08-25-2019, 05:53 AM
Interesting perspective on recreational drug use. I'll need lots of convincing that this utopian ideal is workable when it intersects the real world.
Given the number of accidents/injuries/deaths that occur on our roads, I wouldn't/couldn't argue that we adequately manage alcohol use sufficiently well to avoid destroying far too many lives - yet we have a political push to legalize other drugs whose use and impairment are less easily detected and managed. Do I want to be driving in the presence of other drivers on the road who are impaired? Do I want to be working around heavy equipment where the operators are impaired? Do I want to be working in a laboratory (where compressed gases are used, where corrosive chemicals are used, where dozens of potentially toxic compounds are kept) where the technicians are impaired?
And who, ultimately, is going to be held responsible for the damage done by impaired drivers/operators/workers? In other countries I've visited, they are a good deal more serious about impaired driving than the US has ever been: (https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2010/01/08/t...ng-ticket/). Possibly with sufficiently serious penalties for impaired driving and workplace performance, it would limit the damage, but as things stand now, the victims suffering the damage of others' impairment are the ones expected to bear the majority of the costs....
Given the number of accidents/injuries/deaths that occur on our roads, I wouldn't/couldn't argue that we adequately manage alcohol use sufficiently well to avoid destroying far too many lives - yet we have a political push to legalize other drugs whose use and impairment are less easily detected and managed. Do I want to be driving in the presence of other drivers on the road who are impaired? Do I want to be working around heavy equipment where the operators are impaired? Do I want to be working in a laboratory (where compressed gases are used, where corrosive chemicals are used, where dozens of potentially toxic compounds are kept) where the technicians are impaired?
And who, ultimately, is going to be held responsible for the damage done by impaired drivers/operators/workers? In other countries I've visited, they are a good deal more serious about impaired driving than the US has ever been: (https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2010/01/08/t...ng-ticket/). Possibly with sufficiently serious penalties for impaired driving and workplace performance, it would limit the damage, but as things stand now, the victims suffering the damage of others' impairment are the ones expected to bear the majority of the costs....