You steal a camera during MY Workshop? Fuck you, you piece of messed-up shit !

[Malthus]

It seems to me (based on my own plausibly deniable experiences) that the quality of inhibition-lowering caused by marijuana is significantly different from that of alcohol.

With alcohol, you begin thinking things like "aw, I'm fine to drive!" and "dude, that meter maid totally wants me!" and "guess what, biker gang: y'all just entered a world of hurt!" With pot it's more like "there can't be that many calories in this whole thing of cookies, right?

How can I even think about stealing stuff when the old man at that table over there keeps looking at me? He fuckin' knows, man!

 

[Diogenes the Cynic]

No, the only thing that matters is whether it's dangerous. It's not dangerous. Every study shows that it's not dangerous. Stoners drive more slowly and more cautiously.

 

[ivan astikov]

Of course it affects one's cognition; we wouldn't fucking buy it otherwise!

What we are saying is that it doesn't affect driving ability in any way that should legislated, if it can't be proven to be a factor in accidents.

Well, that's what I'm saying, anyway.

 

[Cartooniverse]

You slide into town on the cheap, stay 17 miles away at the cheapest hotel you could find. Okay, I can appreciate barely scraping together the bread for the workshop tuition. You tell me you used frequent flier miles to get there. All good, it showed dedication to learning the stuff. You drop a remark about having spent almost 2 HOURS taking buses to get from hotel to workshop. ( This is Austin Texas. They have buses. It ain't Queens, however ). I offered to drive you home. You shared plenty of life angst on the way home. Again, I respect the path you've had to travel. You seemed a pretty cool fellow, and intent on learning the stuff.

Even offered to pick you up Sunday so you didn't have to take buses or pay money that apparently comes very dear to take a cab. And why not?

I pick you up at 7am and you reek of freshly smoked pot like a kid on the way to a Led Zep reunion concert. Fucking moron. You skate through your career, whatever it is, stoned? And you have the balls to show up smoked up to face the intensity and complex physical work of the 2nd day of the Workshop?? Okay, I lost 90% of the respect I had for you. You're a stoner who holds the Holy Herb in greater regard than work. Dick.

We get to work, work hard all day and I have to say, you seemed to function fairly well despite being zonked. A few errant and bizarre remarks here and there reminded me that indeed you were more than just mildly buzzed.

Late in the day a camera goes missing. It's quite small and easy to slide into one's bag, even with the Israeli arm and suction cup attached so it could mount against any smooth surface. Things grind to a halt immediately.

Nobody has ever pulled this kind of appalingly selfish inappropriate fucked up SHIT at my workshops. I've taught close to 1,000 adults in small groups since 1990 and nothing, NOT ONE THING, has ever gone stolen. It was stolen. Not misplaced, not set aside. This item was not a part of the training, it sat there stuck to the wall in the showroom. I told the entire group, briefly and gently ( one does not presume theft is in the air.... ) first thing in the morning that we're guests here, that we do not touch or check out ANY ITEMS we see.

There are surveillance cameras in the room. Only a moron.....or someone stoned and uncaring....would go and steal an item anyway.

Who found it? Why, Captain Herb did. He announced he'd root around through the large plastic garbage can ( the type you see in school cafeterias, etc. ) and lo and behold he "found it"- at the bottom. What the fuck?? That's the best you could do you pathetic arrested development feeb? The bottom of a can that went unemptied the day before?????

Asshole. You fucking fuck. I may not be allowed back there, though the folks there were cool enough since the item was "found". You smeared my good name, you besmirched the integrity of the program I run and my company's good name by association. You brought embarrassment down upon the group of 9 people sitting there.

And you showed your true colors. Fuck you pal.



Cartooniverse

 

[ivan astikov]

There comes a point, as anyone who has smoked a lot of weed ought to know, where one is simply too stoned to 'compensate' any more. Hell, I've been too stoned to walk to the door, let alone drive!

Exactly. But if you had to drive, you'd be much less of a liability than someone who was "slightly tipsy", and probably no more dangerous than someone who was completely straight.

 

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

Truly a thread worth bookmarking.

No kidding. I haven't been to the Dope for a couple of months; come back, click into this -- and it's (a) just as it ever was, (b) got some very funny shit, especially the stuff that was said seriously, and (c) a good reminder why I haven't been to the Dope for a couple of months.

Oy.

 

[MsWhatsit]

Nobody who is too stoned to walk to the door "has" to drive. Or should be driving.

 

[Rigamarole]

I'm also curious what the workshop was for.

And did you ever ask the hotel (or wherever the workshop was held) to check the surveillance tapes just to be sure?

 

[PunditLisa]

I've gone one of them there penis thingys as well, so make that 200%.

I don't have one, but I bet I could get access to one in 30, 60 minutes tops.

Are we up to 250 or 300%?

 

[Diogenes the Cynic]

I was never too stoned to walk to the door except very early on in my stoner career when I wasn't acclimated yet. I wouldn't have driven if I was THAT fried.

One thing about pot that's really different from alcohol is that it doesn't give you false courage or confidence. Just the opposite. It makes you hyper self-evaluating and cautious.

 

[Malthus]

Except it really doesn't because the "impairment" is not significant enough to make accidents any more likely.

Stoned people produce far less accidents, on average, than drunk people. That is not because the impairment of being stoned isn't significant - smoke enough pot, and it certainly is significant: it is perfectly possible for the average person to get so stoned that simple mobility shows impairment.

Rather, unlike the booze, stoned people tend not to lose the ability to judge their own performance - hence, "compensating". The person who has had a few drinks tends to think they are "just fine" to drive; the person who smoked a joint thinks "my goodness, I'm high". If they drive (and they are more likely to choose not to), they will go out of their way to be careful - even over-compensating.

It isn't that they aren't impaired. Get someone *really* high and force them to drive - and the results would not be pretty. But really high people know they are really high and mostly do not *want* to drive - as opposed to your average boozer's "scuse me ossifer. I mean oskafer. Waddya mean drunk I am?"

The net result is that stoned people cause fewer accidents than drunks - but that doesn't mean it isn't impairing. If the element of choice is removed, you'd see more problems. For example: if your job is to work with heavy machinery, it isn't a good idea to get high at work, because you may not have the choice whether to operate the machinery or not.

 

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Except not, because it doesn't impair the actual task. It never impaired me at all. I'm willing to concede that maybe lightweights should not smoke and drive, but even then, it's not as bad as driving drunk, or even as bad as drivinmg tired or while talking on a cell phone.

 

[minor7flat5]

I still want to know what was actually seen on the surveillance tapes.

 

[MsWhatsit]

Hi, I'm just checking in to say that every time I think about, "I AM the evidence," it sends me into fresh gales of giggles. This is the gift that keeps on giving.

 

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Except it really doesn't because the "impairment" is not significant enough to make accidents any more likely.

Stoned people produce far less accidents, on average, than drunk people. That is not because the impairment of being stoned isn't significant - smoke enough pot, and it certainly is significant: it is perfectly possible for the average person to get so stoned that simple mobility shows impairment.

Rather, unlike the booze, stoned people tend not to lose the ability to judge their own performance - hence, "compensating". The person who has had a few drinks tends to think they are "just fine" to drive; the person who smoked a joint thinks "my goodness, I'm high". If they drive (and they are more likely to choose not to), they will go out of their way to be careful - even over-compensating.

It isn't that they aren't impaired. Get someone *really* high and force them to drive - and the results would not be pretty. But really high people know they are really high and mostly do not *want* to drive - as opposed to your average boozer's "scuse me ossifer. I mean oskafer. Waddya mean drunk I am?"

The net result is that stoned people cause fewer accidents than drunks - but that doesn't mean it isn't impairing. If the element of choice is removed, you'd see more problems. For example: if your job is to work with heavy machinery, it isn't a good idea to get high at work, because you may not have the choice whether to operate the machinery or not.

Stoned people cause slightly fewer accidents than people on no drugs at all. They aren't just safer than drunks, they're marginally safer than people who aren't on anything.

 

[Chefguy]

I missed the part where you have him on tape or somebody saw him take it, or he confessed.


Oops. For some reason, the last couple of paragraphs weren't there when I looked at the OP the first time. Never mind.

 

[storyteller0910]

The study I cited showed that there was no difference in likelihood of accidents between people who are stoned and people who are not stoned.

Because I am psychic, I am going to make a fearless guess: you have not actually read the Chesher and Longo text you cited, right? Just the quotes cherry-picked from the article by a organization with an agenda?

 

[MTCicero]

No it doesn't.

Oh, really?

 

[Shot From Guns]

Once again, this is a content-free post, devoid of any substantive rebuttal. You should at least try to mix in some actual arguments with the ad hominems once in a while.

In this case, Dio, your amazing ability to shut out everything but what you want to hear is the topic.

They're being more careful. Any change in cognition is fully compensated for, ergo, no meaningful "impairment" in the actual ability to perform the task.

You seem to be under the misapprehension that I'm talking about the results of the driving test. I'm not. I'm taking issue with your claim that marijuana does not affect one's cognitive skills. Are you now saying that marijuana does affect one's cognition?

This is his personal strawman for the thread. He can't seem to wrap his tiny little mind around the idea that "no increased risk of driving accidents due to smoking pot (because the drivers compensate or just don't drive)" is not the equivalent of "smoking marijuana has no impact on your cognition, motor skills, or reaction time." So he keeps pointing at the same study that disproves his point (i.e., it explicitly says that pot does affect these things) as evidence that he's right, because he's just not listening to anyone else, so caught up is he in the idea that every post here is some kind of personal attack on him for smoking pot.

You know, as opposed to being an attack on him for being retarded enough to assert that pot "doesn't" "affect one's cognitive abilities and fine and gross motor skills."

 

[Vinyl Turnip]

I was never too stoned to walk to the door except very early on in my stoner career when I wasn't acclimated yet. I wouldn't have driven if I was THAT fried..

Ah! So it is possible to be too stoned to drive safely. Good, now can we end this derailment?

And preferably the thread, only because every time I read the title I hear "Choo steal a camera during MY workchop? Fuck YOU, you piece 'o messed-up CHIT!"