Drugs and other Scooby Snacks

[Lady Sidhe]

So, what drugs do you think should be legal, and why? What drugs do you think should NOT be legal, and why?

I think weed oughta be legal. I think alcohol is TOO accepted...I can't say I think it ought to be illegal, because that'll never happen, no matter how many people it kills.

This is from my and my husband's webpage (our opinions page)

The legal drugs, such as tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine, are ALL physically and psychologically addictive, and cause a tolerance in users (translating into more money for the companies who sell them). Certain illegal drugs, such as marijuana and LSD, are not physically (though they can be psychologically) addictive, and do not cause tolerance in users.

Why is alcohol, which is highly addictive, physically dangerous (it can cause long and short term memory loss, cirrhosis of the liver, retrograde amnesia; and, due to lowered inhibitions, is a cause of drunk driving, murder, spread of STD's, alcohol poisoning and interpersonal abuse) legal, when a drug such as marijuana, (which can cause short term memory loss; is not a statistically significant cause of violence in users; which can have at least as much of a medicinal application as the cocaine sometimes used in dentist's offices; and whose overdose isn't fatal as alcohol overdoses can be) is not?

If the criteria for the legality of a drug is its level of dangerousness to the human organism, then alcohol should top the list of illegal drugs. While I'm not advocating drugs--legal or illegal--I AM showing the arbitrary nature by which drugs are deemed legal or illegal by the government. The criteria for legality would seem to be: a high level of addictiveness, a high potential for creating revenue, and high controllability/regulatory nature (for example, it's harder for a regular Joe to grow tobacco than it is for him to grow weed. Therefore, weed is made illegal, and tobacco is made both legal and more addictive with chemicals--high addictiveness, high revenue, high controllability). Ta-da!

[Lady Sidhe]

I think tobacco should be legal...

Ah, the tobacco companies and the illiterates who sue them....

As a smoker myself, I feel that anyone who wants to buy a pack of cigarettes should be required to READ ALOUD the warning on the pack to the cashier. If they can't--no cigarettes. That way, all these people who sue the companies, claiming that they didn't know cigarettes were harmful, will no longer have that pathetic excuse (COME ON, people! You're inhaling SMOKE!).

Likewise, I think the tobacco companies should have a uniform warning: "Warning: use of this product can cause health problems and/or death." It won't stop people who really want to smoke, and it WILL stop all of these frivolous lawsuits by people who don't want to take responsibility for their own actions.

AND, in a related issue, I think that if one can sue the tobacco companies for causing illness and death, then anyone harmed by a drunk (drunk drivers, drunk family members, drunk strangers.), anyone who develops health problems due to alcohol (cirrhosis of the liver, alcohol poisoning, retrograde amnesia, alcohol addiction), and the families of anyone who is killed because of alcohol (drunk driving/drunk drivers), should be able to sue the alcohol companies. It's the same premise. If the tobacco companies are responsible for the actions and health of people who use its product, then alcohol companies should be also.

Hell, why don't we go ahead and expand it to include ANY company that sells a dangerous product that people use voluntarily? How about cars? Electrical luxuries? Pets? Foods with saturated fats in them? Caffeinated products? All of them can potentially harm you, after all.

See how far this can go, people? This is what can happen when we stop holding people responsible for their own actions. The companies aren't responsible for our choices, WE are.

Sidhe

[JeepNGeorge]

Hell, why don't we go ahead and expand it to include ANY company that sells a dangerous product that people use voluntarily? How about cars? Electrical luxuries? Pets? Foods with saturated fats in them? Caffeinated products? All of them can potentially harm you, after all.

See how far this can go, people? This is what can happen when we stop holding people responsible for their own actions. The companies aren't responsible for our choices, WE are.

Doesn't that already happen in the US? And it doesn't have to be dangerous. Hot Coffee from McDonalds anyone?

I think the case was dropped the overweight guy in Florida brought against several fast food chains claiming that his diet of whoppers, taco pizzas, and big macs made him obese, but a lawyer from San Francisco is trying to sue Kraft to stop the sell of Oreos because they contain high levels of trans fat. That leads to a myriad of health problems including diabetes, and high cholesterol. And would also lead to a fat wallet of the lawyer.

I'm currently looking for a lawyer to take my case against Budweiser. I consumed their product religiously, and still don't have any of the surgically enhanced women shown in their advertisements or the washboard abs of the male spokesmen.

[Lady Sidhe]

From The Stella Awards (www.stellaawards.com), copyright Randy Cassingham:



Much of the coverage about Stella Liebeck has been grossly unfair. When you have a more complete summary of the facts, you might change your mind about her. Or maybe not -- that's up to you. Did you know the following aspects of the Stella vs. McDonald's case?

* Stella was not driving when she pulled the lid off her scalding McDonald's coffee. Her grandson was driving the car, and he had pulled over to stop so she could add cream and sugar to the cup.

* Stella was burned badly (some sources say six percent of her skin was burned, other sources say 16 percent was) and needed two years of treatment and rehabilitation, including skin grafts. McDonald's refused an offer to settle with her for $20,000 in medical costs.

* McDonald's quality control managers specified that its coffee should be served at 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit. Liquids at that temperature can cause third-degree burns in 2-7 seconds. Such burns require skin grafting, debridement and whirlpool treatments to heal, and the resulting scarring is typically permanent.

* From 1982 to 1992, McDonald's coffee burned more than 700 people, usually slightly but sometimes seriously, resulting in some number of other claims and lawsuits.

* Witnesses for McDonald's admitted in court that consumers are unaware of the extent of the risk of serious burns from spilled coffee served at McDonald's required temperature, admitted that it did not warn customers of this risk, could offer no explanation as to why it did not, and testified that it did not intend to turn down the heat even though it admitted that its coffee is "not fit for consumption" when sold because it is too hot.

* While Stella was awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages, this amount was reduced by 20 percent (to $160,000) because the jury found her 20 percent at fault. Where did the rest of the $2.9 million figure in? She was awarded $2.7 million in punitive damages -- but the judge later reduced that amount to $480,000, or three times the "actual" damages that were awarded.

But...
* The resulting $640,000 isn't the end either. Liebeck and McDonald's entered into secret settlement negotiations rather than go to appeal. The amount of the settlement is not known -- it's secret!

* The plaintiffs were apparently able to document 700 cases of burns from McDonald's coffee over 10 years, or 70 burns per year. But that doesn't take into account how many cups are sold without incident. A McDonald's consultant pointed out the 700 cases in 10 years represents just 1 injury per 24 million cups sold! For every injury, no matter how severe, 23,999,999 people managed to drink their coffee without any injury whatever. Isn't that proof that the coffee is not "unreasonably dangerous"?

* Even in the eyes of an obviously sympathetic jury, Stella was judged to be 20 percent at fault -- she did, after all, spill the coffee into her lap all by herself. The car was stopped, so she presumably was not bumped to cause the spill. Indeed she chose to hold the coffee cup between her knees instead of any number of safer locations as she opened it. Should she have taken more responsibility for her own actions?

And...
* Here's the Kicker: Coffee is supposed to be served in the range of 185 degrees! The National Coffee Association recommends coffee be brewed at "between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and drunk "immediately". If not drunk immediately, it should be "maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit". (Source: NCAUSA.) Exactly what, then, did McDonald's do wrong? Did it exhibit "willful, wanton, reckless or malicious conduct" -- the standard for awarding punitive damages in New Mexico for awarding punitive damages?




As to The Kicker:
I don't know about you guys, but I wouldn't drink ANYTHING that I knew was 185 degrees fahrenheit. I drink coffee every day, and drink at least three pots of it on my days off from work. My coffee, straight out of the pot, newly made, isn't that hot, and no coffee I've ever had in a restaurant, even kept warm in a carafe, is that hot. I mean, that's almost 200 F...it doesn't seem necessary to require coffee to be that hot. I mean, brewed at between 195-205 degrees F....and drunk IMMEDIETELY???

Can anyone say, "I didn't need that esophagus anyway" ??

Um, NO.


Sidhe

[Elspode]

So people shouldn't be expected to know that hot things often need to be allowed to cool before consumption? When you make something using boiling water, do you immediately put it in your mouth at home?

People who don't know that hot consumables are hot shouldn't be allowed to eat or drink. People who sue cigarette companies because they get sick should be taken out and dumped at sea, and all their offspring killed because the stupidity gene has been passed on.

People need to be responsible for their own behavior. Ignorance of physics is no excuse for gigantic lawsuits.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally posted by Elspode
So people shouldn't be expected to know that hot things often need to be allowed to cool before consumption? When you make something using boiling water, do you immediately put it in your mouth at home?

And yet, I suspect that if a child got third degree burns from the filling in a McDonald's Apple Pie, there wouldn't be any of this outrage at the lawsuit. I'm just speaking for myself here, but I don't expect my food to do me serious injury.

[Elspode]

A child getting burned by a hot apple pie at McDonald's would be the victim of the parent who provided it to the that child. The adult can be reasonably assumed to have a comprehension of physics, the child hasn't been through either the life experience or the schooling that teaches about these things yet.

[Lady Sidhe]

"The National Coffee Association recommends coffee be brewed at "between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and drunk "immediately". If not drunk immediately, it should be "maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit". (Source: NCAUSA.)"

They're the ones that said it should be drunk while it's still hot enough to melt your lips off, not me


Sidhe