Cannabis connoisseurs are not down-and-out alcoholics, and very few of them are stereotypical burnt-out hippies.
Cannabis connoisseurs are functioning members of society, working alongside you everyday, capable of running errands, having a social life, raising a family and driving a car.
Driving as a cannabis connoisseur is entirely different from drinking and driving.
First, there is a lack of consensus on how much THC is too much, and there isn’t any correlation between THC in blood levels and traffic fatalities.
One should at least have a correlation if one is going to presume a causation, no?
The police and politicians have merely begged the question, that is, assumed the conclusion proven in the premise of the argument.
But if police can arrest you based on a joint you smoked a day ago, the consequence would be litigation, more bureaucratic nonsense tying up the courts.
So to save taxpayer’s time, money and resources, any road-side blood test for THC should be rejected outright.
Second, a double-blind study done by the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine found that 85 subjects drove the same sober as they did stoned.
Perhaps one of the reasons the current Liberal government is adamant about a new task force is because it must ignore the 2002 Senate report.
On traffic, the report says, “Cannabis alone, particularly in low doses, has little effect on the skills involved in automobile driving. Cannabis leads to a more cautious style of driving. However it has a negative impact on decision time and trajectory. This in itself does not mean that drivers under the influence of cannabis represent a traffic safety risk;”
And the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concluded that if you factor out age, gender, race and alcohol, “drivers who tested positive for marijuana were no more likely to crash” than non-medicated drivers.
To top it off, cannabis may actually reduce accidents. In legalized states, there has been an 8 to 11 per cent decrease in traffic fatalities.
One reason for this, says the researchers, is that people are substituting cannabis for booze and so there are less drunks on the road.
Given each individual’s tolerance, and each strains different effect, an objective standard on how much THC is too much doesn’t look forthcoming in the near future.
Especially when the devices made for such purposes are influenced by customers like monopoly law enforcement agencies, funded by taxes and policing the roads like armed hall-monitors.
I’d say there are bigger problems than ordinary cannabis connoisseurs, who, under most circumstances, are capable of competent driving.
If your goal is to ensure safety on the roads, then your best bet is to privatize the roads.