VVelox
We keep equating it to alcohol, this is something I have very notable issue with as it's effects are not the same as it when it comes to impairing ones judgement. This is something in which alcohol has a very notable impact, unlike weed. We would better off equating this to tobacco or caffeine.
I disagree I think it is closest to alcohol and should be treated as such. Sure it is different, sure people tend to be too lazy while high to do as much of the stupid things they often do on alcohol, but it shares enough similarities.
People high on marijuana pose a risk driving. They have slowed reaction times. And in some people or after some period of time it can bring out mood swings. There is even some ties to increased schizophrenia rates in long term users. (And schizophrenia and firearms has some serious implications. Paranoid delusions and firearms for example are a bad combination.)
It also reduces short term memory both while under the effects and for quite some time afterwards. So those that use regularly tend to have relatively permanent reduced short term memory. Which makes them learn new things at a slower rate, forget various things, be less reliable, etc
Now I don't think it is as bad as many other drugs, and it might not be so bad if recreationally legal. People don't crave it to the extent of theft and robbery, identity theft, and various other forms of illegally acquiring money to support a habit generally.
Part of that is it being far less addictive, and part of that is that it typically is affordable and people don't have to resort to such things to supply a marijuana habit.
(That said I think many commonly prescribed medications are far worse, with worse side effects and long terms problems, while getting a fraction of the attention. With new ones coming out all the time. Making the current treatment of marijuana by contrast a joke.)
But if it is going to be legal and recreationally used then it should be treated like alcohol. People should be tested for driving impaired on it. Standards that can be tested for should be established. People should be subject to similar intoxicated in public statutes.
People should expect to have the deck stacked against them if they are high and use force against someone else. Just as when someone is drunk the police are far more likely to assume you did something wrong.
I was once someone that thought more favorably of marijuana. However I have seen it turn many people into less than they were prior. Sometimes less is still pretty good, but it is less.
I also think it should be thought of in terms of alcohol for recreational use.
Someone that must use alcohol regularly would be considered an alcoholic. People that drink occasionally when their responsibilities are less after getting what they need done and not all the time would not be.
Yet people seem to not apply that same logic if they support marijuana use. With getting high every day a regularly accepted thing. If you use marijuana all the time you are little different than an alcoholic.
People that get high early in the day, go in public high, go to work high, have to get high every day, or otherwise do things that wouldn't be acceptable ways to use alcohol should be held to the same standard.
As such I think alcohol as the closest thing used recreationally would be a good standard to use.
All the statutes relating to alcohol should be applied to marijuana as it relates to firearms, vehicles and heavy machinery, etc
