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Originally Posted by rhettyeakley
The "driving under the influence" aspect of marijuana is probably my biggest concern as well as I could honestly care less what people are doing in their own homes. The major problem with the situation it is that there is no quick/cheap/easy way to tell "how intoxicated" someone is, maybe they can come up with a test that doesn't require blood/urine and subsequent laboratory analysis but it isn't out there right now (at least not to my knowledge).
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It's call personal responsibility. And people should be held accountable for it. THAT, in my opinion, is the major problem with drunk driving laws now. It's not driving under the influence prior to the being caught, it is what is NOT being done after people are caught. How many accidents/deaths were cause by those with previous convictions?
Drunk driving laws are capricious anyway (a whole other discussion), but we have a "we have to do something" mentality, so let's set an semi-arbitrary limit as a compromise, which is what we do now. My personal view is that if we are REALLY going to be concerned with reduced capacity, then why aren't driving tests mandatory every 2, 3, 5 (pick a number) years? And in some states, why no driving test at all except to get your first license as a teenager?
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I realize that people drive high now, but I figure if you place some really strict laws into affect prior to legalizing pot then you cover your bases."
This is wishful thinking, and we already see how well that works, don't we (see drunk driving above). It also doesn't take into consideration the effect of strict laws either (can't remember the name of the theory off hand). For example, if you make robbing a bank punishable by death, the idea that this will reduce bank robberies doesn't account for the other end of the equation. That it just makes injuring/killing someone during a bank robber less of a disincentive to injure/kill someone.
Yes, some bank robbers wouldn't kill/hurt people anyway. But it gets back to personal responsibility for what someone actually DID. This also ties into making crimes of what people think, and not what they do (also, another discussion).
It is very questionable how much drunk driving LAWS themselves have actually reduce drunk driving. Similar to smoking, society has made driving under the influence unacceptable.
Unless we are keeping people actually RESPONSIBLE for their actions, the laws aren't going to be as effective as the could or should be.