Well, my personal take on it is that nobody should operate a vehicle under the influence of anything unless you know for sure that it won't impair you. I don't want to sound like some kind of "moral majority" representative or anything, but I'm pretty staunch in my opinion about people who drive under the influence, whether it be alcohol or otherwise.
Have I done it, myself? Yes, but I am by no means proud of it and at this stage in my life wouldn't do it again. It's a clear cut matter of right and wrong, and anyone who willingly gets behind the wheel of a car when they know that they shouldn't be driving deserves to be locked up and get the DUI, if not serve time for it. I'm usually not this preachy, but I don't have very much sympathy for people who get blended up and drive around and then laugh about it later on.
I think my wakeup call about this was when a coworker of mine was hit by a drunk driver on SuperBowl Sunday 2 years ago and her 4 year old daughter was killed in the accident. Even sadder about what happened to them was that she was on her way to pick up her boyfriend, who watched the game at a friend's house, and he had called her and asked if she could come and pick him up because he felt he had too much to drink and didn't want to drive home like that, himself. I think that in the back of my mind, I always knew that drinking and driving was just plain wrong, but it wasn't until this happened that I fully realized just how irresponsible it really is.
The same goes for medication. I take Xanax for my anxiety & panic disorder, but I wouldn't dream of getting into my car after taking them. Now I'm taking hydro for my back condition, and I feel the same way about driving on that. I just don't want to be responsible for something terrible happening to somebody because of my own carelessness. I'll admit to doing stupid stuff like this when I was much younger (I took Ambien once & attempted to drive and wound up sideswiping a parked car once), but now I know better.
I think pain meds are a different story, in a sense, because if you're legitimately in pain, you're usually not going to feel stoned off of them the way a recreational user would feel, plus, you have to factor in how long it will take your body to adjust to the meds before the fogginess starts to fade, but I think you get my point.
Sorry for going off on a rant like that, it's just how I feel, personally. I often fight with my boyfriend about his overconfidence when he's drinking about his ability to drive. I've saved his butt twice already from getting a DUI, but when I look back on it, I really don't think that I did him any favors by driving home after being pulled over, and the cops really weren't doing us any a favors by letting him out of it, either. There have been some pretty scary experiences on my end as a passenger in his car when he's like this, plus I grew up with my alcoholic mother, so it also brings back bad memories for me. I remember having quite a few "fender benders" as a kid, thank God that's all they were. But whatever, I'm rambling again. Sorry everyone, it's just me going off on a tangent, yet again...
Eeyore
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~ R.I.P. Darrell Abbott 12/08/04
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