Court Rules Idaho Motorists May Drive While Stoned  

Tuesday, January 15, 2002
   

SAN FRANCISCO — In Idaho, you can drive high as long as you can drive straight.


Marijuana users can drive legally in the state as long as their driving isn't erratic and they can pass a field sobriety test, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. The three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that while it is illegal to drive under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, Idaho law doesn't list marijuana as a narcotic.

The ruling overturned an impaired driving conviction against Matthew Patzer, 21, who was stopped for a broken tailgate light in 1998 and admitted to police he'd smoked marijuana at a party. The appeals court said Patzer could not automatically be presumed impaired; he wasn't driving erratically and passed two field sobriety tests.

"Given the distinction drawn by the statute, there is no basis to conclude that impairment may be presumed upon admission of use of a non-narcotic drug," the appeals court wrote.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael J. Fica in Idaho said the government may ask the court to review its decision or request that the U.S. Supreme Court hear the case.

Idaho Senate Judiciary Chairman Denton Darrington said he had assumed marijuana was a narcotic under state law, and that the statute might need to be reviewed. But he questioned whether Monday's decision would hold up on appeal.

The circuit's decision also reverses Patzer's illegal weapons convictions.

In his Chevrolet Blazer, police found four illegal homemade grenades, a sawed-off shotgun and a modified rifle with a homemade silencer. But the court said that because of his unlawful arrest, the search of his vehicle was illegal.

The case is United States v. Patzer, 00-30360.

Don't they know that Mara-gee-wanna is whatcha call a "gateway" drug?  That after a few pokes of "boo" the user wants something harder and stronger to the point where they'll be going on acid "trips" everyday?  

This always ends them up in a jail cell where they'll eventually hal-loo-sin-ate so bad that they pull out their own eyeballs.  [b]At least that's what I learned back in High School from a lecture by David Toma .[/b]

I have quite a few friends that spark the "L" everyday, several times a day and a couple that smoke weed all day long. None of them use any other drugs except alcohol. They are all functioning, productive members of society, they just like to smoke weed.

I've also had several friends involved in car wrecks when they were drunk, in which of couple have died. I don't have any friends that have wrecked their car when they were high. I think it probably has something to do with them only driving 15 mph.

I'm not commenting on whether any of this is right or wrong, I'm only sharing my observations.

Ban all spleefs. For the children.

RedmanFMS is my hero. I follow in his banning footsteps.

That's DARE agitprop... you know what DARE stands for?

Drugs
Are
Really
Expensive

In 1986 I shared an apartment with a buddy from high school. Across the hall from our end apartment was a young couple with a little kid. The guy smoked pot all the time when he wasn't out working. Work for him was collecting aluminum scrap to take to the recycling center. His wife wasn't happy with their lifestyle and made that fact abundantly clear.

Since we shared a living room wall with their apartment, we could hear when they'd fight. One day his wife was at our door crying with her screaming baby in hand. It seems that her husband was locked in the bathroom and wouldn't answer her, and would one of us kick in the door?

I got a small screwdriver and went into their dump of an apartment and tried to get him to talk to me through the door. No joy. I popped the lock with the screwdriver and opened the door. He was on his back on the floor with his trousers around his ankles, flopping around like a landed fish. His needle and the rest of his works were on the floor around him.

It seems that he had sat down on the toilet and mixed up a speedball, then shot it into his femoral artery. What he didn't know was that his dope a little harder hitting than the pot he usually anesthetized himself with, and he stroked out. When I got to him, all the blood vessels in his eyes had burst, so the whites of his eyes were actually the "reds" of his eyes. I got his head tilted back to keep his airway open and screamed for someone to call 911.

I tried to get him to talk to me, and put a cold wet cloth on his forehead, but he gradually slowed down like a wind-up toy. In a few seconds he had no pulse at all, so I started CPR. After calling 911, his crying wife came in the very small bathroom with me to clean up his drugs to he wouldn't get arrested for possession.

When the paramedics arrived, they took over and ended up defibrillating him a few times, but got no response. A cop sat me down and told me, "Hey, he killed himself just like putting a gun in his mouth."

He died on the bathroom floor with his trousers around his ankles.

Not to be a sarcastic asshole, but I'm not commenting on whether any of this is right or wrong, I'm only sharing my observations.

thats not much of a problem when yore dead..


i feel for you man, its not easy watching someone die. but you did what you could, so in a way yore a hero...

[img]http://www.mekulius.com/spcg/adimages/mrmackey.gif[/img]
"Drugs are bad.  OK kids?  Don't do drugs."

Absolutely, but at the time she didn't know he was checking out.





Naah, I'm no hero, and it wasn't like this guy was any pillar of the community. I did what I felt I had to do at the time, and only added this story here as a counterpoint to the "Drugs are actually pretty harmless" tone.

OMG, you could say beer is a gateway drug then.
There should be no reason POT shouldn't be legal. Its affects arn't anymore devistating then alcohol. And driving while under influence of pot is NOTHING like alcohol.
I don't want to turn this into POT VS. Alcohal, but anyone that has used both 95% of the time will tell you the same as me, not that I smoke it.  [:D]

I can see where you're coming from Jarhead22, but are you being hard on Mauser88 just because you don't like him? What if dirtbag had offed himself with gun? Drugs are not harmless, but they are not gonna go away. I sell drugs to people 5 days a week and they flock to me( usually at happy hour).

Folks have the right to poison themselves with whatever shytte they want to drink/huff/snort/smoke/shoot.  Legalize it all. Let somebody else make an honest buck manufacturing and selling said shytte.  A certain number will die squalid little deaths, as per Jarhead's post, but those people will find some way to have an embarassing check-out in any case.

I never said drugs, just weed, and you completely proved my point in that the guy never died from hitting the bong.

That would be fine, Golgo, if they wouldn't take so many others down with them.  

Here's my fantasy:

Allow adults to do whatever they want, but then they have to assume any and all costs associated with their habits.  No health insurance, emergency services, skilled nursing facilities, liver transplants, nada.  And any alcohol users that get behind the wheel should be pulled from the car, the car impounded and sold, the user given a large dose of Antabuse, and forced to walk home.  An eye for an eye- cause a death or serious harm to another, get a bullet in the head (following the drink of your choice, of course).

Same goes for motorcycle helmet laws.  No helmet, no services.  "Sorry, young man, we do not have a publicly funded brain-injury or spinal cord rehabilitation program for you."

Sick, ain't it!

[:D]

Apparently the humorous tone I was trying to inject into my first post was filtered out by my keyboard.

I do not truly believe that cannibis is a gateway drug.  Not only due to the fact that technically, pot is not a [i]narcotic[/i], but due to the fact that the "gateway excuse is just that - an excuse.  

The "gateway drug" finding is backward logic- when you ask heavy drug users what they did before the heavier drugs, they say "marijuana".  It is then concluded that marijuana use leads to heavy drug use.  Not all marijuana users go on to heavy drugs.  Not all heavy drug users like or use marijuana, too.

I agree with Golgo-13 and the cop.

But Jarhead22, If he had used a gun would you have the same point to make?  

A counter to the guns are harmless argument?

20 years ago some of my friends started smoking weed.  We were really close friends....from 3rd grade up but I did not just jump into what they were doing.  

I went out with them.....watched them.....and never noticed them do anything weird or uncontrolled...........their driving was normal and their attitudes were very mellow.  In fact, they were fine.

Eventually I tried the weed and I enjoyed it............for about 5 years I was more than a social user but even during that time I was never tempted to do any thing harder than the pot and alcohol.  

I saw many people die in drunk driving accidents.........none in pot related ones.

I saw kids get kicked out of class for being drunk (in college) but never for being on pot.  In fact, it actually aided me in classes like philosophy, sociology and literatures of various cultures and nations.

Personally, I think alcohol is far more dangerous and deadly and that it affects more lives in a more harmful way than pot ever could.

Perhaps I was in the minority since I never graduated to other substances and I am certainly not saying that no one has has ever been hurt by marijuana use or the environment surrounding it.  

What were we talking about again?