Random stuff

I agree completely. As far as I know most of us here are from the Midwest or southeast but out here in Oregon people smoking pot is..well, very very normal and a part of the local culture and has been since long before legalization.

The sky hasn't fallen. There hasn't been any reefer madness style antics. The truth is pot is much less volatile than alcohol by several orders of magnitude. It's also much less intoxicating than alcohol regarding driving etc. Any anecdotal evidence to the contrary is always from non users who overindulge a la a non drinker taking six shots of vodka in 30 minutes and then blaming the alcohol. My friends and I smoked pot for much of our teenage years (27 now) and I can tell you it's nothing like stereotypes portray. Cheech and Chong burnouts are equivalent to the town drunk. The exception certainly not the rule. You'd be amazed the variety of people that smoke out here.

IF you show up to work under the influence of ANYthing..can their ass. I don't want them doped up on prescription meds either which is just heroin if we're being honest. Not to mention how the pill happy Rx industry created a heroin epidemic not seen since the 60s/70s by over prescribing opiate painkillers. If you go home and smoke a joint or have a beer those are equivalent in my mind and not at all wrong. That shouldn't mean risking your livelihood to do something that is legal in your state.

That's not even getting into the failed drug war and the unnecessary creation of a black market leading to untold cartel and domestic gang activity instead of just controlling and taxing it. It just makes no sense. It's a witch hunt with no real goal in sight and an incredible drain on the taxpayer and has directly contributed to the over-expansion and militarization of federal and local LE. I posted a photo here once where Nixons advisor talked about how they demonized marijuana and heroin to crack down on the black community and the antiwar left. It's very telling and makes you wonder what agendas are really at play.



Think about the bootleggers from Prohibition times and the massive crime wave that induced. Many of our most famous mobsters gained their fame running liquor. Now look at how tightly controlled, normal and available alcohol is today. That's what's going to happen with pot soon. It's remarkable, you can literally walk into a store here and buy pot. It's clean, professional, nobody is murdered or shot. Imagine that.

This is all just my opinion, of course

"Ay.  There's the rub!"  - Hamlet

www.cbsnews.com/news/tests-for-driver-impairment-by-marijuana-flawed-aaa/

We do random drug testing at our FD, plus 'for cause' testing.  You can be tested 'for cause' at any time at the request of a a supervisor.  Meaning, if I think one of my guys is high on something, I can order him to take a blood test or breathalyzer.  You are also automatically tested 'for cause' any time you are involved in a motor vehicle accident while driving a city vehicle (that's a city policy, not necessarily a FD specific policy).  To my knowledge, nobody has ever been tested 'for cause' except in the case of the MVA.  We have, however, had multiple people busted for having pills or THC or other sundries in their system when they were randomly drug tested on-duty.

Now, were these people using on duty, or were they actually high while on duty?  No idea.  A heavy MJ user can probably function normally with THC level that would drop me like a tranquilized rhino.  Likewise, I routinely run into people in the ER and the EMS side who are professional drunks, with baseline BAC's when they are 'sober' that would literally be lethal to a normal person.

My experience tells me that a person can smoke a joint with friends the night before a FD shift and be perfectly fine to be at work, just like I could have a couple of beers with friends and be fine the next morning to report for duty.

I think Oregon's issue is it is still against Federal law to use MJ, and from a hiring standpoint you would be knowingly hiring a person who routinely violates Federal law.  

No, a company can hire all the felons they want.  Take a glance at the arrest record of the backroom staff at your favorite chain restaurant for proof...

I presume the employer told them to go home and sleep it off, and not come back again if they couldn't stay sober.  Which probably worked swimmingly in the 50's, but be the business owner in 2017 who tries to discipline a person with 'intractable back pain' or 'PTSD' who is popping pills at work.  Good luck with the decades long lawsuit you'll be embroiled in...

As an aside, I'm coming around to the Legalize Everything point of view when it comes to drugs.  My main sticking point is that our society seems hell-bent on bankrupting ourselves trying to keep these assholes from dying, giving them tens of thousands of dollars worth of medical care so they can promptly hit the street and OD again (or get HIV, or Hepatitis, or whatever), and providing them endless handouts when they are no longer able or willing to do anything which might be considered productive.

OK, we've all been seeing the UC Berkeley riots... seems Trump has chimed in...

www.weaselzippers.us/322922-trump-threatens-to-yank-federal-funds-from-berkeley-after-riots/

So it got me wondering, how much do they get a year?
From the UCB Research website:
"Each year, the UC Berkeley campus receives well over half a billion dollars in research and other support from external sources. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2016, UC Berkeley attracted $673.9 million in new awards. Many of these awards fund multiyear research projects and support expenditures that will be reflected in subsequent years. The federal government provided 55 percent of these funds, and California state agencies and other government sources, industry, and the nonprofit sector supplied the rest."
vcresearch.berkeley.edu/berkeley-research-numbers

That means the fed provides about $370 MILLION of new awards. Wave goodbye snowflakes.

MILO fan Pepper Sprayed (by protestor) during UC Berkeley Riots

www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/02/01/milo-fan-pepper-sprayed-uc-berkeley-riots/

These leftists are really hurting their cause. I admit it is entertaining to see the Dems implode like this, though.

As far as legalizing all drugs, I know it's somewhat hypocritical but I don't think heroin or meth should be legal. The most compelling argument being that drugs that turn people into full on junkies infringe upon others right to life, liberty etc by subjecting them to unneeded property crime, theft etc. An addict will do literally anything for a fix..they're foul creatures. An extremely frequent user of MJ/LSD/mushrooms/MDMA is a totally different animal than an opiate or amphetamine addict or even an alcoholic for that matter. My family has extensive history of addiction so I've seen it all unfortunately from one end of the spectrum to the other.

There are drugs that have documented scientific and anecdotal evidence as being extremely addiction prone and those that do not. The super addictive shit shouldn't be on the street, it's not right to normalize that behavior. It's not pretty.

That said I don't know how to solve it. Fortify the border for one. Put the screws to the Mexican gov via taxes and embargos til they crack down on cartels. Take the gloves off Border Patrol agents and increase their funding. Redirect funding from MJ etc to opiate/amphetamine enforcement. Clean needle programs.

It will never go away I just think we can do better than we are now. Pot specifically there is not a single good reason for it to be Schedule 1 it's just outrageous.

Its definitely a slippery slope. Not many good answers and our world changes so rapidly these days. I agree 100% .gov has no right to determine what an adult uses. At the same time some substances are inherently extremely dangerous.

Who knows. I am glad to see pot go mainstream though. It's a step in the right direction. Will be interesting what Sessions does with it.