It will not create an influx of professionals (doctors, pilots, bus drivers, etc..) under the influence on the job either.
This is a prohibitionist propaganda scare tactic.
Truth: Responsible drivers don’t drive while intoxicated on any substance period!
Irresponsible drivers are already on our roads, and they will drive while intoxicated regardless of their drug of choice’s legality.
Therefore, legalizing marijuana will have little to zero impact on the amount of marijuana impaired drivers on our roads.
The same thing applies to people being under the influence of marijuana on the job.
Responsible people do not go to work impaired, period. Regardless of their drug of choice’s legality.
Cannabis does cause some impairment, however studies have shown that consumers tend to overestimate this impairment, and that they compensate for it with added caution. Alcohol tends to do the opposite, consumers perceive their impairment to be less that what it actually is and often become overconfident, aggressive, and careless. [Robbe and O’Hanlon. 1993; Robbe. 1995]
In 2015 the U.S. government completed the largest case controlled study to date regarding DUI of cannabis and crash risk. It involved over 9,000 cases and controls spanning a 20-month period. It found that cannabis use while driving is not associated with increased crash risk once adjusted for confounding variables such as age, race, gender, and the presence of other drugs, including alcohol:
“This analysis shows that the significant increased risk of crash involvement associated with THC and illegal drugs shown in Table 3 is not found after adjusting for these demographic variables.”
Further, they found that cannabis did not add to the crash risk for drivers under the influence of alcohol:
“As was described above, there was no difference in crash risk for marijuana (THC)-positive drivers who were also positive for alcohol than for marijuana (THC)-positive drivers with no alcohol, beyond the risk attributable to alcohol.”
They found that alcohol significantly increased crash risk:
“at moderate alcohol levels (0.05 BrAC) risk increases to double that of sober drivers, and at a higher level (0.10 BrAC) the risk increases to five and a half times. At a BrAC of 0.15, the risk is 12 times, and by BrACs of 0.20+ the risk is over 23 times higher.”
Compton and Berning. DOT HS 812 117. Drug and Alcohol Crash Risk. U.S. Department of Transportation – National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 2015.
That said, at some point one could be high enough to significantly increase crash risk, something roughly the equivalent of 0.08% BAC, and DUI laws should reflect that. However it is rare for anyone that high to want to actually drive a car, whereas it is commonplace for someone very drunk to attempt to drive.
SOURCES:
–Robbe and O’Hanlon. DOT HS 808 078. Marijuana and actual driving performance. U.S. Department of Transportation – National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 1993.
–Robbe H. Marijuana’s effects on actual driving performance. HHMRC Road Research Unit, University of Adelaide. 1995.
Nobody can deny the Medical effectiveness of Medical Marijuana. Below is a small sampling of Professional Medical Organizations Worldwide that attest to Medical Marijuana’s effectiveness and Support Legal Access to and Use of Medical Marijuana. . Along with over 20 U.S states that have legalized medical marijuana.
Are they ALL wrong?
International and National Organizations
AIDS Action Council
AIDS Treatment News
American Academy of Family Physicians
American Medical Student Association
American Nurses Association
American Preventive Medical Association
American Public Health Association
American Society of Addiction Medicine
Arthritis Research Campaign (United Kingdom)
Australian Medical Association (New South Wales) Limited
Australian National Task Force on Cannabis
Belgian Ministry of Health
British House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology
British House of Lords Select Committee On Science and Technology (Second Report)
British Medical Association
Canadian AIDS Society
Canadian Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs
Dr. Dean Edell (surgeon and nationally syndicated radio host)
French Ministry of Health
Health Canada
Kaiser Permanente
Lymphoma Foundation of America
The Montel Williams MS Foundation
Multiple Sclerosis Society (Canada)
The Multiple Sclerosis Society (United Kingdom)
National Academy of Sciences Institute Of Medicine (IOM)
National Association for Public Health Policy
National Nurses Society on Addictions
Netherlands Ministry of Health
New England Journal of Medicine
New South Wales (Australia) Parliamentary Working Party on the Use of Cannabis for Medical Purposes
Dr. Andrew Weil (nationally recognized professor of internal medicine and founder of the National Integrative Medicine Council)
State and Local Organizations
Alaska Nurses Association
Being Alive: People With HIV/AIDS Action Committee (San Diego, CA)
California Academy of Family Physicians
California Nurses Association
California Pharmacists Association
Colorado Nurses Association
Connecticut Nurses Association
Florida Governor’s Red Ribbon Panel on AIDS
Florida Medical Association
Hawaii Nurses Association
Illinois Nurses Association
Life Extension Foundation
Medical Society of the State of New York
Mississippi Nurses Association
New Jersey State Nurses Association
New Mexico Medical Society
New Mexico Nurses Association
New York County Medical Society
New York State Nurses Association
North Carolina Nurses Association
Rhode Island Medical Society
Rhode Island State Nurses Association
San Francisco Mayor’s Summit on AIDS and HIV
San Francisco Medical Society
Vermont Medical Marijuana Study Committee
Virginia Nurses Association
Whitman-Walker Clinic (Washington, DC)
Wisconsin Nurses Association
Additional AIDS Organizations
The following organizations are signatories to a February 17, 1999 letter to the US Department of Health petitioning the federal government to “make marijuana legally available … to people living with AIDS.”
AIDS Action Council
AIDS Foundation of Chicago
AIDS National Interfaith Network (Washington, DC)
AIDS Project Arizona
AIDS Project Los Angeles
Being Alive: People with HIV/AIDS Action Committee (San Diego, CA)
Boulder County AIDS Project (Boulder, CO)
Colorado AIDS Project
Center for AIDS Services (Oakland, CA)
Health Force: Women and Men Against AIDS (New York, NY)
Latino Commission on AIDS
Mobilization Against AIDS (San Francisco, CA)
Mothers Voices to End AIDS (New York, NY)
National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual And Transgender Association
National Native American AIDS Prevention Center
Northwest AIDS Foundation
People of Color Against AIDS Network (Seattle, WA)
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Whitman-Walker Clinic (Washington, DC)
Other Health Organizations
The following organizations are signatories to a June 2001 letter to the US Department of Health petitioning the federal government to “allow people suffering from serious illnesses … to apply to the federal government for special permission to use marijuana to treat their symptoms.”
Addiction Treatment Alternatives
AIDS Treatment Initiatives (Atlanta, GA)
American Public Health Association
American Preventive Medical Association
Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights (San Francisco, CA)
California Legislative Council for Older Americans
California Nurses Association
California Pharmacists Association
Embrace Life (Santa Cruz, CA)
Gay and Lesbian Medical Association
Hawaii Nurses Association
Hepatitis C Action and Advisory Coalition
Life Extension Foundation
Maine AIDS Alliance
Minnesota Nurses Association
Mississippi Nurses Association
National Association of People with AIDS
National Association for Public Health Policy
National Women’s Health Network
Nebraska AIDS Project
New Mexico Nurses Association
New York City AIDS Housing Network
New York State Nurses Association Ohio Patient Network Okaloosa AIDS Support and Information Services (Fort Walton, FL)
Physicians for Social Responsibility – Oregon
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Virginia Nurses Association
Wisconsin Nurses Association
Health Organizations Supporting Medical Marijuana Research
International and National Organizations
American Cancer Society
American Medical Association
British Medical Journal
California Medical Association
California Society on Addiction Medicine
Congress of Nursing Practice
Gay and Lesbian Medical Association
Jamaican National Commission on Ganja
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Workshop on the Medical Utility of Marijuana
Texas Medical Association
Vermont Medical Society
Wisconsin State Medical Society
Fear of Medical Marijuana Legalization is unfounded. Not based on any science or fact whatsoever.
So please, all prohibitionists, we beg you, give your scare tactics, “Conspiracy Theories” and “Doomsday Scenarios” over the inevitable Legalization of Medical Marijuana a rest. Nobody is buying them anymore these days. Okay?
Furthermore, if all prohibitionists get when they look into that nice, big and shiny crystal ball of theirs, while wondering about the future of Medical Marijuana Legalization Nationwide, is horror, doom, and despair, well then I suggest they return that thing as quickly as possible and reclaim the money they shelled out for it, since it’s obviously defective.
The prohibition of marijuana has not decreased the supply nor the demand for medical marijuana at all. Not one single iota, and it never will. Just a huge and complete waste of our tax dollars to continue criminalizing sick patients and senior citizens in pain for choosing a natural, non-toxic, relatively benign plant proven to be much safer than daily handfuls of deadly, toxic, man-made, highly addictive, narcotic pain pills and other pharmaceuticals.
If prohibitionists are going to take it upon themselves to worry about “saving us all” from ourselves, then they need to start with the drug that causes more death and destruction than every other drug in the world COMBINED, which is alcohol!
Why do prohibitionists feel the continued need to vilify and demonize marijuana when they could more wisely focus their efforts on a real, proven killer, alcohol, which again causes more destruction, violence, and death than all other drugs, COMBINED?
Prohibitionists really should get their priorities straight and or practice a little live and let live. They’ll live longer, happier, and healthier, with a lot less stress if they refrain from being bent on trying to control others through Draconian Marijuana Laws.
Not studied long enough, you claim? Did you know Marijuana is perhaps the most studied therapeutic substance on Earth? It’s true:
“Despite the US government’s nearly century-long prohibition of the plant, cannabis is nonetheless one of the most investigated therapeutically active substances in history. To date, there are over 20,000 published studies or reviews in the scientific literature referencing the cannabis plant and its cannabinoids, nearly half of which were published within the last five years according to a keyword search on PubMed Central, the US government repository for peer-reviewed scientific research. Over 1,450 peer-reviewed papers were published in 2013 alone. (By contrast, a keyword search of “hydrocodone,” a commonly prescribed painkiller, yields just over 600 total references in the entire body of available scientific literature.)”
Let’s Open Our Eyes, End The Lies, and Legalize Nationwide!
So the doctors think that sick people who have not harmed anyone but themselves should be jailed simply because they took a medicine the doctor didn’t like. There is a name for people who think like that, but it isn’t “doctor.”