Posted on 01/21/2014 4:29:12 AM PST by Kaslin
I used to be very into online gaming, was head of a clan and admin over our dedicated server which hosted what was at the time the top ranked Call of Duty UO servers.
The vast majority of participants were geeks and never touched drugs or alcohol.
And I agree that video games are as -if not more- addictive than hard drugs to those that have a propensity towards compulsive behavior. There have been many studies that claim they are comparable to cocaine in the way the brain is effected. Maybe. I’ve seen guys -and some girls- completely obsessed. You name it, divorces and failed careers, just as if they were on meth or crack.
If by drugs you mean the substances you mentioned, yes. Do you find that so hard to believe? Drop by XBOX Live, PSNetwork, or any of a variety of internet-based game chat services and see for yourself. The average age for gamers is around 35 years of age. Do I think a majority of these gamers smoke? Drink? Do drugs? ABSOLUTELY.
Call it empirical evidence...
It sounds, though, like it should be a controlled substance instead of an illegal one, either being bought only with a prescription or being bought only in a state store specifically licensed to do so and with ID proving an age over 21.
Supplying it to minors should be a crime.
I was just a young kid living at home.
I didn’t understand at the time what was happening.
You put the puzzle pieces together as you grow older - and no - the “criminal possession” part wasn’t happening at home (at least not in the open)
We got to see the glorious after affects upon her return home
Reasonable.....making that work in real life could be problematic
but at least it’s reasinable. Treat it like ETOH.
True, nicotine is addictive, habit forming and smells. No argument but unlike other drugs it doesnt alter your personality and you dont get stoned. No one ever went to jail saying rhey didnt mean to beat their kids but they smoked too many cigarettes and couldnt help it.
Should have also mentioned penalties for driving under the influence, disorderly, public intoxication, etc.
With alcohol all these are based on blood levels and the nature of the bad behavior. It should be the same.
To date there is no test comparable to BAC results etc. that can definitively
show someone is “under the influence” for marijuana and many drugs.
Lab tests can show the presence of drugs or metabolic byproducts of drugs
but there is no real correlation between levels measured and impairement
of abilities. Alcohol provides a fairly straight line correlation between amount measured and impairement and even then there is variations based on physiology. Science is still behind the curve on measuring impairment
and the legal system needs hard data to set legal definitions for non ETOH drugs.
Similar to alcohol, there is an established impairment level in Colorado of five nanograms of active tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)—the active psychoactive component of marijuana—per milliliter of whole blood.
http://www.coloradodot.info/news/2014-news-releases/01-2014/recreational-marijuana-legal-impaired-driving-not
There hasn't really been an obvious reason until now given that the stuff itself was illegal. The military has a fairly precise test to measure drug amounts, including THC, and they've used it to remove those who abused drugs.
It's a starting point for research, and I assume if they can put a man on the moon, then they can get a quick analysis for a police traffic stop, and a BAC-type test for legal issues.
The illegality of pot is a statist tool, as are those who support it.
Maybe smoking doesn’t alter your personality, I won’t argue that one way or the other but, as a former smoker who is the son of a smoker and grew up in an environment where teenagers were allowed to bring cigarettes to high school if their parents signed a permission slip for them I can certainly tell you that DEPRIVING an addicted smoker of nicotine can CERTAINLY change his or her personality for the worse very quickly and it can be amazing to see to what lengths a person will go to get a cigarette.
I could tell you about my first cousin, who in his youth had been a very athletic, classicly handsome young man with an absolutely brilliant mind and three times the energy of anyone around him who developed emphysema but kept on smoking until he died in a nursing home in his early sixties. At one point he burned his face trying to smoke a cigarette while wearing an oxygen canula in a hospital room. He was five or six years older than I and I had really admired him when I was a young boy. Remembering all that he went through is one of the few things that can cause my eyes to water now at age 69.
If I made a long list and it WOULD be a long one, of all the stupid things I have done in 69 years, smoking cigarettes would be near the top of the list.
Probably....the impetus with legal MJ now exists to
finalize standards.
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