(Kelowna.com) An RCMP officer driving the Kelowna detachment’s prisoner escort van around 10:15 a.m. noticed the driver of black chevrolet coupe on Gordon Drive after he swerved while reaching for something beside him. The cop pulled up on the passenger side of the car at a red light to get a better look.
The officer watched in amazement as the 20-year-old man grabbed his bong, loaded it with pot, then took a hoot “with the policeman right there, not more than five feet away, watching everything that was going on,” Kelowna RCMP spokesman Const. Steve Holmes told reporters this morning.
Holmes was also dumbfounded by the driver’s obliviousness to the cop van beside him.
“It’s big, it’s white, it is fully marked with a light bar on it, strobe lights, and the large RCMP insignia on the doors,” Holmes remarked. “It is generally hard to miss.”
Do they not sell rolling papers in Canada?
You really have to delve deep into the seven-layer-dip of dipshit to come up with dumbass as delicious as this…
- Do not drive while impaired by cannabis use…
- OK, then at least don’t smoke cannabis while driving…
- All right, then have the sense to roll a joint that might pass as a cigarette to a passing driver…
- Well, then, if you just have to have your bong and weed in your car, transport it in the trunk…
- Oh, so you really want a bong hit while you’re driving the car? At least pull over off the road…
- At a red light? Well, for God’s sake look around first to make sure you’re not pulling a rip with someone watching…
- Sigh, all right, idiot, maybe they won’t look or care, but just be sure it’s not a cop… Shit!
Needless to say, nobody at NORML supports the use of cannabis while driving. We also don’t support locking people up for cannabis use. But we do stand for responsible use and have no problem with criminal punishments of those who put others at risk by their irresponsible use of cannabis. Or for just exhibiting rank stupidity that makes the rest of us look bad.
I would argue the idea that 100% of the time the marijuana user is more dangerous than the same person sober.
Noted from the fact that from my circle of friends none of us have ever received tickets for violations when driving stoned, but only when driving sober. When driving stoned, one is usually more paranoid, and perhaps packing contraband as well, thus they, and especially I, drive the exact speed limit, come to a complete stop at all stop signs, and am religious with all turn signals, as to not give out a “primary violation” that could possibly result in being pulled over.
When sober, and running no risk of arrest for impairment or possession, we are speeders, tailgaters, roll through stop signs, and do “rolling right on reds” etc.
Though I may be a microsecond or two slow on a “reaction speed” test, I’m WAY safer to the public driving while buzzed than not. Many of my contemporaries are the same.
The need to use your hands to operate the bong alone is enough distraction to impair your driving. Your point would be better made with a joint-smoking driver.
I agree, and completely might I add, with High East.
Marijuana doesn’t impair your ability to drive, unless you’ve smoked more than a considerable amount, one bong rip at a stoplight should be equal to or less than the worry of someone taking a drag off of a cigarette.
I hope that one day, once marijuana is universally legalized, we’ll have some way to evaluation how high someone is, as to where the point of impairment is reached, as concretely as BAC/Breathalyzers @ Alcohol.
I really have smoked enough marijuana to whereas I was ready to fall into a sleep-coma, but certainly, bullshit placation of prohibitionists aside, some casual smoking while riding around is more than okay.
It’s not alcohol.
I think we’re missing each other on this one. You’re confusing “danger” with “impairment”.
Is cannabis using driver a “danger”? Probably not.
Is cannabis using driver objectively more impaired than that same exact driver completely sober? Absolutely.
Your statement, “I further submit that if you test a large group, the cannabis group will score about the same as a placebo group on driving ability tests” has actually been tested:
However:
There’s no doubt that getting completely baked makes you more dangerous…
However not as dangerous as those alcohol drinkers we allow to drive…
Nobody is trying to oppress you, but if we wish the general public to accept our bid for legalization, we must be honest about the scientific truths about cannabis, and the truth is that during the acute effects of marijuana use, you will be more impaired than you would be without it.
Whether that makes you a danger, however, is open to debate. Like I always say, never smoke and drive impaired. Do check out Paul Armentano’s review of the evidence.
I respectfully disagree. The car radio is more hazardous to driving than having cannabis in your system. Two sober teenagers in a car is more hazardous to driving than having cannabis in your system. Driving home after a long day at work is more ‘impairing’ than having cannabis in your system. And I submit that coffee makes people aggressive drivers and that makes them not as safe as otherwise.
Marijuana use is not a danger to our roads. If you say it is then lets see the proof? Not a study of mice being unable to find cheese in a maze. Not a Kop parroting nonsense about how often they find THC in peoples systems. I want to see stoned people passing out at the wheel, swerving all over the road, unable to focus eyesight, stumbling and falling, running red lights, unable to speak. Where are all the cars in the ditches we should be seeing if marijuana is ‘impairing’ everyone. Because you know damn well that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU drives with cannabis in your system every day.
Cause and effect. Don’t oppress me, or indicate that I am irresponsible in some way, without cause first. Where are the wrecks and deaths?
I call bullshit on the ‘danger to the roads’ fear mongering and stick to it.
If by impairment you mean I might forget my turn and have to drive down the road a bit to turn around and come back, then I’ll agree with you. If you mean by ‘impairment’ that a person is motor skill impaired and cant operate the vehicle safely than I will continue to hold to my position that it does not ‘impair’ you at all.
Other than smoking, in a stationary vehicle, did this person exhibit any bad or dangerous driving? Did he exhibit any ‘impairment’‘? Probably not. Would he have? Not due to having cannabis in his system. Maybe if he was trying to eat the drive through take out (That he was bound to get, for sure) while changing lanes on the freeway. THAT would be ‘impairment’, I guess.
Hey! I’m not trying to champion the guys right to hit the Roor while he steers with his knee at 55 MPH. That’s plainly stupid and dangerous. I’m just saying that the coincidental fact that a person has cannabis in their system is not an indicator of impairment. I further submit that if you test a large group, the cannabis group will score about the same as a placebo group on driving ability tests.
I worry about cannabis use on the roads as much as I do coffee use on the roads. I don’t worry at all.
You make a very valid point. And I’m even willing to admit that smoking a joint on, say, US 20 in the middle of freakin’ nowhere Eastern Oregon on a clear day (or fill-in-the-blank highway in Nevada, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, Eastern Montana, etc…) is a different threat to public safety than smoking that same joint in busy city traffic on a snowy day.
I’m the last guy to support “zero tolerance” or black and white thinking that says any use equals intolerable impairment. Until cars are no longer made with cupholders, cell phone and nav systems are illegal, and per se alcohol impairment is measured at 0.01 BAC, I won’t accept that our society is all that serious about absolutely impairment-free drivers.
So it becomes a matter of what level of impairment is reasonable? We accept no upper age limits on driver’s licenses. We accept no annual driving tests for licenses. We accept that someone might blow a 0.07 BAC and not be too drunk to drive. We accept yummy fast food fries at drive thrus that come in packages engineered to fit a car cupholder. We accept a Jedi X-wing’s worth of digital screens in the driver’s field of vision.
So I propose that if we are to come up with technology to detect a threshold level of cannabis impairment, that we put the pot smoker up against a nonagenarian who took her first driver’s test on a Model T trying to find the mall on her Garmin while munching McDonald’s fries after a shot of bourbon. Have the pot smoker smoke joints until his performance on the test is worse than Granny’s, and whatever that blood THC level is, that’s the limit.
I have to agree with you Fester, i too was in the same boat during those days living at home, the car was freedom it was my hang out it was my own home. We had road trips to smoke and much more just because we had no where to go. Thats the one thing out of this we can say its prohibition that causes it, when you legalize there will be places to go to smoke, yet even then, younger tokers will keep doing the driving and toking because again they are under age and have no where to go. But then again in a regulated and controlled market kids many find it harder to get, so it may not be as bad!
But as an adult and a supporter of Norml and a parent, I can not be setting the example that its ok to toke and drive period.
I gotta say I am 22 and I have smoked while driving with my dudes so many times it is not funny. I realize now that this was very irresponsable but at the time we all lived with our parents and had no private place to go except out around town (generally out in the country when you may see one car every 20 mins, I will always love country smoke drives) If it were legal then there would be cafes or bars where you could smoke. Prohibition just promotes smoking in cars as very few places out of public view exist especially if you live in an apartment or with family.
“seven-layer-dip of dipshit”
LOL! I love that phrase!
Sorry, High East, but you have been proven wrong on that point scientifically. I’ll agree, it is not alcohol. I’ll agree, experienced users can consume some cannabis and not be a threat on the road.. But to declare that cannabis use is not an impairment (or as unimpairing as coffee) is just factually incorrect. And certainly, reaching around the back seat to get the bong and using it while at a stoplight, even minus the cannabis, is an impairment on the level of texting, fiddling with an MP3 player, or an other object that will distract your attention and require one or both hands to operate.
It’s ignorance like this that gives the movement a bad name. A joint at least, if not a freaking bowl, something small. Even better, smoke in the privacy of your own home. Drive to where you need to drive, then find a safe place. But don’t do stupid crap like this.
I remember when I was young and dumb
now I’m just old and senile 
Hilarious Russ. Really…..too funny.
And High East – I have to say, hitting a bong while driving is not safe – any more than texting on the cell phone while driving is safe. It is irresponsible – plain and simple. Granted it may not be proper to throw people in jail for doing stupid things – but it definitely isn’t “responsible use.” It seems to me the potential to spill the bong on your lap might be a bit of a distraction, the coughing associated with a hit – might be a distraction
And whether or not it impairs you is a test for a different time when we can actually make those calls with valid impairment tests – but until then, it is responsible to at least consider the possibility that marijuana MIGHT impair you. Granted, marijuana users driving in a study tested safer than alcohol users driving, but that isn’t the same thing as saying marijuana “doesn’t impair you at all.” Being TIRED impairs a person driving…
I just cannot see a valid argument for a “right to hit a bong at a red light” flying with most anyone, even many cannabis consumers.
I believe you, but dropping a cigarette while driving can be a monumental error. It’s just not safe to try to do to many things at once. I.E. Drive, watch for cops and traffic, load bong, light lighter, hit bong, pull bowl to clear bong, swerve to avoid truck…. repeat.
Dance around those raindrops all ya want to placate the prohibitionists but I hold to the position that Marijuana wont impair your ability to safely drive any more than coffee will.
It is NOT alcohol and I’m tired of the association of impairment between the two substances.