New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | May 20, 2005

The DEA is trying to kill the buzz of America's AWOL booze huffers. Jacob Sullum says slow down and enjoy your drink.

Comments

|5.20.05 @ 9:06PM|#

Umm, I don't see any mention of DEA in Sullum's article. Tim, has your mind gone AWOL?

|5.20.05 @ 9:14PM|#

AWOL, Absence WithOut Leave, was updated many years ago to UA, Unauthorized Absence, was it not?

Let sleeping absences lie. We peaceniks in the Wur on Durgs need to conserve our energy.
I mean, is there anything going on here?

Correct me somebody, but Prohibition was ended when there was the beginning of the Depression, and putting people back to work in the brewing and distilling industries overrode fear of Demon Rum.
Today's equivalent is what?
We need to get terrorists hooked on durgs?
I don't think that's gonna do it.

Only the "perfect storm" will demolish the Wur on Durgs, and I can't picture the perfect sturm.
Help.

|5.20.05 @ 10:42PM|#

"That remark reminded me of an interview that ABC's John Stossel conducted several years ago with Thomas Constantine, then head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Constantine claimed illegal drugs are different from alcohol because people use them "for a single purpose...the purpose of becoming high," which is "wrong" and "dangerous.""

There it be, daksya.

Larry A|5.21.05 @ 11:46AM|#

So if you AWOL you don't get a hangover and consumption is controlled to the point where you can't get wasted.

My God! We can't have that! It's worse than safe cigarettes!

The Wine Commonsewer|5.21.05 @ 11:50AM|#

"Peter Cressy, president of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, told the Herald AWOL's marketing "would strongly suggest that the purpose of this device is to get a buzz. We don't think getting a buzz is a good idea."

Then exactly why do you sell booze, doc?

|5.21.05 @ 12:30PM|#

Ruthless,
"AWOL, Absence WithOut Leave, was updated many years ago to UA, Unauthorized Absence, was it not?"

The Marine Corps and I think the Navy changed to 'UA' the Army and Airforce still uses 'AWOL'

On that subject; you know the gray Army pt t shirt that says "ARMY" on the front? I saw the same shirt but it said "AWOL" instead of "ARMY" I thought it was pretty funny, but I imagine the soldier got in trouble for it.

|5.21.05 @ 12:53PM|#

So this stuff would allow me to get a little buzzed without subjecting my body to all the calories that are normally in alcoholic beverages? It does not cause hangovers either? Almost sounds too good to be true. Where can I get some?

|5.21.05 @ 3:23PM|#

Well, KS was the last state to abolish prohibition. Not surprising we ban something like AWOL.

|5.21.05 @ 3:24PM|#

sage, check out that quote again: "That remark reminded me of an interview that ABC's John Stossel conducted several years ago with Thomas Constantine, then head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.".
Now, read Tim's write-up: "The DEA is trying to kill the buzz of America's AWOL booze huffers.". I don't see any mention of the DEA taking any steps with regards to AWOL.

Larry A|5.21.05 @ 6:28PM|#

Life is full of temptations, and it is doubtful that the government will be able to inoculate us against all of them. More to the point, who would want to live in a world where it did?

People who run the government?

|5.21.05 @ 7:20PM|#

Ruthless: We were already pretty well depressed by the time the 18th was repealed (1933). Demolishing the WoD would probably require demolishing the government. Since most people aren't up to that level of personal responsibility, maybe we can unintensify the WoD as a intermediate step?

I've a vague notion that the anti-intoxication crowd is psychologically connected to the traditionally lefty crowd. The both seem to believe that pleasure must be earned, and that our prosperous society has made living too easy. It is if they never got over being scolded as children, as still think they don't deserve dessert. As adults they continue to punish themselves and everyone else that seems to be in the same classification.

Intoxication, to me, is not necessarily pleasurable. Sometimes it is merely a less painful substitute for "clear" reality. Other times, it is a blast to be high. I'd like to enjoy the full taste experience of alcoholic beverages without the loss of coherence they cause. The vaporizer removes the larger pleasure of consumption. I would happily trade the buzz part for the taste part, if it was possible to decouple them without destroying them.

|5.21.05 @ 8:34PM|#

The embassy cable praised Muhammad Daoud, the deputy minister of the interior for the drug effort, for trying to win access for the eradication teams, but it said he had "no support whatsoever from key members" of the government, "namely President Karzai."
"When the eradication unit did begin work, it was permitted to destroy only limited amounts of poppies in fields designated by local officials, the cable said, which were widely scattered. On most days, only 40 to 100 workers showed up to help, not the 300 to 400 promised by the local leaders, the cable said. This month, the teams are working in the northern province of Balkh, officials said."

Above is from the New York Times.
Maybe Afghanistan will be the perfect sturm to abolish the Wur on Durgs.
Afghanistan focuses and combines the Wur on Durgs with the Wur on Turrer.

If you Tom Brokaw fans will excuse me: No wur is winnable. I'm rootin' for Afghanistan to be the textbook case proving it.
As a philosophical kwurstion, are humans perfectable or, should we accept them as they are and move on from there?
Advocates of wur wurk from the proposition that humans are perfectible, assuming you kill the requisite percent of them first.

Jane Fonda, Nick and I, on the other hand...

|5.23.05 @ 11:40AM|#

About hangovers and calories and such. There seems to be some mythology here. You are going to get calories if you inhale alcohol or drink it. Sure, there will not be any of the tasty and fattening sugars that come with a drink, but alcohol metabolizes as sugar. Ditto for hangovers. The main calorie reducing and hangover preventing feature is the slow speed the device pumps at.