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Comment by notthegov | Hacker News Reader

Cannabis being illegal actually influences people to use prescription drugs and meth. If someone has a job that drug tests them or are on probation, then people will choose harder drugs (or alcohol). The only drug aside from PCP that stays in your system over 3 days is cannabis.

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Interestingly, in Colorado it's legal for a company to fire an employee who has (legally) smoked marijuana. So even with legalization drug tests may remain a thing.

It's interesting, but taken through some lenses, maybe that's still OK?

I've never smoked, but I wonder if I'd like my doctor to be high when he operates on me, or for an armorer to reassemble my rifle while high. Does marijuana influence attention to detail? Is there a way to ensure that people don't get high while at work, that they stay sober on the job? Anecdotally, from watching high people while I was in university, I don't think I'd trust their giggling selves with my life.

There are plenty of legal substances that you don't want you doctor to be on, before he operates on you.

Do you also refuse to trust people that drank a glass of wine with their dinner several weeks ago?

That would be absurd for someone to do, but, if someone wants to, well, freedom of association?

Note: I am not strongly committed to this idea I am expressing at the time of this writing. I'm not even sure I am at all committed to it. I do think its a relevant position that seems worth considering, if nothing else.

> freedom of association?

Two freedoms seem to be conflicting here. Person A's freedom to do legal things in their free time and person B's freedom to not like the other person's choices. I can't stop person B from being prejudiced. However, I argue that person B should not have the right to control person A's legal activities.

In this case, doctor A could drink the glass of wine and decline patient B as his client. Patient B would pay a higher price on average to express his preference, and doctor A would receive less business to express his preference.

I imagine a pothead doctor could even use the fact that he's a pothead to market to other potheads.

With doctors my biggest concern would be their lack of sleep.

and chronic abuse of sleeping pills resulting from that.

And if she's been working 19 hours without sleep before your surgery? How would you know?

How about an eye surgeon that just had 3 big coffees? I think the fact that you haven't smoked makes your perception of cannabis' effects wildly out of step with reality. I wouldn't trust any of the sober university students I knew performing surgery on me.

You introduce working 19 hours without sleep before surgery as a hyperbolic excess that should get one fired.

In fact, it appears to be routine and required of medical residents in the US. Which is ridiculous.

It seems medical students and their teachers can't apply basic notions of healthy living on themselves. I always wondered why they agree to stay up to 24 or 36 hours per shift. Can't they have 8 hour long work shifts?

Is it legal for the doctor to operate on you while drunk? What if s/he used alcohol in the previous 24 hours?

This is handled through most jobs requiring that people show up sober to the workplace. The same laws/rules would apply to marijuana. You can't operate heavy machinery while drunk or high, though caffeine and tobacco generally aren't regarded in the same way.

It's foolish to think people will just throw caution to the wind and get high before doing their job.

If your employee is a habitual pot smoker there is still the risk that one day he turns up high for work. Why would you take that risk if you can hire somebody who does not smoke at all?

Other than that, consumption of cannabis is correlated with a bunch of stuff that an employer may want to avoid (for instance increased impulsivity [1])

Given the fact that employers routinely choose to not hire somebody because of even the slightest misgivings, not wanting to employ a pot smoker can hardly be called irrational.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25595054

Why would you take that risk if you can hire somebody who does not smoke at all?

Indeed, that's why I hire only teetotalers. After all, if they like to have a drink now and then, there's still a risk that one day they turn up drunk for work.

You would think this, especially for people operating heavy manufacturing equipment, yet a quick search lists page after page of results where auto workers in assembly plants were busted, fired, and reinstated after being caught drinking and smoking before or on the job.

The first link I got from my search: http://www.torquenews.com/106/chrysler-ordered-rehire-worker...

only problem is that drug tests don't prove current intoxication unless it's specifically designed to do so. the drug tests you are referring to, pre-employment and workers comp drug tests, are urinalysis.

you'd know this already if you weren't naive

I've made the argument with lots of strongly pro-legalization folks that they should be investing in efforts to develop a reliable test for current intoxication. A lot of the strongest (in my view) anti-legalization arguments stem from the current difficulty to detect things like driving and coming to work under the influence.

A simple computer-game like thing (think, a tetris-lookalike) might work.

Problem is: a lot of sober people would fail this test. Of course, you could argue that grandma really shouldn't be driving any more if her reaction times are so bad. Or the sleep-deprived father of three. And you'd be absolutely right and justified.

Such a result would be political suicide, though.

Why? It would only feed a new industry of expensive arrests and trials for no good reason.

Because it isn't safe to drive under the influence of marijuana, or to do many jobs. For driving, there just currently isn't a great solution, and that freaks a lot of otherwise open-minded people out. For jobs, the solution is often to disqualify anyone who has used it in the last few weeks (or even months, maybe?). Neither is a good solution.

Do you believe that breathalyzers result in expensive arrests and trials "for no good reason"? I don't. I don't believe people high on marijuana are as dangerous as drunk people, but I also don't believe they're harmless.

So far, driving has become safer in Colorado. Show me an overall bad outcome.

There's an interesting point here. I suspect we would both agree that "driving has become safer in Colorado" because more people are choosing to be stoned at home, instead of drunk on the roads. However, I think there are still a lot of people stoned on the roads, and that driving would become even more safer if we could deter that through reliable detection. But it's possible that would be a wash or have a negative result due to re-tipping the scales in favor of being drunk and potentially driving. Obviously, that hasn't been tested, but I think it's worth shooting for an even better outcome, rather than just avoiding an overall bad one.

You have already pointed out why that might not work in practice, plus you have not proposed a way to prevent law enforcement from imposing de facto prohibition or creating other self-serving distortions as law enforcement often does.

This has always been a really bad argument, the myriad ways it's been made. I wouldn't want my doctor drunk while he operates on me either. But failing a marijuana drug test says absolutely nothing about weather you are under the influence of marijuana. If you could detect alcohol in the blood a week after taking a drink, it would be clearly stupid to have random alcohol tests that cause you to lose your job if a trace is found.

The way to ensure that people do a good job is fire them if they don't do a good job. No need for indirect methods.

> But failing a marijuana drug test says absolutely nothing about weather you are under the influence of marijuana.

I'm not so sure of that. Failing a marijuana drug test means that there's a measurable amount of THC in your body.

Most tests measure THC metabolites, not THC, and in a heavy user these fat solvable compounds can persist for almost a year after cessation.

They are not "under the influence" for those 10 months.

You may not be so sure of that, but I am.

A "marijuana drug test" usually means testing for THC metabolites, not active THC in your blood stream. These can show up on test results a month after you ingested anything.

Imagine if tomorrow you were called in and they did a test to see if you had a single beer/glass of wine in the last month. Would you pass that test? If you would, great.. I'm willing to put down money that most people wouldn't.

There are quantitative tests for THC and its metabolites. A quantitative test can be dialed to whatever threshold you want, within the lower limit of detection for the methodology.. Demonstrate that most people are "under the influence" at a threshold value, then set policy to that value. This is just a matter of political will and influence. Many studies have been done, enough to design specific 'influence' studies (for driving, etc).

People can get high with edibles, vape pens, body rubs, many ways. Someone you work with could be getting high right now, and you wouldn't know it - they were quitting smoking and vaping, or they got some chocolates (but won't share).

You can't tell, and 50% of the sales at Tucson dispensaries are edibles and concentrates.

So you will have to judge on the work, not if they are giggling. You should be more concerned if your surgeon is ethically compromised so that he would operate impaired by anything - no sleep, alcohol, weed, prescription pain killers. Same for anyone in a life/death job.

I own a factory, and use it for pain management. When I am using it (that day) I won't drive the forklift or use any machinery. I could hurt myself or others by being lost in a weed fog. Instead I do emails, meetings, R&D, etc. while sitting at my desk. Nothing that would kill me if I stopped paying attention for a minute. Forklifts and CNC machinery can definitely kill you if you aren't paying attention.

Your weed smoking armorer would probably not be using when working on weapons. His life could be at stake for a loss of concentration, and he knows it. It's smart to avoid weed induced problems, no altruism needed. Just cover your own ass.

Lots of people who you would think should know better drive under the influence of alcohol. I think part of the reason is that alcohol impairs judgment. Having never smoked weed, I'm curious about whether there is that same effect. Are you more able to tell yourself "I'm high, I shouldn't drive" than you are "I'm drunk, I shouldn't drive"?

Absolutely. Pot makes you paranoid man...

Anecdotally, yes, people tend to know when they're too stoned to drive.

Here's something addressing a similar question[0]:

> Detrimental effects of cannabis use vary in a dose-related fashion, and are more pronounced with highly automatic driving functions than with more complex tasks that require conscious control, whereas alcohol produces an opposite pattern of impairment. Because of both this and an increased awareness that they are impaired, marijuana smokers tend to compensate effectively while driving by utilizing a variety of behavioral strategies.

[0]: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10550490902786934

A large part of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu community, including champions, use cannabis because it helps them get into a flow state and recover from injury.

Obviously this doesn't apply to surgeries, and I can't think of a surgeon who would smoke weed and operate. But in a hypothetical situation, it could allow a person to perform better.

However, if your doctor smokes weed or drinks alcohol in his free time, it doesn't make him a bad doctor.

The real world is more shocking. I know many doctors and surgeons who use cocaine. And there are surgeons who will intentionally do bad surgeries because the profit motive is so high.

Three doctors including a surgeon were arrested today (one from Beverly Hills) and are facing 50+ years in prison for insurance fraud.

Human nature is a scary thing.

You wouldn't want your doctor to be drunk in the operating theater, either, but no one has ever said that people should be fired for drinking on their day off. Why do you think marijuana should be different?

There isn't any protection for consumption of other legal substances either (except when they are prescribed for a health condition); cannabis isn't an exception. Alaska Airlines, for instance, prohibits their employees from using tobacco products even on their own time, and tests to that effect.

Keep in mind that the default is that anyone can be fired for any reason. A company is free to fire an employee who has legally smoked cigarettes too (if they wish).

I thought you could fire in America for `no reason', but not for `any reason'. Ie you can't fire people for being white or female?

There are certain things such as race and gender which are protected classes. It is illegal to discriminate against someone based on these attributes in various ways including employment. [1]

Beyond this, most employment in the US is "at-will", meaning that you can be fired for any reason or no reason. [2]

Some things not explicitly listed as a protected class might still pose problems if its determined that the way in which is it enforced is discriminatory. [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment [3] http://navbat.com/can-you-fire-someone-for-being-too-ugly/

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