Another Way Prohibition Kills

Jacob Sullum | January 27, 2006

Over at Students for Sensible Drug Policy's DARE Generation Diary, Tom Angell notes one side effect of setting the legal drinking age at 21 and thereby driving most college drinking underground: When students overdose on alcohol, their friends may be reluctant to call for help because they're afraid of getting into trouble. Angell cites the 2004 alcohol poisoning death of University of Colorado at Boulder freshman Lynn Bailey, whose fraternity brothers dithered until it was too late. "After Bailey's death," USA Today notes, "the Colorado Legislature enacted a law that grants immunity to anybody drinking illegally who calls 911 to get help for a drunken friend." A similar problem occurs when people overdose on heroin or other illegal drugs, and in those cases there's no magical age that can protect you from criminal charges.

Comments

|1.27.06 @ 11:07AM|#

One of the saddest things we ever had to do was call the cops on a friend who got stoned and then way too drunk. Most of my friends were too scared to call the cops because of all the pot. When we had no other choice the cops finally came and our friend who owned the house told the cops that he has been smoking pot in the house. The cop didn't even make a notation as he felt that our friend didn't need to get in any more trouble.

|1.27.06 @ 11:53AM|#

It's the same old story. Push something underground, make it criminal, and you shut out all the safeguards, contract enforcers, and civil emergency facilities that one would normally enjoy. Should this surprise anyone? No.

I think it was on the first season of "The Wire" where the cop, McNulty, is chatting with a local drug underlord, D'Angelo Barksdale, about drug-related murders, and he says, and I paraphrase, "everyone else does business without resorting to violence. Businessmen all over the place do it every day, why can't you [drug dealer] guys?". Subsequently, D'Angelo tries to instill this in his own minions---but the point is lost on all of them. The violence is a direct result of the drugs being illegal. There is no way to enforce contracts civilly, using the courts and law enforcement, so violence is inevitable. Without being able to fall back on the rule of law, violence becomes the rule.

And it's the same with this kind of stuff. I remember a retarded law awhile back that punished kids if they were underage and they were a designated driver and they were driving their drunk underage friend(s) home. A more absurd law, I cannot imagine---but it all stems from the same idiotic notion that simply creating a harsh penalty for something will make it go away.

|1.27.06 @ 11:58AM|#

I thought that there were "Len Bias Laws" protecting people who want to get help for a friend who's used an illegal substance.

|1.27.06 @ 11:59AM|#

We just need more laws and more enforcement! No alcohol parties at fraternities! Random searches by campus police in dorms and frat/sorority houses. Closing of all liquor stores within 1 mi of a dorm or frat house!

Won't someone think of the children?

|1.27.06 @ 12:04PM|#

The heinous part is that a lot of people get a kick out of seeing people on drugs die, or they just don't give a shit. One more dead druggie - who gives a fuck - they're subhuman scum, anyway is what they tell themselves.

Amazingly, (with regard to the last link above), New York last year very quietly passed a bill that was signed by the governor that was aimed at expanding the availability of the "opiate overdose-reverser" (opiod antagonist) naloxone.

It's unclear how available it'll be, and it does absolutely nothing for people who have unique acute and potentially fatal allergy-like or other reactions to non-opioid drugs like Ecstasy, and it avoids the obvious step of immunity from prosecution, but it's not knucke-dragging enforcement bullshit, so that's a bright side I suppose.

All this attention is out of place, though, when the true killer is everywhere.

|1.27.06 @ 12:23PM|#

Yeah at my Undergrad school they make it very clear to the fraternity community that we wouldnt get in trouble for calling for help for someone we thought had 'over-indulged.'

|1.27.06 @ 1:08PM|#

methodman:

between HFCS & hydrogenated oils, I think we've got enough killas.

From that WaPo article:

"In the 1980s, manufacturing methods improved, prompting a boost in production of high-fructose corn syrup and a drop in price to just pennies below that of refined sugar."

Y'know, when I first started reading the article, I had a suspicion that the wonderfully statist Post would conveniently neglect to mention that the increase in HFCS use is related in part to the fact that the major corn producers successfully lobbied congress for subsidies, and thus made it cheaper to use corn products. Yeah, um, it was because of "improved manufacturing methods". Sure---if "stealing taxpayer money" can be defined as a "manufacturing method". Motherfuckers. I sure do live the Washington Post sometimes...

|1.27.06 @ 1:12PM|#

live=love

|1.27.06 @ 1:53PM|#

Laws don't kill. People who make the laws kill...

|1.27.06 @ 2:03PM|#

Evan-

I fully agree that the biggest driver here seems to be corn subsidies and sugar tariffs. I think the point of the article was that even with those policies in place, it still took some manufacturing advances to make corn syrup competitive.

|1.27.06 @ 2:24PM|#

"USA Today notes, the Colorado Legislature enacted a law that grants immunity to anybody drinking illegally who calls 911 to get help for a drunken friend."

Not really. (Didja expect USA Today to get something right?)

+++
http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/olls/digest2005a/CRIMINALLAWANDPROCEDURE.htm

H.B. 05-1183 Alcohol consumption - furnishing alcohol to minor penalties and mitigation - minor in possession immunity and penalties - social host liability. Increases the penalty for furnishing alcohol to a person under 21 years of age from a class 2 misdemeanor to a class 1 misdemeanor. Requires the court to consider the following in mitigation for the offense of furnishing alcohol to a person under 21 years of age: In the case that an underage person consumes alcohol and needs medical assistance as a result of that consumption, the defendant contacts police or emergency medical personnel within 6 hours after the underage person consumes the alcohol to report the underage person's need of medical assistance.

Provides immunity for up to three persons to a minor in possession charge if: An underage person calls 911 and reports that another underage person is in need of medical assistance due to alcohol consumption and he or she is the first to make the call; the person who called 911 provided his or her name and the name of the others acting in concert to the 911 operator; and the three persons remained on scene with the underage person that needed medical assistance and cooperated with medical assistance and law enforcement personnel on the scene.

Raises the fine for the offense of illegal possession or consumption of alcohol by an underage person in the following manner: First offense $250 and second offense $500. Requires the court to order a defendant for a second or subsequent conviction for underage possession of alcohol to complete an alcohol evaluation or attend an alcohol education program or an alcohol treatment program. Makes a third or subsequent conviction for underage possession of alcohol a class 2 misdemeanor.

Provides liability for a social host who provides a person under 21years of age a place to consume alcohol if said person then causes damages. Removes the element of willfulness from the social host liability provision related to persons under 21 years of age.

+++

Dave W.|1.27.06 @ 2:35PM|#

some manufacturing advances

Yup. The "its just like fruit" dog don't hunt.

|1.27.06 @ 2:46PM|#

Who ever asserted that it's just like fruit?

|1.27.06 @ 2:47PM|#

Anyway, corn syrup won't hurt you if you exercise enough. Just ask the Ultimate Fitness Program guy!

Hey, where is he?

Dave W.|1.27.06 @ 2:57PM|#

Anyway, corn syrup won't hurt you if you exercise enough.

Begging the question of how much additional excercise a given amount of cornsyrup would require compared to an equivalent (in the sweet-craving sense) amount of cane sugar.

Another thing we don't know, but should.

|1.27.06 @ 2:59PM|#

Thoreau,

Whether or not that was the point of the article (I don't see how it is, given that the subsidies & tariffs were never mentioned), anyone unfamiliar with the specifics of the issue (read: all of the WaPo's target audience) would thus be completely unaware of said subsidies, given how they are not so much as mentioned in the article, and would be under the incorrect impression that this was a simple market shift caused by manufacturing advances.

Dave W.|1.27.06 @ 3:00PM|#

Also, your pat answer may not work for all the asthmatics we seem to be popping out now. What did the newspaper say this morning? 1 in 10 now?

|1.27.06 @ 3:05PM|#

(rhetorical question mode)
Why is it that if you're caught drinking the day before your birthday (any amount at all) you need to go to "re-education" or rehab, but if you're an inveterate boozehound at 25 it's just fine?

I hate bringing this up amongst statist-types, because they realize that it's NOT fine for a 25 year old to be intoxicated, no more than anyone else.

|1.27.06 @ 3:11PM|#

Dave W.,
Asthma is often attributed to stress in early childhood. Look at the college admissions game/employment world and find the element that's been rising for the past 25 years (really, ever since those damn boomers had kids)

|1.27.06 @ 3:40PM|#

Dave W., here's a little tip: Try not to take my too seriously when I make a statement like "Just ask the carpet humper!"

Dave W.|1.27.06 @ 3:58PM|#

Sorry, T.! Recalibrating humor circuits as I type this.

|1.27.06 @ 4:08PM|#

Not to rock the boat too much, considering I think the drinking age shouldn't have been raised, but the number of deaths from alcohol poisoning is puny compared to deaths from alcohol-related injuries (including driving).

A "pragmatic" defense would have to claim that those injuries and deaths would not increase if alcohol were legal at an earlier age. I happen to think you can argue that point, considering that we abuse alcohol here (in the US) more than in countries that grow up with a healthy respect (and dose) of alcohol ...

|1.27.06 @ 6:23PM|#

I agree with Matt. Delaying the legal age only causes problems. I have lived overseas enough to have observed first-hand how much better prepared foreign youngsters are to handle drinking.

Also, another effect that I think people miss is that young college students (18-20) often get hammered precisely because of the drinking laws. If you are 21, you can have a few beers while out with your friends, but you can do other fun things as well. If you are twenty, once you have a beer, you darned well better hole up for the night so you don't get caught. What is there to do in this little apartment? Oh wait, drink more! At least in my experience, my peer group got a lot more wasted before 21 than after, when we could mix alcohol with something other than drinking in a dorm room or ratty little apartment.

|1.28.06 @ 11:20AM|#

A lawmaker in the great state of Illinois has come up with a great plan for reducing the number of teen-related traffic accidents: raid the legal driving age to 18. Over sixty percent of the responders to a local nooze poll think this is a good idea. This age restriction crap is getting out of hand, and is a trend that needs to be reversed.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0601240036jan24,1,7955088.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed


And slowly turns the grinding wheel...