Quote:
Originally Posted by Stu Pidasso
Nothing if you are going to make it 100% legal as in anyone can smoke it anytime anywhere. However if you are going to make it partially legal, as in you can smoke it in certain places and as long as you don't engange in certain activities then you still need to police it.
I imagine marijuana will never be 100% legal as I don't know too many people who want their airline piliots stoned on approach. In fact I will go on record right now saying I do not support blunts in the cockpit. If a piliot is found in said cockpit with one, then they should be prosecuted and thrown in jail.
Making drugs "legal" doesn't really end the war on drugs. It just eliminates some of the battles.
Disagree.
Why does it have to be the government who punishes the pilot?
I think there is nothing unethical about making choices about one's own vessel and doing with it as whatever one will provided it brings no harm to anyone.
Let's take your example of flying stoned in the cockpit.
A pilot we can gather has a good deal of wisdom about him or her. Therefore from that we can deduce that they would be unlikely to be an inexperienced stoner and unlikely therefore to be liable to disorientation. In other words, if you're a pilot, you know that flying has a risk and you have a responsibility as part of your duties to take off, fly and land an aeroplane. Therefore you are unlikely to one day decide to start smoking weed without ever having done so before, unaware of the effects it could have upon your body and mind - and then go and fly an aeroplane and potentially risking the lives of both you and your passengers. You are not going to take that risk. And besides, any human being who is compelled to try smoking weed has experience of the effects through their peers or from what they have read or heard so they know what they are in for when they do it. So you'll be a frequent user with experience if you are a pilot.
Nevertheless, should that dreadful event arise where the pilot does go into work stoned and takes off and crashes and his passengers die and the pilot somehow survives unharmed, he should be subject to the will of the market IMO.
To explain: The reporting of the incident by the free press will bring such shame upon him that his life from that point on may be ruined, he may be known forever in his given name as a man so brutally irresponsible and shamelessly negligent in his duties, such that he may never garner gainful employment again and his life will be ruined. He will be fired, named, shamed, discredited forever. To have to struggle through that is surely a lot worse than deprivation of his right to liberty?
Further the airline company would be shamed too. They too would suffer from boycotting. Then the market adjusts. Airlines say "OK weed is legal but you as an employee will be screened for it daily" or something similar. Consumers take their money elsewhere and then nobody has to go through that again. And businesses will do things like that because they suffer so greatly from bad press.