Reply #70: Noooooo...I'm postulating...

[jmowreader]

that unless we've got some way to MEASURE impairment, scientifically, there's no way we can legalize pot.

Take my employer. We have a list of things (most of them involve powered lift equipment) that will get you sent for a drug test if you do them.

Pretend pot is legal, but we only have the current test. You have a perfectly legal joint on your day off. A week later, you pick up a skid of Portland cement that wasn't wrapped properly at the factory, come around the corner a bit too fast, and 25 bags slide off and break. Any incident causing more than $200 damage to merchandise is grounds for urinalysis, and Portland cement is $9.25 per bag.

Your urinalysis will come back positive. If you're positive for marijuana, you'll be considered impaired at work and fired.

I know you only stay stoned for a few hours after you smoke. There must be something in pot smoke that causes this--is there a cannabinoid that metabolizes quickly, perhaps, that acts as a catalyst for the "fun" cannabinoids? Very little pot research in the US (well, the legal kind--you guys who smoke weed don't count here) is done using real pot but rather single cannabinoids so they can "control" the experiment, so WE DON'T KNOW what all is in that shit or how reefer actually works. I know if you get a High Times magazine and look at the pot marketplace reports they discuss the nature of the high you get from whatever pot is available in your area, so I got it figured that different cannabinoids--there are many--produce different effects in the body.