• ExploitedAmerican@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I will probably get downvoted for this but whatever. The idea that everyone has the same tolerance point to alcohol and once you pass the certain BAC threshold your driving is automatically impaired is not a realistic view. The state just has an interest in inconveniencing drivers with laws to increase revenue for the state. For instance Drugged driving laws are pretty dumb, i can undersrand drugs like alcohol, even benzodiazepines and things like GHB, or other disassociatives. But everyone has a different brain chemistry and a different response. Someone who’s been drinking every day and is an alcoholic yeah they are killing themselves for sure, personally i hate alochol, I probably drink maybe 4 to 6 times a year sometimes even just once or twice at holidays. I hate the way it makes my body feel afterwards. But some people have larger livers and process alcohol differently or have an extreme tolerance. Yeah it would be better to just ban this behavior regardless but this type of authoritarian approach is just not conducive to the concept of a free society. It’s like banning guns entirely, the rich will still have them police will still kill is with them and wars will Still be fought to eradicate large swaths of the population so people should have them just in case anything happens. Inalways here the argument against guns like typically pointed st conservatives like if guns are for overthrowing tyrannical Governments then why aren’t you doing anything now (thats because the right is adjacent to and supporting of fascism as they believe it benefits them/ see themselves as equal to the ruling class) as the government is definitely violating the constitution in several ways as I type. but the better argument is what happens if we are invaded and the extremely sophisticated machines of murder our societies militarized imperial apparatus fail to function, are sabotaged not to function or just overpowered. Are we just going to lie down and succumb to an invading force? It’s like if we have firefighters then why would we need fire extinguishers, the government saying we can make you safer by limiting your behavior is just tyranny. Murder and theft and rape which is a theft should be criminalized but with murder you can’t really just wait for the state to defend your life that wont happen 999 times out of a thousand. 1 of 20 gun related homicides involve police. But back to the topic of impaired driving instead of analyzing the functionality and legitimacy of y C B ugh e laws within our society. If someone is visibly swerving and stumbling/ slurring their speech, torally, if thats observed they deserve to be stopped. Like maybe AI tools or just a vehicle that can detect this and stop it. In a way that can be done so that it is not a surveillance state nightmare that then notifies authorities and ruins your life but just that will slow the car down and pull over or even prevent swerving. Self driving tech has some potential here. When we dont need to drive in the future this thpe of behavior policing will be beyond unnecessary. Then with uppers its ridiculous to think someone high on cocaine or methamphetamine will be bad at driving. And as far as cannabis, considering someone who has cannabis in their system “impaired” is ridiculous unless they are drunk or tripping on acid at the same time to a level that makes the turn into a 3 dimensional pathway into a parallel universe then smoking pot is going to make driving harder. But it’s just not a straightforward thing. I can almost undersrand drunk driving laws, like it’s a shitty drug and it just makes you dumb and slow. Some people can’t function without it and need to have an elevated BAC level. Like extreme alcoholics on their way to liver cirrhosis probably couldn’t tie their shoes or wipe their ass without having a BAC of 0.08. With cannabis i even read a tripple A study a long time ago when states first started to legalize cannabis that said the amount of tetrahydrocannabinol, and/ or cannabidol / cannabinol one has in their system doesnt determine how impaired they are and ultimately impaired functions and behavior are nor determinable through bloodwork. One could easily do a study and pick other random factors and probably do a study that says arbitrary things can affect your condition to drive. Emotional state, race/ ethnicity, wether you grew up with both parents or not, how much money you have. Discriminatory determinations like this don’t provide concrete results in one way or another. Now they have a new study that came out this hear i read that for es was involved but it basically said 83% of cannabis users smoke the same day they drive and the criteria was they smoked within & hours of when they next drove like that is a totally ridiculous parameter.

    Some people have different brain chemistry/ cognitive functioning like people witb ADHD and consuming cannabis can allow them to focus in a sate of flow which is a real psychological state. I read a book on it about 15 years ago written by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called “flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience”(highly recommend everyone to read this especially artists, musicians writers) it’s a state where the person feels as if time has slowed down and they have the ability to hyper focus and make the vest choice/ improvise in an uninhabited way like with improvisational music or guitar, or writing but really it’s a universal state across any physical activity that’s just the way the mind works. I know I’ve besn drunk and experienced this state before especially playing music or trying to rizz up a baddie, but when i was drunk it definitely felt like it was work to operate in that headspace and the more alcohol the slower the response. I do think that to be the case for most people. But with other drugs that don’t reduce your ability to write your name if you have too much its way different. Like someone with heavy opioid tolerance who’s prescribed heavy dose of methadone in comparison to others will be perfectly fine to function on any amount of opioid that isn’t far larger than their usual dose of opioids… like if someone with a dose of methadone thpically larger than 100 milligrams if they break their leg or get into an incident where they need pain relief they will need a much larger dose of an instant releif opioid for breakthrough pain. Im talking like 20-30mg of dialaudid which could anesthetize most people but everyone is different.

    Ive always been responsible with my enjoyment of mind / mood altering chemicals I think drugs are awesome and I have some firm probably subversive beliefs on drug prohibition. I believe those ideas are sane and reasonable but we live in an insane corrupt backwards oriented society and things are only getting worse unfortunately.

    • MnemonicBump@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 days ago

      Nah, driving is a privilege, not a right. You don’t NEED to d I’ve and you absolutely don’t need to drive while impaired. Even if you think you’re good, you’re not. There are THOUSANDS of cases of people being killed by drunk drivers who thought they were good.

    • Rebecca_Corndogs@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Oh! I know this one! I grew up with an alcoholic narcissist. This is the part where the drunk rants for hours about how unfair the world is and how they’re the real victim.

      You’re not special. You sound exactly like every other “functional” alcoholic right before they end up on the news for killing a mother of two, with a sad faced mugshot, lip poked out like they’re the one who got hurt.

      But hey, what would I know? I’m just a funeral director. It’s not like I have to deal with the aftermath of people like you, right?

      And you’re right—it’s totally unfair to expect you not to drive your drunk ass home. It’s not like you could drink at home, or get a ride, or call an Uber, no! You have to drink and drive. Anything else would be unreasonable.

    • Nelots@lemmy.zip
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      6 days ago

      the government saying we can make you safer by limiting your behavior is just tyranny

      I know, right? That’s why I should be allowed to wildly swing a machete around public spaces. Because limiting my ability to do so is tyranny!!! And kids should be able to bring grenades to school because we wouldn’t want to impede on their rights! Fucking /s if you couldn’t figure that out.

      And your entire gun analogy makes zero sense. Regardless of anybody’s opinion on gun control laws, it is true that you will be able to better defend yourself against a bad guy with a gun if you also have a gun. But driving while you’re drunk will not make you any safer when the guy in front of you is also drunk. The two subjects are nothing alike.

    • TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 days ago

      What the fuck is all of this? Are you trying to rationalize your own drunk driving?

      You do not understand tolerance. Start here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2764986

      This study demonstrated that heavy social drinkers, categorized by their persistent and predominant adult pattern of drinking and regular bingeing, exhibited comparable alcohol-induced impairment to that of light social drinkers in such areas as fine motor and dexterity skills (Pegboard) and processing and encoding functions (DSST) following consumption of a moderate-to-heavy dose of alcohol (4-5 standard drink equivalent).

      Basically even if you don’t “feel” intoxicated, your psychomotor performance will be impacted as much as anyone else. If anything, it’s more dangerous, because you’re going to be less aware of how intoxicated you are.

      This effect is especially noticeable if you see someone drinking on Vivitrol. They don’t feel drunk, but they keep drinking and slurring their words, stumbling, etc. The way that alcohol affects the limbic system and creates that sense of euphoria is separate from how it affects your motor coordination, and balance, speech, vision, etc.

      DONT DRINK AND DRIVE. And if you do, I pray you end up in prison for DUI rather than manslaughter. Fuck you for even spending all that time and effort writing an essay on how reckless use of a deadly weapon in public spaces is okay if you’re an addict. Legal limit should be 0.01. It’s a worthless poison that kills people.

    • sunflowercowboy@feddit.org
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      6 days ago

      Tl;dr - Selfish person thinks people being fully cognitive while driving a 4,000lb vehicle is silly. Makes argument about how governance doesnt defend your life, while also arguing that they should impede on visibly intoxicated people… Like the thing we already do… That he is arguing against…

    • teuniac_@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Given the potential to do harm, driving is a privilege. Personal views on whether one can drive under the influence of substances are irrelevant as vulnerable road users would be exposed to much more risk than the driver. Bystanders pay the risk that’s taken by the driver.

      It would be good if societies would work in a way that acknowledges that not everyone can/should drive or owns a car. This would mean better public transport, improved zoning, better facilities for walking and cycling.