Just what America does not need. I fully agree that cannabis is a better intoxicant in some ways. It is also worse in some very important ways. For starters there is no simple way to measure how intoxicated (high) a person is. There is no marijuana equivalent of a blood alcohol level. Because of how the drug works it will not be cheap or easy to devise one either. Current tests determine only if any cannabis is on board, not how much. How do you enforce usage safety with no way to measure dosage? Then there is how cannabis is delivered. Already we see the health consequences of smoking tobacco. Again the chemical nature of cannabis renders smoking it the fastest and best route of administration. Again putting smoke from anything into the lungs will have undesirable health consequences. Will they be as bad as tobacco? We have a legal intoxicant and it costs society tons in misery and fortune. Another legal intoxicant tossed into the mix will not diminish the problem but will make it worse. I wish that we could be more circumspect in how we approach these issues.

If someone is scared to smoke because its illegal, they're also going to be scared to drive while high, even if the shit gets legalized.

The reason I want weed legalized is so I don't have to smoke it. The other day i spent 20 minutes cleaning resin out of my one-hitter. I got tar all over my hands and everything else, then when i give the thing a little suck test i end up with resin in my mouth. Im probably going to end up with bowel cancer from this one incident alone. Its 2009, why do we have to put up with this shit? Its time for a cheap, healthy, readily available THC lozenge.

By the way, you dont know what you're talking about.

Pass a law that automatically arrests anyone who gets caught having THC in their system while driving. Don't make the distinction of how much they have in their system. Let people smoke all they want when they're not behind the wheel.

As for usage safty, theres already no laws how drunk you can be. Legally, you have the right to drink a whole bottle of vodka (save for laws against delibrartly attempting suicide) if you're over 21. Unless it off course involves fraternity hazing.

And tobacco is already legal. Heavily regulated, and very annoying to smokers I am sure. By the time pop becomes legal, you won't be able to legally smoke it anywhere anyways.

Pass a law that you can't drive if you have any THC in your system? Do you realize that what you're saying is that a person couldn't drive a car for 3-6 weeks after smoking weed? A video taped field sobriety test would be the simpler answer for the intoxicated driving problem. Besides, you can be arrested for driving while stoned now, it's not like criminal justice system isn't already equipped to deal with this.

'right then' is right. The biochemistry of pot stays in the body for a long time. You can test positive for pot and not be at all impaired, or conversely, test just as positive and be too stoned to walk. That is exactly the problem. There is no qualitative test for intoxicating levels of THC. By the same token there is also no regulation over the strength of THC being dispensed. As it stands now one joint can be a killer while the next not that impairing. Legalizing pot has some daunting challenges.

Important error. No, one joint could never be a killer. You can't OD on pot. Measure impairment. A simple field test that tests ability, not influence. We'd get a whole bunch of old senile farts off the road as a bonus.

vincent1963.... While it maybe true that one joint, or even a whole bunch of them, never overdosed anyone who smoked them it is true that a single powerful joint can result in enough impairment to cause a vehicle accident and kill any number of people. Again the problem in distribution control. A light weight user drives to a party and partakes of just a few hits from an unusually intense joint and decides to try the drive home. There is no current predictability in how much of what marijuana results in what level of intoxication. Much of this could be ascertained with some work. All I am saying is do the work. Don't just toss it out there for anyone and everyone to grow their own stuff. Some of it will be really quite strong. Personally I wished they had made alcohol illegal long ago and kept marijuana legal. I do think that pot intoxication is less of an impairment. Instead of rendering users aggressive and belligerent it makes them paranoid, hungry, giddy and horny. But since we waited I think science could deliver a better managed and predictable intake medium for the drug. BTW some people do have serious cardiac reactions to THC so it probably is possible for a single joint to kill a few folks.

Driving while intoxicated is already a crime. I don't think the law specifies what the intoxicant was.

Make the law "inpaired". If your eyes can't track the moving penlight, or you can't walk a straight line, or you can't snatch the pebble from the officer's hand, you are impaired. Bust people for that. You get everyone who's impaired, no matter the reason. Wheather its being stoned, drunk, or old and decrepit. Get the impaired drivers off the road.

"Bust people for that. You get everyone who's impaired, no matter the reason. Wheather its being stoned, drunk, or old and decrepit. Get the impaired drivers off the road."

Or too tired.