Seattle News Station Gets Three People Super High Puts Them Behind the Wheel to See How Well They Do

[Coyotl]

Holy Batshit, Guano!! "It was only after the subjects had smoked nearly a gram ..."

Seattle News Station Gets Three People Super High, Puts Them Behind the Wheel to See How Well They Drive
http://gawker.com/5985051/seattle-news-station-gets-three-people-super-high-puts-them-behind-the-wheel-to-see-how-well-they-drive

With Washington having recently become the first of two states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, the local government has been tasked with determining how high a person can be before they are considered to be "driving under the influence."

To test how arbitrary the legal limit of 5 nanograms truly is, KIRO-TV, a Seattle-based CBS affiliate organized a driving test for stoners with the help of a local Sheriff's department, a drug recognition expert, and a driving school instructor.

Oh, and some sweet and juicy Blueberry Trainwreck nugs.

Despite the fact that one of the volunteers was already three times over the legal limit before the start of the test — and all three volunteers were over four times the legal limit after their initial toke — they were still doing fine behind the wheel.

It was only after the subjects had smoked nearly a gram ...

[patrice]

1. I've always hypothesized that the same heightened sensory awareness that is the basis

for the munchies also makes you pretty focused on all of the tasks of driving.

I remember being able to hear absolutely everything the car was doing, if the stereo was off.

My only problem was that, my usual problems with how different things look after dark, was worse with THC, so I could get kind of disoriented if I was somewhere unfamiliar. Even on familiar streets and roads things looked strange, but my internal maps worked just fine for my usual ruts to and from my regular places.

The idea of cannabis making a worse driver comes from people who think it is the same psychotropic state as alcohol, which it isn't.

[HoneychildMooseMoss]

2. I was once in a car full of people smoking dope

Windows rolled up, driving through Kansas at night. Out of nowhere, a state trooper pulls the car over, and tells the driver she was doing 90 in a 55 zone. I don't know if she was high. And I wonder if the trooper smelled the stuff-- surely he would have gotten a big whiff when the driver rolled down her window.

[pnwmom]

3. Being more disoriented at night would decrease your driving skills

and make you a worse driver then.

[patrice]

14. Maybe I should have been more specific. Things didn't look the way they usually did, but it's not

out there in outer-space unusual, just little different, not familiar, and I have a bit of the same problem even now without cannabis. I wear glasses anyway. I think it might be a change in my medium-to-distant figure vs. ground separation. Back when I used to smoke, it made me read ALL of the highway signs. No problem with my driving skills, I just need more background behind landmark orienting points. It's worse if I'm really tired and on a rural highway at night.

[Orrex]

11. I don't know about heightened awareness

Years and years ago I had a coworker who always came to work high, and his heightened awareness couldn't manage the difficult task of placing pickles on a hamburger bun. Not sure I'd want him driving.


It's the Reefer Madness, people!

[fizzgig]

4. it makes me less of an angry driver

but i know my limits.

they haven't set a limit here in colorado yet, but it looks like the cops want it to be 5 nanograms.

[Politicalboi]

5. Oh please

With the weed today, I could preform surgery if I were a doctor. LOL! Oh wow, they smoked nearly a gram
I could smoke a whole 1/8 or more and still drive a car just fine. If that was "good" weed, 2 hits would have been ENOUGH. But were not in the year 1980 so we have to settle for the crap they grow, it's EVERYWHERE and it's ALL they got. And all these stupid names they give it. It's pot. We only had Skunk, Thai, Hawaiian, and Columbian back in the day, and it was 100% better than the stuff today, even the cheap stuff was better.

[Warpy]

6. And after they'd smoked a gram of the stuff

they were likely on a par with overtired drivers because all you want to do if you smoke yourself really silly is go to sleep.

It's nice that someone has actually done this test. Stoners know their reaction times are slowed. Stoners know they're impaired.

Drunks, on the other hand, feel like Superman and will often claim they drive better when over the legal limit.

Grass aint the problem. The worst thing a stoner will do is go 25 miles an hour on back streets to get home, frustrating the hell out of people who want to do the limit of 35 as he overcompensates for what is really very mild impairment.

(disclaimer: grass is not a panacea and some people react very badly to it. It's just been oversold as a demon drug, which it absolutely is not.)

[Gorp]

18. When I was 18 or so, I had a county cop friend (fellow computer geek)...

... He said more than once that almost without exception, if he pulled a driver over and smelled pot that the infraction was driving way too slow for the speed limit and holding up traffic as a result. He got to a point where that was almost a sure sign that the driver was stoned.

A commedian from about the same time, Gallagher, had a routine on getting stoned that included things such as "Pot doesn't make me want to do crimes, it makes me want to crash on the couch" and (with respect to driving) "There's a car way down there. I'll pull out tomorrow."

[Warpy]

19. Focusing on bad behavior is a better way to do things

rather than focusing on any substance as causing it.

The fact is that I do know maintenance drinkers whose blood alcohol is rarely far below the legal limit (and only when they've run out and are on their way to buy more) who drive decently. When I see them, they've usually been brought in four or five times over the limit. Out in the neighborhood, they're usually this side of sober with a high blood alcohol.

"Driving like a blind maniac" should be the charge, not driving over some arbitrary limit.

[Heywood J]

7. "Despite the fact that one of the volunteers was already three times over the legal limit

before the start of the test"

[dembotoz]

8. pick me!!! pick me!!! given weed by the local newspaper????

with my luck i would be put in a control group given a super strong fast acting laxitve instead---that would affect ones driving too

[Coyotl]

12. Who ever thought this headline could be a reality?

A lot has changed in WA and CO. Expect the same nation wide quickly now that the impasse has been transcended.

[sorefeet]

9. The tester told me I was 50 times

the DOT legal cut off limit. That was in Arkansas Which I thought was 4 nano grams, which would mean I had 200 nano grams in me at the time. I grow my own and smoke and eat lots of it and I just don't get high anymore like when I was a kid. The old red columbian kicked way more ass than this hybrid stuff.

[trof]

10. Damn, those people are sooo...HAPPY!

[Puzzledtraveller]

13. " Am I driving ok?"

[Javaman]

15. road rage would become a thing of the past, it would be replaced by

spontanous munchy picnics.

Doritos drivers would have to wear full body armor. LOL

[progressoid]

16. Now bring them back, get them drunk and take the test again.

[Coyotl]

20. Good idea.

[intheflow]

17. Duh! Of course you shouldn't drive high. However:

the cop who said that Addy backing up over a 1 foot tall traffic cone was akin to her backing into a pole or a pedestrian is just ridiculous... unless the pole or pedestrian were 1 ft. tall. Very easy to back over something that small in the center of the car's width; not like you're going to see it in any of your mirrors or even if you turn around.

And that's the worst the cops could come up with! Insane that weed is illegal and alcohol isn't.