Originally Posted by
Han Solo
I see where you're going with this, but your analogy is a bit off. Marijuana is currently illegal and carries a significant social stigma, I can't think of a parallel substance. Maybe alcohol after prohibition, but alcohol wasn't illegal for all that long and there was no FAA when prohibition was repealed. To devil's advocate your devil's advocate, what substance has been illegal for 80+ years then been made legal, and then been approved for use by the FAA?
Remember, this is the organization that thinks my cell phone out of airplane mode is going to bring down an airliner. My offer stands, I bet 1 bag of cool ranch doritos that my 1st joint will be the day I turn 65 years old (or whatever the retirement age is when I finally get there) and not a day before (or after).
I agree with your sentiment, but isn’t the whole point of this thread the “what if” it was federally legalized? My point is simply if that happens there is no way to ignore that anything that is legal for adult consumption, the FAA has a stance on how long a pilot must wait before operating, but no outright bans. There’s no precedent for such a thing and it will be interesting to see how it’s argued out by the lawyers. Additionally another problem is THC isn’t currently being tested for. Only it’s metabolites. New tests need to be developed. I’m sure someone out there has had the same thought and is working on it. Patenting a new standard could be very lucrative.
As stated before, if two people consumed the same amount of alcohol and one person took 8 hours to be under the limit but the other took 5 days, would we accept that as a valid testing method? Why is there only one substance out there that we accept a test of this nature? If you look way back to the reasons it was originally outlawed I think you might find the answer.