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Comment by XorNot | Hacker News Reader

About time.

There's no human being on Earth so dangerous they can't be safely put on an airplane.

I might question that statement. Being a passenger on an airplane requires you to accept a certain amount of responsibility. A person unable to behave properly and/or refrain from harming others in some way (angry, drunk, high, insane, actively trying to crash the airplane, physically abusive, having a communicable disease, etc) should probably be banned from air travel until their behavior and/or ability to harm others can be controlled.

I have never smoked in my life, and I don't plan to, but did you just put people that are high in the same bucket as drunks and insane people? They are very different types of people.

Marijuana isn't the only drug that gets you high. He was using "high" in the sense of other, more harmful drugs that completely distort your reality and can cause you to become violent. Remember the bath salt incidents a while back?

"high" doesn't imply only marijuana. I would prefer to not be on the same airplane as someone who's just consumed a large amount of methamphetamines, or LSD, or cocaine.

Getting high isn't just limited to smoking marijuana... There are a huge array of substances that could cause safety concerns for passengers on an airplane.

I mean it generally, high as in "people who can't control their behavior due to recent drug use". If you know someone who just ingested "a bunch" of LSD, should that person be on an airplane for 8 hours? Can they control their behavior and not be a nuisance to others or difficult for staff to give instructions to?

I'll point out that someone who is high on marijuana could be a potential hazard during an incident, although may be less likely to cause one themselves.

Hows about children? Seeing as they legally they can't accept any amount of responsibility - can we ban them too?

I mean toddlers have to count as either high or insane and probably would try crash the plane if they weren't restrained. Plus imagine how peaceful flights would be ..

Children don't have to accept legal responsibility, parents do that for them in most instances. So your point is nullified.

I think your statement requires a slight modification: There's no human being on Earth who is not guilty of any crime that is so dangerous that they cannot be safely put on an airplane.

By all means, keep the convicted Son of Sam's of this world off my airplane. But somebody that the state finds themselves unable to convict of anything? Give me a break. Either the state can prove that they are dangerous and need to prosecute them, or they need to leave them alone.

People guilty of crimes should be tried and prosecuted. Judges should impose the sentence, and for serious crimes that probably includes a jail sentence which is the ultimate restriction of movement. If that also includes restricting their international movements as part of their sentence, fine. But simply having been at one time convicted of a crime should not automatically banned from air travel.

Yes, quite right.

It is no crime to have a highly airborne-communicable disease, but it is dangerous to be on an airplane with one.

Anybody with a disease that would warrant forbidding them from getting on an airplane is presumably being legally forcibly isolated/quarantined anyway. If not, then I see no problem allowing them on the airplane; the common flu is a "highly airborne-communicable disease", but we certainly don't stop people with the sniffles from flying.

I think the idea there is that those with diseases like drug-resistant tuberculosis should be prevented from flying because of the risk it presents to other passengers. It's really a matter of degree: While both diseases can kill, and certainly influenza is far more virulent, you're less willing to take a risk with a diseases that's difficult to treat (if treatment is even successful) and is infectious.

I'd think the same thing would occur (or I'd hope so anyway) if a form of influenza popped up that was highly fatal and contagious.

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