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Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by jack_riminton on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:36AM (#28403312)
Some of the comments are assuming that all those who smoke pot are irresponsible or unable to do a job if they do smoke pot (this includes people who may only smoke at weekends/parties btw)
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by eurasiantiger on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:39AM (#28403341)
Decades of exposure to intentionally misleading propaganda is difficult to ignore. It becomes a part of the worldview, making it hard to even think outside that box.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by jack_riminton on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:42AM (#28403375)
True. Once things become 'cultural facts' they're hard to change. Another is explaining remote work to older generations, a lot of them just can't equate it to 'real work'
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by nuclearnice1 on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:45AM (#28403398)
One more is explaining age discrimination to youngsters.

Especially over the damn zoom time video since they don’t show up for work.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by mazamats on Friday September 03, 2021 @09:29AM (#28403931)
Age discrimination goes both ways, it’s not just 40+ workers that experience it
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by ctvo on Friday September 03, 2021 @06:57PM (#28410370)
You're on a tech focus site here.

Age discrimination almost certainly goes one way in these cases. That's if you're above 40, and looking to join an early stage start-up, you'll find you're often not a culture fit.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by nuclearnice1 on Friday September 03, 2021 @10:38AM (#28404785)
I agree.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by JoeAltmaier on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:53AM (#28403480)
True. But some part of that propaganda is from pot smokers themselves. Some enjoy the image of the laid-back happy carefree pothead. Their cult leaders (used to be) Cheech and Chong.

Maybe they've just bought in to someone elses' worldview. But I don't think so.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by ralfn on Friday September 03, 2021 @09:19AM (#28403796)
There are a lot more people that do or have smoked pot, than those who base their identity on it. The cults were always a minority.

It's like the difference between a commuter on bike here in the Netherlands (more than 30% of all trips) vs the handful of cyclists in spandex with some fragile unsafe bike wanking about how light their bike is.

One is a cult, where it becomes part of someone's identity, one is just person trying to get to work.

We should have the discipline to realize that the people carrying the flag of anything are the least likely to be true representatives of the thing.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by eurasiantiger on Friday September 03, 2021 @10:14AM (#28404497)
I’m willing to bet that the annoyance meme of spandex cyclists is intentionally amplified, possibly even created, by marketing agencies working for oil and car companies.

I’m also willing to bet that Cheech & Chong et al. are manifestations of a similarly forced meme, with many industries funding the various ”lazy brainless stoners”.

The exact same pattern can be found from nicotine vapes (the entire ”vape nation” annoyance meme was definitely a graft), and probably a lot of other things.

The point seems to be to control people socially by associating their habits with annoying qualities and fictional negative outcomes, superficially supported by anecdotes represented as scientific truth.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by aaron5 on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:33PM (#28411020)
I really like this: "we should [develop] the discipline to realize that the people carrying the flag of anything are the least likely to be the true representatives of the thing."

What other examples are there? Am I one of these people in ways I don't even realize?

I would love to be eating a meal with someone who says this, and then have a really fantastic conversation spring from it: Does this help me feel out my own blind-spots better? Is this always bad? Is this always true?

Great statement, well articulated. Thanks!

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by junon on Friday September 03, 2021 @07:06PM (#28410437)
As someone with a very personal relationship with marijuana, I really despise the "pothead" culture. The idea that weed makes you permanently stupid or incapable of working normally whilst sober is simply wrong.

Like everything, being responsible goes a long way. There are responsible marijuana users and irresponsible ones. Blaming it on the weed is really the lazy part of "pothead" culture.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by denton-scratch on Saturday September 04, 2021 @05:23AM (#28413496)
Cheech and Chong are a couple of goofy comedians from the '70s. They are not leaders, and they don't have followers. Maybe they have fans (and are C&C still alive?)
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by linuxftw on Friday September 03, 2021 @07:28PM (#28410573)
The science is settled. Trust the science, government knows best.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by da_big_ghey on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:54AM (#28403490)
Well no, there are serious health risk associated with weed. Maybe alcohol have them too, yes both deserve legality, but this is not to say it is "safe", especially in young.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by kodah on Friday September 03, 2021 @04:48PM (#28409239)
There are health risks associated with THC:

- the possibility of psychosis or schizophrenia in people 16-35 (https://medicine.yale.edu/psychiatry/step/resources/Cannabis...)

- the same risk that inhaling any combustible has

- overeating

- cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (https://www.cedars-sinai.org/health-library/diseases-and-con...)

For some people the benefits outweigh the risks, especially when practiced in moderation.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by denton-scratch on Saturday September 04, 2021 @05:29AM (#28413523)
Overeating? That's a health risk for THC?

And the last I heard, oxygen was "combustible". Inhaling a combustible isn't a health risk; inhaling combustion products might be. But many pot smokers use a vape, set to well-below the combustion temperature for their chosen herb.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by kodah on Saturday September 04, 2021 @04:13PM (#28418652)
> Overeating? That's a health risk for THC?

Yeah, certainly. I'm not a doctor, but weed makes people eat. Hence it's been used to help folks with eating disorders.

Source: https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/how-to-stop-munchie...

Vapes have issues too, which include exposure to heavy metals. By combustibles I mean anything you burn. Again, not a doctor and not a medical scientist so I may be using the wrong words but most people who use weed know these things. Most notably, anything that is smoked will incur a small but sharp rise in blood pressure. If you wear a heart monitor (or wrist watch with one) it's fairly trivial to detect.

Source: https://www.leafly.com/news/health/california-cannabis-labs-...

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by dls2016 on Friday September 03, 2021 @09:00AM (#28403564)
“Maybe” alcohol has health consequences? Like 95,000 deaths per year?
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by da_big_ghey on Friday September 03, 2021 @09:03AM (#28403593)
Absolutely, i more made reference to how when somebody mention health impact of weed somebody else say "whatabout alcohol unhealthiness" as though it is relevant.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by eurasiantiger on Friday September 03, 2021 @10:19AM (#28404548)
Of course it is relevant. Many of those 95,000 annual deaths would be preventable if a good variety of quality cannabis was more widely available and its use was more socially acceptable.

I also believe such a paradigm shift would largely eradicate domestic violence.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by crazy_horse on Friday September 03, 2021 @04:56PM (#28409330)
I had a grandfather die of alcoholism. I'd much rather smoke pot than drink alcohol and long term it's almost certainly safer from what we can tell.

It's also hard to be productive drinking but pot can have the opposite effect.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by tyingq on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:44AM (#28403396)
We don't regulate alcohol use, and it's quite a lot more destructive for some. I don't get the specific puritanism for pot.

Edit: Regulate as in drug testing for past use in an employment context, like what the story is talking about.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by throwaway0a5e on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:47AM (#28403421)
>We don't regulate alcohol use,

Yes we do. And it's a cash cow for the government so we're unlikely to stop anytime soon.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by phh on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:52AM (#28403465)
I think you have it upside-down. It's tobacco and alcohol that have special treatment, not pot.

My main guess for that special treatment is merely that tobacco and alcohol were global when we started taking care about global health issues, so we left them, but banned any newcomer

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by ElFitz on Friday September 03, 2021 @09:10PM (#28411199)
> My main guess for that special treatment is merely that tobacco and alcohol were global when we started taking care about global health issues, so we left them, but banned any newcomer

That narrative just doesn’t hold up.

Opium, heroin and cocaine were pretty much global when we started taking care about global health issues.

Not consumed by everyone all around the world, for sure, but readily available and consumed nearly everywhere.

Heck, heroin was considered a magical cough syrup safer than morphine at one point. It took nearly 30 years for it to be banned in the US [1][2]

Compared to tobacco and alcohol, it certainly is a young one, but cannabis and hallucinogenic mushrooms hardly qualify as newcomers.

[1]: https://medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-medicine-magazine/from-c...

[2]: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/bulletin/bu...

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by eurasiantiger on Friday September 03, 2021 @11:39AM (#28405618)
There are plenty of psychoactive substances on the shelves of any major supermarket and most of the stuff is completely unregulated.

How is coffee different from tobacco? How is nutmeg or saffron different from drugs? How about artificial flavonoid—xanthine concoctions such as Red Bull?

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by Cederfjard on Friday September 03, 2021 @04:39PM (#28409135)
> How is coffee different from tobacco?

The difference in effect on health is severe, for one? There’s room for more nuance than ”both of these are psychoactive substances”.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by eurasiantiger on Saturday September 04, 2021 @02:30AM (#28412621)
Sure. But how about the fact that tobacco and coffee actually share the same psychoactive substances, i.e. Harmala alkaloids?
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by denton-scratch on Saturday September 04, 2021 @05:39AM (#28413564)
Do they or don't they have the same harmful effect on health?

It's a new one on me that coffee contains nicotine, the principal addictive agent in tobacco.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by eurasiantiger on Saturday September 04, 2021 @09:11AM (#28414783)
They do have the same effects on the central nervous system as far as Harmala alkaloids are concerned, including deleterious effects. Some of the aforementioned alkaloids are neurotoxic, are deposited in brain fatty tissues, and can proceed the development of neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

The public is largely noninformed about the constituents of coffee and tobacco smoke. Only nicotine and caffeine are ever mentioned, and even scientific articles routinely confuse the effects of pure nicotine and tobacco smoke, and those of pure caffeine and coffee. It is a collective illusion.

I never claimed that coffee contains nicotine: rather, what coffee and tobacco have in common are these Harmala alkaloids, the most abundant of which act as so-called monoamine oxidase inhibitors in humans.

However, some rather unexpected things do contain nicotine: tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants and green peppers.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by fy20 on Friday September 03, 2021 @11:04PM (#28411736)
> How about artificial flavonoid—xanthine concoctions such as Red Bull?

In my country, 'energy drinks' cannot be sold to anyone under 20 (same as alcohol and tobacco) for exactly this reason.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by GuB-42 on Friday September 03, 2021 @09:29AM (#28403926)
Breathalyzers tests are a thing you know.

And I don't know if companies do it but I know that monitoring Gamma GT levels of suspected alcoholics is a thing. It is a problem for those who have naturally elevated levels btw.

What is unfortunate is that we don't have a good test for cannabis-related impairment. It is quite reliable for alcohol BAC is easy to test and correlates with impairment, but for cannabis, you don't really know if a person is completely stoned or if he has sobered up.

But yeah, cannabis use is less tolerated than alcohol use, cultural reasons I guess. Plus, it is really difficult to control alcohol since pretty much anyone can turn staple food into alcohol at home.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by tyingq on Friday September 03, 2021 @10:11AM (#28404468)
Yeah, I tried to cover that with "past use". They care if you're drunk at work. Which is different from pot, where many workplaces care if you're high at home.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by jack_riminton on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:50AM (#28403451)
Which country are you in?

Alcohol is one of the most highly regulated substances on the planet.

Also, no puritanism here, just facts about how people can use pot and remain completely in control (again, worth pointing out that someone can fail a pot drug test if they smoked it weeks ago)

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by tyingq on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:51AM (#28403462)
Meaning most people can drink alcohol without fear of being tested for past use in a work context. We don't regulate it in the workplace the way we regulate pot use.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by toast0 on Friday September 03, 2021 @07:36PM (#28410626)
I think a big part of the issue is how the subtances work and how the tests work.

Are there tests that indicate past use of alcohol or just the ones I'm aware of where the measurement drops swiftly as alcohol is processed?

Same for marijuana; is there an objective(ish) test that indicates current intoxication or only the tests that show use within about a month?

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by tyingq on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:13PM (#28410891)
Marijuana does stick around a long time, but they test for other stuff that doesn't, some benzos, heroin, etc. There's apparently something called an ETG test for alcohol consumption that can reach back a few days.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by JoeAltmaier on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:54AM (#28403493)
I dunno. Background checks include DUIs.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by selestify on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:58AM (#28403530)
You don't get a DUI just for being drunk on the couch on the weekend, you have to also be operating a vehicle while drunk. Which is what the parent comment was talking about -- it's not regulated in the same way that pot usage is.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by quickthrowman on Friday September 03, 2021 @05:26PM (#28409607)
Every alcohol consumer has a DUI? Maybe in Wisconsin, but not in general
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by denton-scratch on Saturday September 04, 2021 @05:41AM (#28413579)
> Alcohol is one of the most highly regulated substances on the planet.

It's one of the most-highly taxed. Not quite the same as being banned nearly everywhere, with many countries having mandatory death sentences.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by bjourne on Friday September 03, 2021 @05:00PM (#28409356)
But we do regulate alcohol use... Severely...
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by josefresco on Friday September 03, 2021 @05:20PM (#28409550)
I'm not aware of many jobs that "drug" test for any use of alcohol. Yet with cannabis this is considered acceptable.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by josephcsible on Friday September 03, 2021 @05:22PM (#28409571)
Cannabis is a Schedule I drug. Alcohol is not.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by junon on Friday September 03, 2021 @07:07PM (#28410447)
Not for any legitimate reasons, though. Mostly for historical, political reasons.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by tyingq on Friday September 03, 2021 @05:06PM (#28409420)
I did clarify with the edit.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by hellbannedguy on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:08PM (#28410856)
Personally, I can't smoke pot. I get very nervous, and can't wait until it's out of my system.

But I have worked with many frequent users who smoked daily, and their job. They didn't mind doing terrible jobs.

I'm suprised people arn't talking about habitual pot smokers vs. occasional. If used to smoking--it's no big deal.

Same with alcohol. An alcoholic can drive perfectly well at .08, or a bit higher. An occasional drinker probally shouldn't be drinking and driving.

I heard TX takes into account tolerance when prosecuting DUI's.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by oxymoran on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:38AM (#28403333)
And also clearly have never been high enough to realize that they are more likely to be super paranoid and going 10 miles under the speed limit than driving through a fence or running over children. It’s not at all comparable to being drunk.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by JshWright on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:45AM (#28403399)
Driving high is still driving impaired. The failure modes may be different, but that doesn't mean someone who is high is safe to drive.

I'm not sure what the point of your comment is though, as I don't think anyone is suggesting that these drivers will actually be high while driving. Rather, they are people that use marijuana recreationally and would test positive for THC, disqualifying them from many jobs (despite the fact that urine THC levels do not corelate with how "high" someone is).

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by wordsarelies on Friday September 03, 2021 @03:53PM (#28408613)
Driving high is like driving as a grandma.

You're hyper vigilant, looking everywhere, your reactions are delayed a little such as that of an 60 year old person, and you're definitely listening to speed "limit" as the maximum, and not as the average.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by junon on Friday September 03, 2021 @07:11PM (#28410473)
As an avid marijuana user here, no, this is not the narrative that should be spread. As others have said, weed makes you incredibly impaired, just in other ways.

You are slower to process inputs, you are less likely to consider threats or obstacles as dangerous, to an extent your ability to judge distances is hindered, you are much more easily distracted (highway hypnosis, for example, becomes a huge problem - especially with blinking lights and whatnot), your ability to focus is oftentimes next to zero, causing you to be distracted often by music or other passengers in the car.

Plus, driving slowly in and of itself is a hazard - the "speed rule" exists for a reason. If everyone is going 30 mph over the speed limit on a busy highway, you are more likely to cause an accident by going the posted speed limit than if you were to go the same speed as the rest of the traffic - even though it's technically illegal.

So please, do not use marijuana and drive. Stay at home and watch Money Heist and postmates a McFlurry from McDonalds or something.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by batch12 on Friday September 03, 2021 @04:41PM (#28409161)
When high, you are impaired and shouldn't be driving. Period.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by crazy_horse on Friday September 03, 2021 @04:57PM (#28409338)
I don't disagree but being high is not a singular, impaired state.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by junon on Friday September 03, 2021 @07:14PM (#28410483)
None of the states I've ever been, over the thousands of times I have partaken, with the maybe hundred different strains, with different percentages of indica/sativa, at different dosages, in different forms (flower vs. edible vs. whatever else), have ever been safe for me to operate a vehicle.

No, nobody is an exception. You are not superhuman.

Please stop normalizing this. This narrative makes it harder to change the minds of dissenters and legitimize legalization for those people that actually benefit from it.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by crazy_horse on Friday September 03, 2021 @07:19PM (#28410520)
Sorry, I don't agree. I don't think cannabis is just a drug for having fun. I'm open to scientific studies that show that car accidents increase but your experience is yours and mine is mine.

The people who have a problem with it aren't going to be able to stop legalization.

You shouldn't do it, I agree.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by filoeleven on Saturday September 04, 2021 @12:13PM (#28416318)
States with legal weed have seen accident numbers increase. The reasons why are more nuanced than that statement implies.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2021/06/21/crash-rate...

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by junon on Friday September 03, 2021 @07:39PM (#28410649)
> I don't think cannabis is just a drug for having fun

Where did I even allude to this? In fact I implied the exact opposite in my last sentence.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by crazy_horse on Friday September 03, 2021 @07:47PM (#28410703)
Cannabis does and will have medicinal uses. The laws and and the mindset about it are going to vastly change. Delta-8 and all the other numbers are already legal in illegal states.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by junon on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:27PM (#28410979)
I never argued the opposite of what you're saying. We agree, I'm not sure what we're debating.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by JshWright on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:52PM (#28411116)
What does "medicinal uses" have to do with the topic of impaired driving? There are all sorts of legal medications that will also impair someone's ability to drive.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by crazy_horse on Friday September 03, 2021 @09:02PM (#28411157)
The use of THC does not mean you are impaired.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by ddingus on Saturday September 04, 2021 @02:39AM (#28412675)
Yeah it does.

Let us just say you are somehow different. That could be possible, and I do not want to question your experience. So great! You are not impaired.

That is simply not helpful or viable from a policy point of view.

When we regulate, we need legal tests and policy applicable to people in a very broad sense, or what we get is a mess that does us no real good.

I have known exceptions to the rule myself. People who can perform having had booze, pot, other drugs.

Always hard to tell whether their baseline, sober capability is exceptional enough to present normally with drugs on board, or their response to the drug is simply different.

Fair? I think so.

And those people can manage their use, function and pass tests too. Cannabis users cannot and that is a problem we have no easy answers to right now.

Sadly, being the exception to the rule really does us all no good when it comes to policy.

Fact is, barring very few people, using THC impairs that user.

Benadryl does the same thing, and in my State people can get a DUI on Benadryl. Sadly, they can also get one being a little too tired and having failed a THC test because they hit a binger last weekend too.

This is all a difficult problem to solve.

It should deffo be off Schedule 1

However, even a full federal legalization would leave us with the testing dilemma I described above. That might be one reason it is still on schedule.

But, say Feds went full legal. Workers comp would still be a big issue because they cannot determine fault, and best case would charge employers accordingly, meaning most would continue their harsh policy, leaving us right where this discussion started.

Opiates, booze, other things flush out and are testable in ways cannabis just is not. And that is a major league policy problem.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by denton-scratch on Saturday September 04, 2021 @05:48AM (#28413611)
If you used enough of it so it actually works, then yes; you are impaired. If you didn't use enough to get impaired, then you wasted your money.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by binarybanana on Tuesday September 07, 2021 @10:36AM (#28445388)
The effects of THC aren't an on/off kind of thing. There is a huge range of middle ground between baseline and high in the sky. You wouldn't call someone medicated on Adderall as prescribed by a doctor unfit for driving, either, would you? Yet a person self-medicating the same dosage without prescription is suddenly a danger to others. Which is insane. Same thing goes for THC IMO.

Not to mention that THC's psychoactive effects can be completely blocked by sufficient amounts of CBD and probably other compounds. You can try it yourself. Get CBD drops, ingest 100mg and try getting high. Even the most potent sativa will not work as you might expect.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by bserge on Friday September 03, 2021 @06:32PM (#28410160)
Yes that third one is a huge problem.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by throwaway0a5e on Friday September 03, 2021 @08:44AM (#28403394)
Your comment is an equally bad generalization.

It's easy to get distracted and then focus on that distraction while high. That's not conducive to safe driving. We don't want people mindlessly blowing through an intersection because they were fixating on how the wind was making the tarp on the truck in front of them flutter.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by bserge on Friday September 03, 2021 @06:31PM (#28410153)
No, please. I've seen high driving first hand several times. Once after the guy literally told me "it doesn't affect me at all". Proceeded to drive over the kerb and get into the wrong lane.

It is very comparable to being drunk. Some people can in fact handle it, many cannot and severely overestimate their abilities.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by fhood on Friday September 03, 2021 @06:50PM (#28410321)
tbf it's possible he was just a crap driver. Either way, while I would never recommend it, I think it is misleading to call it "very comparable". Anecdotally I would say that cannabis impairs quick decision making, and reaction time while driving, and possibly also makes the driver more prone to distraction but I am less sure about that one. Alcohol does both of the first two things, and to a much greater extent, while also obliterating fine motor control, as well as impacting judgement and perception of speed among other things.

So in my completely anecdotal opinion, weed bad, alcohol worse were driving is concerned.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by hughrr on Friday September 03, 2021 @09:06AM (#28403626)
That’s bullshit. Someone rolled their car into my front garden at 70+ mph in a 30 mph limit on it.

The only good thing was it was at 3AM so there was no one around on a normally busy street to get wiped out.

And your whole attitude of irrational justification of it says you’re probably not capable of making a rational judgement about whether or not you should drive.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by eurasiantiger on Friday September 03, 2021 @11:30AM (#28405520)
Anecdote is not data.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by hughrr on Friday September 03, 2021 @12:26PM (#28406266)
That’s also bullshit. This went into the stats here. Thus is data.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by haswell on Friday September 03, 2021 @04:34PM (#28409075)
Since when is asking for data considered bullshit? So far, you’ve only provided anecdotes.

I assume you know what the parent comment meant when talking about “data”.

Don’t get me wrong - no one should drive while impaired, period. But offering anecdotes in lieu of data is generally not helpful.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by quickthrowman on Friday September 03, 2021 @05:24PM (#28409597)
It was 3 AM, they were drunk
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by hughrr on Friday September 03, 2021 @05:33PM (#28409666)
No they weren’t. Apologists everywhere.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by chmod600 on Saturday September 04, 2021 @12:15AM (#28412030)
This is an interesting subject. Most people would be pretty worried about a drunk 747 pilot, and want laws and policies to prevent that from happening. A high delivery driver -- better, but a lot of people still don't like that idea. But tired commuters on the road at 6:30am is acceptable.

Could be better informed by numbers here. But hard to say because there aren't reliable tests for "high right now", and maybe not for "tired" either.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by filoeleven on Saturday September 04, 2021 @12:04PM (#28416254)
Impairment testing was talked about 10-15 years ago. It never really caught on.

https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/public-policy/artic...

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by samstave on Friday September 03, 2021 @09:00AM (#28403549)
Some of the smartest people I have worked with smoked pot daily and before work. one is a head of engineering at netflix, another a head of IT at a big firm...

some of the highest performers I have ever worked with, and pot was a daily for them.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by bjourne on Friday September 03, 2021 @05:06PM (#28409413)
And many top politicians, business executives, authors, producers, and musicians were alcoholics. Your claim of having met high performing pot smokers is meaningless.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by abledon on Friday September 03, 2021 @04:36PM (#28409107)
i think for a small % pot will have a positive impact, but in general there is a reason it is considered a recreational drug. If you put 1000 linux kernel developers in a stadium, do they do better work sober, or if the stadium is hotboxed with some exotic kush. (maybe 5%, 10% see gains... but does the majority receive buffs to their concentration, analytical skills and memory?)

Maybe the question has a different outcome if you're measuring a stadium full of Designers with Adobe Illustrator open, trying to brainstorm how a logo looks?

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by hughrr on Friday September 03, 2021 @09:01AM (#28403567)
A larger portion of them are from experience of hiring and being around people who smoke it. I would not employ someone who does because of those people. I have horror stories a mile long.

I know this is unpopular on internet news sites but I assure you that your social reputation isn’t that great if you smoke the stuff generally and that’s not going to change because of the propensity of people to be unreliable or dicks. The only thing that’s faulty is your perception of it.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by eurasiantiger on Friday September 03, 2021 @11:36AM (#28405585)
Hmm. This is a tough one. Do you think those people come off unreliable because they use cannabis, or would it be more likely that they, for example, suffer from a(n undiagnosed) medical condition such as PTSD or ADHD, which tend to make them a bit unreliable at times, but which cannabis treats so that the person is in fact more reliable when constantly high?
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by hughrr on Friday September 03, 2021 @12:27PM (#28406284)
I knew some of them before they started using it. It’s almost entirely the cannabis. Including the dude now in psychiatric care after it kicked his schizophrenia hard.

Everyone was promoted it as harmless. It’s not. I’m seeing lives wrecked.

And yes I know alcohol is bad. But I see less long term damage from that as most people seem to grow out of alcoholism I have know. Cannabis not so much - it becomes the primary thing they live for and around. All conversation ends up on it.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by eurasiantiger on Friday September 03, 2021 @12:52PM (#28406587)
I think your viewpoint might be biased — do you know any people who haven’t had their lives wrecked because of cannabis?

Is cannabis legal where you live? Criminality causes stress and paranoia.

Are you living in a heavily Christian environment? Asking because in heavily religious environments, schizophrenia with religious illusions often occurs as a result of internal conflict between sin-programming and self-perception.

Is cannabis socially accepted or are people forced to choose between cannabis and other people? Social exclusion has in some studies been ranked more stressful than getting raped, so some sort of social PTSD can be expected to develop in these kind of environments to those who get excluded.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by hughrr on Friday September 03, 2021 @01:06PM (#28406754)
I am in my late 40s. Most of the proponents are a lot younger. They haven’t seen the impact it has on them until they get older. That’s not bias.

As for other points I’m an atheist with zero religious values at all. I have used it myself as well. And I’m in a country in a city where no one gives a crap. I’m about as unbiased as you can get.

As for sins, I’m a pretty big fan of them as whole.

The issue here is with the perception that it is harmless which it is definitely not.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by denton-scratch on Saturday September 04, 2021 @08:41AM (#28414550)
I'm in my mid-sixties (and I'm not a proponent - I would never propound the recreational use of any drug). Maybe I'm not old enough to observe the effects you are referring to. But frankly I think this is arse-over-tit: I think it's young people, with little experience, that are most likely to be harmed by pot. Young people are more likely than older people to experience schizo for the first time; such people are less likely to be cautious in their use of pot. If you're over 40, and you've been using it since your teens, then I don't think you're likely to get many surprises from pot.

I did get a hypotension episode a few years ago, as a result of starting a new strain a bit over-enthusiastically. But even coffee can cause palpitations, if you drink too much just because you like drinking coffee.

My understanding is that certain high-THC strains are much more likely to give rise to psychological problems than other strains. I'm not aware that CBD as such can result in psychological problems.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by eurasiantiger on Saturday September 04, 2021 @09:20AM (#28414844)
> My understanding is that certain high-THC strains are much more likely to give rise to psychological problems than other strains

Ah, the good ol’ skunk scarecrow.

People have been making various grades of hashish for millennia, with THC content many times that of dry flower — you’d think someone would have noticed if it was more likely to produce psychological issues?

Yet, there is no high-THC hash scare — it’s almost if someone wanted you to avoid good quality cannabis and be content consuming whatever ditch weed global criminal organisations produce.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by denton-scratch on Sunday September 05, 2021 @08:49AM (#28423969)
> People have been making various grades of hashish for millennia

Hashish is generally made with high-CBD strains (which is partly why hash tends to mong you out more than weed).

It seems there is evidence that CBD moderates the trippy effects of THC, and reduces the propensity of the product to trigger psychotic states in suceptible individuals.

BTW: in my experience, modern weed strains are beaten in terms of hit-per-gram only by the rarest, highest-grade black hash.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by eurasiantiger on Thursday September 09, 2021 @04:49AM (#28467656)
It’s not true that hashish is made from high-CBD strains. That idea seems to be based on the common misunderstanding that indica strains have more CBD in them.

There are various types of hashish; the traditional Moroccan screened variety is almost certainly all cultivated indica, but Himalayan charas is almost certainly all landrace sativa.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by wordsarelies on Friday September 03, 2021 @03:56PM (#28408660)
Do something that alters your baseline consciousness long enough and it becomes your baseline. Doing anything over a long period of time with regularity will change you.

You have definitely met pot smokers who have, and do live perfectly normal lives because their baseline is better. You probably have no idea who they are.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by eurasiantiger on Friday September 03, 2021 @04:43PM (#28409182)
It is also very possible for cannabis to be an improvement to the baseline. There are many, many people who could not function in society and work for their living without cannabis, be it due to MS-related spasticity, PTSD-related hypervigilance, ADHD-related need for stimulation, autoimmune-related inflammation, difficult to treat eating disorders such as anorexia and ARFID, or just plain old chronic pain — and about about it not working for pain, it does work for some, why should they be denied?
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by hughrr on Friday September 03, 2021 @04:39PM (#28409139)
My nose says otherwise.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by nick__m on Saturday September 04, 2021 @12:35AM (#28412112)
You cannot smell pepole who use edible or vape cannabis.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by denton-scratch on Saturday September 04, 2021 @08:33AM (#28414499)
> do you know any people who haven’t had their lives wrecked because of cannabis?

Well, there's me.

And of course, there's all the people I know who haven't ever used cannabis (I take it you meant me to exclude them).

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by denton-scratch on Saturday September 04, 2021 @08:31AM (#28414480)
Pot doesn't agree with schizophrenia. We've known that for a long time. It can certainly trigger an episode.

On the other hand, my experience is that many people with bipolar find it improves their mood.

If you have psychiatric difficulties, then it's not a good idea to mess with drugs that are in any way psychedelic. If you have problems with hypertension, it's not a good idea to mess with caffeine or cocaine.

Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by crazy_horse on Friday September 03, 2021 @04:52PM (#28409280)
There are lots of people you don't know that smoke pot regularly and you can't tell. I promise you.
Re:Amazon’s answer to delivery driver shortage: Pot smokers by tartoran on Friday September 03, 2021 @05:06PM (#28409410)
Yes there are but they probably aren't very high, they're most likely toking as in slightly buzzed if we were comparing it alcohol. I guess you'd notice drunk people and you'd notice very high pot smokers. But would you mind a coworker having a glass of wine for lunch?

There are long term pot smokers whose intake is very large but whose tolerance has risen such that when they consume they're quite functional. They are usually easy to spot though...