THC Vs ALCOHOL [Impairment]

Hey guys,

So I live in Canada, B.C for that matter. - Marijuana is going to be legal for recreation use as of October 17 2018. While this 'drug' was illegal, I found, as well as many others, that the police departments didn't take it completely serious. Where I live, if you would be smoking a joint on the public streets you would be stopped, probably told to stomp the joint out, and that's it. I have personally been pulled over in the past with marijuana, bong, grinder, rollies, knife, lighter, everything to say that I was high while driving - on top of that, I was high, I was baked. What happened? Nothing, I didn't get pulled over due to anything driving related I was pulled over for the infraction of not having a front license plate. The officer didn't even have a clue I was high even though I just took 4 massive bong tokes before hand, which would probably put me 5x over the 'legal limit'.

I used to be an active car enthusiast, I would drive 100's of kilometers per day with friends just for fun. One of my favorite things to do was get high and drive, I have never caused an accident under the influence of alcohol, and I have avoided many accidents from the bad decisions of other drivers. Let's be honest, there are some people out there that you wonder how the hell they have even obtained a license to begin with. I have known people who have driven their whole lives high, and work and drive high all the time - they never run into any problems, unless it's a road block!

I'm also very fluent in bike riding, I also like to do that under the influence of marijuana. Now let's put this into a bit more of a perspective, if I drink enough to be over 5x the legal limit on alcohol, you can guarantee that's at least 6-10 beers which is enough for ANYONE to be under enough impairment to have bad decision making. On top of that, I have ridden my mountain bike tons of times drunk, and completely bailed hard as fuck and have had alot of bike accidents while being drunk - but never stoned out of my mind! Same thing for driving, I used to be an active street racer / backyard mechanic. I could do all sorts of wicked shit with my vehicles, stunts, etc - even under the influence of marijuana. I've drank and drove a few times, I never liked it, and one time I severely smashed my car up.

That's my experiences with alcohol VS marijuana. Not to mention.. With the new laws upcoming, people are being arrested under investigation for driving while impaired just for the smell of it. Officers are pushing people further than needed to fail sobriety tests. They aren't taking any proper things into consideration and it is costing individual people thousands of dollars - I think it's absolutely insane.

THC impairment also depends on how chronic of a user you are, example, they will be ruling out any medicinal users on a federal level in court - how is that fair? There is no medicinal alcoholics, so this whole thing to me is a joke.

Opinions?

 

I moved from Belgium to The Netherlands 1 month ago, in Belgium we have a zero drug tolerance policy and if you get pulled over the police can do a saliva test just if they have suspect you're high which tests for the 4 most common drugs (THC, amfetamines, morfine/heroine/codeine and cocaine).

I never drive while being under the influence of any sort of drugs and smoking weed does affect your driving. There are studies that confirm that the risk of being involved in an accident increases while being under the influence of thc. It's just a responsibility thing for me, I'd never forgive myself if I ran a child over or just cause an accident because I was high.

But yea, when you test positive for a saliva test there is a possibility you're not high anymore not sure what the exact amount of hours is but I think you'd still test positive after 10 hours. And since there's a zero drug tolerance policy, you'd still get arrested.

I do agree that alcohol fucks somebody up more than weed does, when I'm drunk I'm completely useless.

My opinion is that you should never drive while being under the influence of any sort of drug.

 

When I would drive with THC 'impairment' I don't believe it would effect my driving due to the fact of how much of a chronic smoker that I am. I am not a registered federal government medical user or whatever the term would be, but they can be exempt from the penalties because in other words they are a registered 'chronic user'. If they can do that, why can't it? Sure, if you don't smoke at all and you take a big dose of THC you might be a problem to the community while you're on the road. For someone like me, who smokes pounds a year, it's a totally different scenario.

 

maaaaaan, driving while high is definitely easier than driving while drunk..

i drive high sometimes and although i feel alert i can recognise that i'm not 100% all there, but with alcohol.. you'll genuinely convince yourself its all good and completely lose focus its ridiculous.

 

I think you can drive perfectly fine when under the influence of weed. I don't believe it'll affect your driving abilities too much, I smoke and drive under the influence frequently but for me there's no difference than driving sober, sometimes it even makes me more alert and makes me think twice when I've to make a decision. Although this may depend on your tolerance and some people handle their high differently than other people. Driving drunk is a different story. I've driven plenty of times with a good amount of liquor circulating through my blood and that's when accidents happen. I don't do this often but when I do it's on a scooter (moped) and I crashed numerous times. Biking drunk can be difficult too, 2 hands aren't enough to count the times I fell off my bike or crashed into a pole.

Regarding the saliva tests for weed, I think it's number one bullshit. When you smoke weed the night before the test will come out positive, so not really practical. What the hypocritic police has to say about it: "just don't smoke the day before then". What about all the people that use it for medical purposes? Maybe they should add a driving test/license for driving under the influence, that'd be nice.

 

The time limit on the saliva testing has been proven that over 10 hours, even a chronic user who smokes weed all day for a month
will not come up as positive, though, they're saying that you may still. Either way, if you're smoking weed 5 hours before you drive
and then you drive 5 hours later which is way passed any intoxication limit of time - you can still get roasted for driving while impaired
even though everyone knows that after 5 hours you're 100% sober.

It's insane. Here in my city, the RCMP, which are the police who have the say all over Canada will use the machine.

Individual police departments will not be.

 

THC wont kill you

 

So I definitely agree that I'd rather another driver be stoned than drunk, but I'm going to be that guy, and point out that no matter how confident you feel, or how good your track record is, don't drive drunk/high. Your driving record is irrelevant, how you feel is irrelevant, it is a simple biological fact that alcohol/THC will leave you impaired compared to a sober driver.

Also if you drink enough that your BAC is 5x higher than .08 (B.C.'s fail mark), you're probably going to die from alcohol poisoning, unless you're an seriously hardened alcoholic.

 

You should look up cannabis hypermesis, a lot of people get it and it's really not fun and irreversible (unless u stop smoking)

 

I'm gonna have to side with marijuana because alcohol destroys the brain

 

I really think that CBD oils are good! I have been taking them for some time, and they have made me feel so much better. I am sure that you will like using it too, it is definitely worth it

 

In my opinion either of them is needed for anything, but if someone wants to use some kind of "drug" thc is better for people who can use it wisely and dont have mental problems.

 

Both are shit, cool people do coke

 

Destroys the brain, the person and more importantly the taxpayers money

free the weed

 

Alcohol impairs a person faster I would say. However, I am not saying that smoking Marijuana is a good thing or any less damaging.

 

We know for a fact that alcohol basically kills your liver (which essentially detoxifies things and you can't live without it), however, marijuana is more like what shady doctors prescribed to patients in the 1850's: a bunch of chemicals that usually did more harm than good. At the time though, nobody really saw anything wrong with that (essentially how marijuana is right now), but give it a few decades more of research and maybe we'll be facepalming ourselves over how stupid smoking marijuana actually was.

 

Alcohol way worse. Weed isn’t bad but could cause negative effects if it’s abused too much