And in the process, David, ensure more innocent motorists suffer instead?
McErlean was later found to have 3.5 micrograms of THC (the active chemical in cannabis) per litre of blood in his system - almost double the legal limit of the active ingredient of cannabis.
'He admitted that he regularly smoked cannabis and had done so since the age of 15,' Ms Broome said.
'He didn't view it as a problem as he passed his driving test under the influence of cannabis.'What's Lammy under the influence of, though, that's the question...
10 comments:
It's easy to deal with, just treat driving under the influence of cannabis in the way drunk driving is treated.
There is no need to keep cannabis illegal. You are conflating two different things.
As for alcohol - I drink, and I never stop until I can feel the intoxicant effects. So that means I am way over the legal limit for driving.
But I never drink before driving. Never. Not a drop.
Why should cannabis not be treated the same? Note: opposing Lammy is not sufficient reason.
I detest cannabis with a passion, but in the interests of fairness, alcohol is legal, but driving under the influence of it is very illegal. Hence, the problem is not the drug, but to drive under its influence.
Legalisation of a substance gives the impression that it is comparatively harmless, and it has taken decades of drink-driving prosecutions and advertising to get the message across even in the minor way we have today. To legalise cannabis when we don't have to is a bad thing because it would undo that.
Personally, I think that this this man should have been publicly flogged as well as getting the prison sentence.
(And Lammy!)
It surprises me how everyone seems to be tripping over themselves to legalise cannabis, yet another plant, tobacco, remains the most 'deadly' vice known to man.
There will come a day when taxpayer funded lobby groups are demanding the denormalisation of cannabis, while tobacco creates a huge black market and turf wars among drug dealers
It's all a big money merry-go-round
The case for any drug being illegal can only be made if, by making it illegal people are prevented from using it. If banning it doesn't stop people from using it then there is no upside to doing so and all you are left with are the downsides which are many and serious. Also, what the guy said in the first post said.
Sentenced to 3 years and 4 months - 40 months, of which half will be knocked off for 'good behaviour' as soon as he is driven through the prison gates. Most of that 20 months will be spent in rehabilitation, so he will actually receive no punishment. Being under the influence of cannabis is a reason for the manslaughter, because that is the actual offence irrespective of the 'death by dangerous driving' charge, but should not be an excuse.
A proper deterrent would be a prison sentence of at least 10 years before parole during which he would be measured for cannabis in his system at irregular intervals, banned from driving for life, and banned from any contact with his children until they are 18 and can make up their own mind.
Mind you, my crime prevention philosophy is a little to the right of Vlad the Impaler.
Penseivat
Lammy is playing to his target demographic as usual. Just like he always does.
Jaded.
"almost double the legal limit of the active ingredient of cannabis"
I wasn't aware that there was a legal limit for either of the main active ingredients of cannabis. How can this be when cannabis is illegal?
I detest cannabis with a passion, for the stink as well as the lunacy it induces in those who smoke it. I also detest Mercedes cars, which are part of the Germanic car plague we suffer on the roads. All too often the drivers of those cars behave like they own the road – perhaps they do. I also have no patience with people who keep their cars in unroadworthy condition, and I simply don’t believe the story that the Merc was emitting smoke.
But, like most drivers with many decades of experience of all types of road conditions, I’ve seen all too many motorcyclists come out of nowhere and hammer up between queues of traffic, or undertake, at way beyond the speed limit or what many of us car drivers would consider to be safe speeds. Quite often, motorcycles are driven extremely close to cars, without taking properly into account their riders’ vulnerability in the case of an incident.
Reading the article that is linked, the dead motorcyclist was driving up on the inside, almost certainly too close to the cars, and equally certainly, far too fast. So the perp hit the rear wheel of the bike, did he? The bike had just about passed the car.
The critical point is that the perp blew any chance of anything other than his misuse of dope being a factor in this accident, but on the basis of a half century of driving, I’d say that the victim was a bit to blame, even if it was only a tenth of a percent. Just because the rider is dead doesn’t absolve him of that residue of blame, no matter how small the proportion is.
Davidson's riotous parody of a genre with his impersonation of the 'London Lammy' character, backfired on every citizen who thought the fictional character was a great source of entertainment. I swear that most of us ceased laughing when you entered Parliament, Mr Lammy.
"... just treat driving under the influence of cannabis in the way drunk driving is treated."
Lenient sentencing and no justice for the victims, you mean?
"I detest cannabis with a passion, but in the interests of fairness, alcohol is legal..."
It it were to be invented today, you can bet it wouldn't be!
"It surprises me how everyone seems to be tripping over themselves to legalise cannabis, yet another plant, tobacco, remains the most 'deadly' vice known to man."
Good point!
"Mind you, my crime prevention philosophy is a little to the right of Vlad the Impaler."
Mine too...
"But, like most drivers with many decades of experience of all types of road conditions, I’ve seen all too many motorcyclists come out of nowhere and hammer up between queues of traffic, or undertake, at way beyond the speed limit or what many of us car drivers would consider to be safe speeds. "
There's no indication this was the case in this accident, though.
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