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Subject: marijuana rebuttal
The following is a letter I wrote to Now magazine
in Toronto in response to
a letter to the editor entitled, "Better safe
than stoned,"
http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2007-01-04/letters.php
"Now" didn't consider printing it because it's
too long, I think.
I guess it was just one too many "buzzed driving
IS drunk driving"
propaganda pieces for me...
slothrop
Mr. Miller is incorrect. Although it sounds plausible
to people who know
little about marijuana that it is essentially
"herbal booze," IT ISN'T. And
despite shameless American propaganda, buzzed
driving is NOT drunk driving.
For a well-known description of buzzed vs. drunk
driving, see "The Natural Mind,"
by Dr. Andrew Weil. He is not a big fan of marijuana,
yet says that in an emergency,
he would take a ride from a stoned person with
experience driving while high over
an alcohol-intoxicated person with the same or
more amount of experience, every time.
That's because the two drugs do not do the same
thing to the nervous system at all.
Booze has a nice, linear response-curve when
you compare amount consumed with
delay of nervous impulses. Pot acts on a higher
part of the brain, if you'll pardon the pun.
How individuals respond to it is "all over the
place," which is why psychopharmacologists
don't like studying it. Personally, I've driven
with many people who've been smoking, and I
wasn't worried in the least, and I care about
my skin as much as anybody. I would NOT
take a ride from a drunk, even if he's driven
for 20 years without an accident.
Why the attack on pot in particular? Why not
go after impaired driving in general, with,
say, a roadside electronic hand-eye co-ordination
test for slowed reflexes?
All kinds of things can make you not road-worthy,
like recreational drugs, prescription and
non-prescription drugs, extreme fatigue or emotional
distress, etc. Do you REALLY care
about safety or don't you? This looks like just
another veiled attack on marijuana. Since we
can't test for intoxication, and since some people
drive while smoking, NO ONE IS ALLOWED
TO SMOKE IT.
Dr. Weil claims that you can learn to do anything
while moderately high on pot, with no
significant impairment, and this has certainly
been my experience. However, I wouldn't drive
while high, even knowing that I'm not a safety
risk. Accidents do happen, and if someone got
hurt, I would probably be tortured for the rest
of my life wondering what would've happened
if I hadn't smoked. Unscientific prejudice? You
bet. But that's just me.
slothrop