Reason Magazine - Topics > Alcohol

DWI for Walking a Bicycle

rbalko@reason.com (Radley Balko) — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:23:00 EDT

Jeff Brown of Columbus, Ohio was arrested for DWI, spent four days in jail, and had his license suspended for six months when he refused to take a breath test after an officer confronted him on suspicion of operating a vehicle while intoxicated. Brown was walking his bicycle across his own front yard. Brown has since made a YouTube video detailing his ordeal.

Via Lawrence Taylor, who notes that in 2005, a woman in Florida was arrested for DWI for operating her own wheelchair while intoxicated. That case, fortunately, was thrown out.

MORE: The appellate court decision describes the facts of the case this way:

The record contains scant details of the underlying facts of this case, but it appears appellant was riding a bicycle on a sidewalk on December 18, 2004, when he was detained by a police officer.

Make of that what you will.

I'll Need to See Your Permit

rbalko@reason.com (Radley Balko) — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:54:00 EDT

I don't know which is worse, that the city of Cleveland requires a "music permit" and a "pool table permit," or that failing to obtain one is a criminal offense.

MADD as Hell at GTA IV

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:24:00 EDT

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) pans the just-released latest iteration of the massively popular vid game Grand Theft Auto:

Noting that drunk driving claims nearly 13,500 lives each year, MADD said that it is "extremely disappointed" that the game lets users get virtually drunk and then get behind the wheel of an equally virtual automobile.
"Drunk driving is not a game and it is not a joke," MADD said. "Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime, and it is also 100 percent preventable."
MADD is asking the Entertainment Software Rating Board to bump Grand Theft Auto IV's rating up to AO for Adults Only from M for Mature. The ESRB's content descriptors for the game currently include "use of drugs and alcohol." The parental group also said that it is asking the game's "manufacturer" (presumably Take-Two Interactive) to consider stopping distribution out of a sense of social responsibility, or out of respect for those who've been hurt or killed by drunk drivers.

More here.

MADD has to get in line to pan GTAIV, which is pulling weak reviews such as this one: "GTA IV on Sony PS3: Resolution, Online Issues Hamper Experience."

reason's November 2007 cover story, "Prohibition Returns!," discussed MADD's mission creep from an anti-drunk driving org to an anti-alcohol group. Read all about it here.

Mike's Hard Lemonade Yields Hard Time

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:11:00 EDT

Absent-minded professor dad buys lemonade for his kid at a baseball game. Turns out it's a Mike's Hard Lemonade.

After a guard spots the bottle, the kid is whisked away to the hospital in an ambulance (!) where they found no trace of alcohol in his blood about 90 minutes later. The doctors said he was OK to go, but instead he wound up in foster care. It was "two days before the state of Michigan allowed Ratte's wife, U-M architecture professor Claire Zimmerman, to take their son home, and nearly a week before [dad Christopher] Ratte was permitted to move back into his own house."

Everyone involved seems to have come down with a serious case of "just following orders":

The sympathetic cop who interviewed Ratte and his son at the hospital said she was convinced what happened had been an accident, but that her supervisor was insisting the matter be referred to Child Protective Services.
And Ratte thought the two child protection workers who came to take Leo away seemed more annoyed with the police than with him. "This is so unnecessary," one told Ratte before driving away with his son.
But there was really nothing any of them could do, they all said.

Jacob Sullum wrote about the hard treatment of girly beer substitutes at the hands of the law here.

Boston Bans Bottle Service

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:04:00 EDT

It's Thursday at 4:00 pm, which means the weekend has officially begun in college towns across the country. But bad news is coming down the pike for hearty partiers in Boston: A ban on bottle service in bars.

Letters are going out to unsuspecting bar and club owners at this very moment, informing them that bottle service violates Boston's existing ban on serving more than 2 drinks at a time to a customer.

The hilariously dismissive money quote from Boston Licensing Board Chairman Daniel Pokaski:

“We’re not New York and we’re not South Beach,” he said. “The city of Boston has a lot more to offer than just getting people inebriated. If all they can offer their clientele is just swilling down alcohol, then perhaps they shouldn’t be in the business.”

Not so long ago, Boston's esteemed politicians professed themselves shocked (shocked!) that people go to baseball games to booze it up.

Via Crispy on the Outside

The Green Fairy's Lollipops

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:29:00 EDT

To get you through the rest of the godforsaken primary season:

For when politics isn't quite surreal enough on its own: Take two absinthe lollypops, watch CNN, and call me in the morning.

More on green fairy's (victorious) fight for a green card here and here.

Con Law for Nurse Legislators

rbalko@reason.com (Radley Balko) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:29:00 EDT

Tennessee Sen. Rosalind Kurita has a new idea:

Defense attorneys would be banned from advertising their expertise with drunken driving cases under a bill advancing in the Senate.
Sen. Rosalind Kurita, a Clarksville Democrat, successfully added the provision to a bill that would create an online registry of repeat DUI offenders in Tennessee.
Kurita says officials have a hard enough time convicting drunken drivers without lawyers advertising their expertise in the field and offering discounts to DUI defendants.

Hat tip to Rick Davis.

The Answer: Wisconsin, North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, and South Dakota

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:24:00 EDT

The question: What states have the highest rates of drunk driving?

Utah had the lowest incidence of drunken driving. It was the only state where fewer than 10 percent of adult motorists reported driving under the influence. Following closely behind were a slew of Southern states that often fare poorly when it comes to government health statistics. This time, however, they're serving as models. West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky and North Carolina all had drunken driving rates for the prior year of less than 11 percent.
The report on drunken driving relies on data obtained from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The survey, based on a scientific random sample of households, asked 127,283 adults in 2004, 2005 and 2006 whether they had driven under the influence in the past year. Health experts say the state-by-state breakdowns support other surveys showing that residents in northern states are more likely to engage in heavy alcohol consumption.

As for driving under the influence of what the government still calls "illicit" drugs:

The federal government also released estimates of driving under the influence of illicit drugs. The rates were highest in the District of Columbia, 7 percent; Rhode Island, 6.8 percent; and Massachusetts, 6.4 percent.
The states with the lowest rates for driving under the influence of illicit drugs within the past year were New Jersey, 3.2 percent; Alabama, 3.4 percent; and North Dakota and South Dakota, 3.5 percent.

Over the past decade, alcohol-related accdients—defined as those involving a driver with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 or higher—remained flat in absolute numbers: 12,348 in 1996 to 12,491 in 2006. Factoring in driving miles, which this story doesn't do, would mean a decline in relative terms.

More here.

What percentage of Hit & Runners have driven drunk or under the influence of "illicit" drugs? Do you feel left out if you live in a state that wasn't mentioned above? Does this news put the hurt on the "Wisconsin is for Cheese Lovers" tourism campaign?

(Potential) Panic in the Streets of Stockholm

mmoynihan@reason.com (Michael C. Moynihan) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:06:00 EDT

Even by the standards of Swedish nanny statism, this is pretty stunning. A friend passes along this taxpayer funded advertisement that ran in today's edition of the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet—itself partially funded by the state, incidentally, through something called "presstöd" (press support). According to the ad, the state liquor monopoly, Systembolaget, must be saved or there will be pandemonium in the streets; people will die; the state bureaucracy will collapse (hurrah!); your wives, mothers, and sisters will be brutally assaulted. Or something:

A quick-and-dirty translation of the ad:

Why Can't You Guys Buy Wine at the Supermarket?
Imagine that you suddenly get this question from a tourist. Perhaps you know exactly how you should answer. If not, it might be good to know what the results of a recent survey showed: The Swedish alcohol monopoly saves many lives each year. If strong beer (Note: beer with more that 3.5% alchohol per volume), wine and spirits were sold in grocery stores consumption would increase by 30%, researchers believe. And they stress that this is a conservative estimation—the increase could be more. They calculate that there will be approximately 1,600 more deaths each year, 14,000 more assaults and around 16 million more sick days.

So the monopoly makes a huge difference for a lot of Swedes. And because it will only be around as long as people want it to be, we at Systembolaget have to do everything in our power to make sure our customers are satisfied.
This has resulted in our having perhaps the world's largest assortment of strong beer, wine and spirits. (And an assortment one not finds in Stockholm and Gothenburg, but also in Jokkmokk and Töreboda.)

If you want more [pro-monopoly] arguments, visit systembolaget.se.

(Tip: Billy)

Hillary and the Holy Ghost

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:39:00 EDT

"I have had the experiences on many, many occasions where I felt like the Holy Spirit was there with me as I made a journey...You know, it could be walking in the woods. It could be watching a sunset."—Sen. Hillary Clinton.

More here, in a Wall Street Journal col by Daniel Henninger which is mostly about "culture war" stuff. (The only truly indispensable resource on culture war stuff, by the way, is Morris P. Fiorina's Culture War?: The Myth of a Polarized America.)

Hat tip: To a reader whose email pointing to this picture I inadvertently deleted.

"Here's a gun, and here's a beer"

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:20:00 EDT

Over at Radar, reason contributor Marty Beckerman plugs in a genuinely confusing bit from Fox News earlier this week in which the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) goes on a tear about how troops under 21 are "malleable" and hence shouldn't be able to drink legally. The context isn't clear and the video is very Zapruder-quality. But watch it and decide for yourself.

On Monday Fox News Channel aired a debate between Candy Lightner, the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and Alex Koroknay-Palicz of the National Youth Rights Association, which contends that if you're old enough to vote, marry, and join the Army, you're old enough to guzzle Jäger. As you can imagine, Lightner was unimpressed, and rather vocal about it:

Koroknay-Palicz said U.S. soldiers between the ages of 18 and 21 should have the legal right to drink a beer, which seems more than reasonable considering that they might, you know, die at any moment. (You need to unwind after your day at work?) But Lightner was disgusted that our fighting men and women would have the audacity to imbibe. She ranted that 18-year-olds haven't "developed, and that's exactly why the draft age is 18, because these kids are malleable." She added: "They will follow the leader, they don't think for themselves, and they are the last ones I want to say, 'Here's a gun, and here's a beer.' They are not adult—that's why they're in the military. They are not adults."

More here.

Update: Over at reason.tv's Rough Cut blog, Dan Hayes has posted video of a Fox News debate about whether the drinking age should be lowered, a move that several states are considering. Check that out here.

And last April, reason Senior Editor Radley Balko interviewed former Middlebury College President John McCardell, Jr., who heads up Choose Responsibility, a group that advocates repealing the drinking age back to 18. Read that here.

Smoking Bans Kill, Part II

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:33:00 EDT

A new study reported in the Journal of Public Economics finds that smoking bans are associated with increases in alcohol-related traffic deaths. "We observe an increase in fatal accidents involving alcohol following bans on smoking in bars that is not observed in places without bans," the researchers report. They surmise that drinkers respond to bans by driving further to find bars where they're allowed to light up, either because the bars are in a different jurisdiction or because they have outdoor seating. That means more time on the road in a less-than-sober condition:

"The increased miles driven by drivers who wish to smoke and drink offsets any reduction in driving from smokers choosing to stay home after a ban, resulting in increased alcohol-related accidents," the study says.
The authors, Scott Adams of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Economics Department and Chad Cotti, currently at the University of South Carolina, call the results "surprising."
"We thought we would see a reduction," Adams said. "Our first thought was, 'Throw it away, it must be wrong.' "...
The 2-year study looks at highway fatality data involving a driver with blood alcohol content over 0.08 in cities and counties with bans and compares it to incidences in surrounding areas without bans. The study was not funded by outside organizations, the authors said.
Results show an increase in accidents in areas after smoking bans were enacted and near the jurisdiction lines.

A Wisconsin anti-smoking activist quoted by Madison's Capital Times seems irritated by the study and reacts skeptically. But the results need not be seen as an argument against smoking bans (the interpretation I'd favor). They could be seen as an argument for stricter bans that forbid smoking even outdoors and for wider bans that do not allow escape to more tolerant jurisdictions. Adams tells the Times "a well-enforced national smoking ban would get rid of the drunken driving increases related to smoke bans."

"Dude, I'm Going To Be So Diabetic in the Morning"

rbalko@reason.com (Radley Balko) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:37:00 EDT

Police in Wisconsin broke up a kegger last week. A root beer kegger. Wisconsin high school senior Dustin Zebro was irked that some of his friends were kicked off varsity sports teams after school officials spotted Facebook photos of them drinking from red cups. So to show that red plastic ups don't always mean beer (he's right, I remember putting mixed drinks in them, too), he threw a root beer kegger in the hopes of triggering more suspensions, then making school officials look silly. Turns out, the cops were called in on the gag, too.

Story here.

Dazed and Confused-esque "documentary" here:

On Second Thought...

rbalko@reason.com (Radley Balko) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:12:00 EDT

Yesterday I posted about Massachusetts Rep. James Fagan's attempt to slash the state's BAC limit from .08 to .02, effectively zero tolerance. I also noted that Fagan is a criminal defense attorney specializing in DWI cases.

Today, Boston Herald columnist Margerie Eagan explains that Fagan's bill seems to be an attempt to point out the absurdities of existing drunk driving laws.

I'm not a huge fan of introducing absurd legislation to make a political point, but if Fagan's objective was to get lawmakers to stop passing knee-jerk DWI legislation, I was too harsh on him.

The James Fagan Employment Act

rbalko@reason.com (Radley Balko) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:15:00 EDT

Massachusetts state Rep. James Fagan wants to slash the state's legal blood-alcohol driving limit to .02.

It's entirely coincidence, of course, that when Fagan isn't thinking up ridiculous laws for the legislature, he's a DWI defense attorney in private practice.

Someone ought to let Virginia's David Albo know that he's being given a run for his money as king of legislative douchebaggery.

Is Anyone Torn Between the Troegenator Double Bock and Bud Light?

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:54:00 EST

The Pennsylvania legislature is considering a bill that would loosen restrictions on beer sales. Under current rules, you can buy one or two six-packs at a time from a bar or a specially licensed deli, convenience store, or supermarket. You can also buy beer from distributors, but only in cases. When I was living in Pennsylvania (where I grew up and got my first job after college), the upshot was that you could choose between the meager, relatively expensive selection at a retail outlet or the bigger, cheaper selection at a distributor, but that only made sense if you wanted a lot of a particular beer. You could not go to a store and, say, pick an interesting selection of three different six-packs, as people in other states routinely do. The proposed changes would allow people to buy any configuration up to a case from a distributor and any configuration up to 18 bottles from a retail outlet.

This seems like good news not only for consumers but also for microbrewers, since it allows people to more easily sample a wider variety of beers in smaller quantities. Yet according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pennsylvania's microbrewers (or some of them, at least) are worried about beer deregulation:

The Trogners [owners of Troegs Brewing, near Harrisburg], like many in Pennsylvania's community of 67 beer brewers, believe they could get slammed by what is termed a "beer reform" measure winding through the legislature.
It is intended to give Pennsylvania beer lovers more choice, including the ability finally to buy a six-pack conveniently.
But the proposal has sent waves of anxiety through state beer brewers—many of them family owned microbreweries—who fear it will give an edge to out-of-state brewing giants and cut into their much smaller profits.
In-state brewers, including the Trogners, don't mind the expanded access to six-packs.
The problem for many is the proposal to allow the sale of 12- to 18-packs of beer: Smaller breweries don't have the packaging equipment to produce those sizes. It would give larger breweries an even larger price advantage.

If you are a microbrewer trying to compete on price with flavorless, mass-produced swill like Budweiser, you might want to consider another line of work. Troegs produces a wide variety of tasty beers, so why should it worry about drinkers who buy 18-packs of Coors Light? Its competition is imported beers and other American microbrews, over which it does have a price advantage in Pennsylvania. Microbrewers, of all people, should be able to appreciate the virtues of greater consumer choice.

Jay Brooks considered the microbrew industry as a "long tail" phenomenon in the October 2006 issue of reason.

[Thanks to an anonymous reader whose email address I don't recognize for the tip.]

Why Don't We Incapacitate Drunk Drivers?

schapman@tribune.com (Steve Chapman) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:08:00 EST

As a rule, it's a bad idea to let pedophiles baby-sit, to hire embezzlers as tax collectors, or to give a pyromaniac a key to the fireworks factory. We generally try to avoid inviting dangerous people into situations that encourage them to repeat their destructive behavior. So why do we allow drunk drivers unfettered access to their cars?

That's a good question, for which New Mexico authorities had no good answer. For years, the state ranked among the very worst in the nation in alcohol-related fatalities. So three years ago, it decided a change was in order.

In the past, authorities had relied on license revocations to get drunks off the road. But here's a surprise: People who ignore laws against driving drunk also tend to ignore laws requiring them to have a valid license. For some, taking away their license had all the impact of confiscating their library card.

So the legislature, prodded by Gov. Bill Richardson, imposed a tighter constraint on those convicted of DWI: requiring a device that keeps a car from being operated by someone who's been drinking. Other states have mandated ignition interlock devices for those with multiple convictions, but New Mexico was the first to order them for all first offenders upon conviction.

The results were swift and sharp. Since the law took effect, the rate of drunk driving fatalities has dropped by nearly 20 percent. Nationally, by contrast, the rate actually rose slightly during that time. New Mexico DWI Czar Rachel O'Connor—that's her actual job title—notes that the state's campaign against drunk driving includes other steps as well, from a massive public-service ad campaign to intensive use of sobriety checkpoints. But the interlock rule has been a major factor in the improvement.

At the moment, some 7,000 New Mexicans have to pass a breath-alcohol test before they can start their cars. Adding up all the times that motorists have failed the breath test, O'Connor says, the mandate has prevented 63,000 trips by offenders who have been hitting the bottle.

Now the state has additional evidence that its approach is working as intended. A new analysis of New Mexico's experience, published in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention, finds that first offenders were 60 percent less likely to be rearrested if they had interlock devices than if they didn't. When the gadgets were removed, their recidivism rate rose to nearly the same level as those who had never had them.

That isn't terribly surprising. People who get behind the wheel of a two-ton machine when they're under the influence tend to be people with serious alcohol problems, and they tend to keep driving drunk as long as we let them. Suspending their licenses deters some, but Mothers Against Drunk Driving says research indicates that about three out of every four keep driving anyway. As MADD CEO Chuck Hurley puts it, "We need to find a way to separate their hands from the steering wheel."

Interlocks are the obvious solution. But so far, only four states have mandated them for all first offenders upon conviction.

Even then, they're not an insuperable obstacle. Determined sots can hotwire their cars, borrow vehicles or have someone else—such as a child—blow untainted carbon dioxide into the devices. Another problem, says O'Connor, is that some offenders claim to have gotten rid of their cars, signing them over to friends or relatives but retaining surreptitious use of them.

Still, the requirement does work to prevent a lot of impaired driving. And it puts no burden on taxpayers, since offenders bear the $1,000-a-year cost.

It also has benefits for the culprits. In most states, the standard method for stopping drunk drivers is to revoke their licenses so they aren't allowed to drive at all. Under this policy, they may drive all they want as long as they're stone cold sober. It incapacitates the incorrigible while sparing the repentant. A canceled license, which lets the offender police his own conduct, does just the opposite.

In 2006, more than 14,000 people across the country died in accidents involving drunk drivers. If that number strikes you as too high, interlocks for all DWI offenders is one proven way to lower it. If 14,000 sounds about right, though, then the status quo is just perfect.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Virginia Legislators Graciously Consider Lifting 70-Year Ban on Sangria

rbalko@reason.com (Radley Balko) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:48:00 EST

Fresh off saving the Old Dominion from the scourge of frozen beer on a stick last summer, Virginia's Alcohol Beverage Control is now taking aim at Spanish and Latin restaurants that serve sangria, because the red wine and brandy in the drink violates a 70-year-old, post-Prohibition law forbidding the mix of wine and spirits. A bartender at a tapas restaurant right down the road from me is looking at a year in jail for serving the drink.

Legislators are considering amending the law, but only to allow sangria. Other drinks mixing wine, beer, and/or spirits would still be verboten.

California Wine From Texas

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:24:00 EST

This week a federal judge ruled that a Texas law prohibiting out-of-state retailers from shipping wine directly to consumers while permitting in-state retailers to do so violates the Commerce Clause by creating a discriminatory barrier to interstate trade. You may have thought that issue was settled by Granholm v. Heald, the 2005 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court said discriminating against out-of-state wineries in this manner was unconstitutional. But liquor wholesalers, who are desperate to preserve the "three-tier system" that gives them a stranglehold on the distribution of alcoholic beverages in most states, argued that retailers did not deserve the same evenhanded treatment as wineries. Although U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater disagreed, he handed the wholesalers a partial victory by agreeing that Texas has a legitimate regulatory interest in maintaining the three-tier system and may therefore require that out-of-state retailers buy the wine they ship directly to Texans from wholesalers in Texas. What that means, according to the Santa Rosa, California, Press Democrat, is that "a California retailer like Wine Country Gift Baskets would have to buy wine from a Texas wholesaler, ship it back to California and repackage it in baskets, and then ship it back to Texas."

That does not sound very practical, and it leaves Texas wholesalers with the same privileges they had before, controlling nearly all the alcoholic beverages sold to Texans (except for those sold directly by wineries, which are allowed to circumvent wholesalers under state law). The Specialty Wine Retailers Association is nevertheless calling this decision an important victory, since it undermines the arguments wholesalers throughout the country have been pressing in support of protectionist laws. The ruling also may put out-of-state retailers in a better position to ask the Texas legislature to endorse a more sensible and consumer-friendly system.

[Thanks to The Wine Commonsewer for the tip.]

Freedom of Travel Is So 1988

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:50:00 EST

In 1988 the Washington Supreme Court ruled that "sobriety checkpoints" violate a provision of the state constitution that says "no person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law." Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire wants to give them a try anyway, arguing that they might pass muster if they're authorized by a statute that requires Superior Court warrants for specific locations and times. Gregoire also suggests that the unpleasantness of a constitutional challenge could be avoided if Washingtonians would only learn to cooperate with the authorities:

Gregoire on Monday called upon residents to be "team" players in the state's fight to save lives by accepting the proposed incursion on their driving rights, comparing the traffic stops to security checks at airports and courthouses.
"The fact of the matter is it's a different day than it was 20 years ago," she said at a news conference at Lynnwood's Meadowdale High School, where the checkpoint procedures were demonstrated. "It is literally a partnership with every single citizen to make sure our roadways are safe."

In 1990 the U.S. Supreme Court said stopping motorists at random just to make sure they aren't intoxicated is consistent with the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against "unreasonable searches and seizures" (although police at a checkpoint still need some indication of drunkenness to demand that a driver undergo a breath test). According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which loves this sort of suspicionless traffic stop, 39 states have them. Gregoire should be proud to be in the minority. Instead she's embarrassed that her state clings to the unfashionable idea that police should not stop and detain people for no particular reason.

[Thanks to Ronald Skinner for the tip.]

Stuck in the Middle by You

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:29:00 EST

In a new report (PDF), the Specialty Wine Retailers Association (SWRA) notes that liquor wholesalers have been throwing money at state legislators in a largely successful effort to maintain their government-enforced monopolies on the distribution of alcoholic beverages. Those privileges were threatened by a 2005 Supreme Court decision overturning state laws that prohibited out-of-state vintners from shipping wine directly to consumers while allowing in-state wineries to do so. The Court found that such laws violated the Commerce Clause by erecting discriminatory trade barriers. Since then the wholesalers have been urging state legislatures to comply with the ruling not by opening up their markets but by imposing uniform bans on direct shipping. According to the SWRA (whose members want the freedom to buy directly from wineries), those lobbying efforts have been accompanied by a total of $50 million in donations to state political campaigns, an amount that "dwarfs that of any other sector of the American alcohol industry as well as numerous other groups." In Texas, for example, "alcohol wholesaler political contributions were greater than the political contributions of all gambling and casino interests, retail interests, food interests and all business services...combined." This generosity, says the SWRA, "coincides with the enactment of alcohol wholesaler-supported policies in nearly every state that protect the wholesaler." Examples:

• Between 2000 and 2006 Illinois alcohol wholesalers contributed $5,731,776 to political campaigns. In 2007 the Illinois Legislature passed a law that protected in-state alcohol wholesalers by prohibiting Illinois consumers from continuing to buy wine from out-of-state retailers. Wholesalers also convinced the Illinois legislature to force large Illinois wineries to sell only to state wholesalers, rather than direct to retailers has they had been able to do.

• Between 2000 and 2006 Texas alcohol wholesalers contributed $6,976,104 to state political campaigns. The Texas Legislature has passed prohibitions on out-of-state retailers shipping to Texans and limitations on in-state retailers shipping to Texans, both moves protective of and supported by state alcohol wholesalers.
• Between 2000 and 2006 California alcohol wholesalers contributed $4,296,304 to state political campaigns. In 2005 California passed legislation protecting wholesalers from competition by prohibiting Californians from purchasing wine from out-of-state retailers, policy California wholesalers pushed for.
• Between 2000 and 2006 Michigan wine wholesalers contributed $2,099,319 to state political campaigns. In 2005 the Michigan legislature passed a wholesaler-supported law that protected in-state wholesalers from competition by prohibiting Michigan consumers from purchasing wine from out-of-state retailers.
• Between 2000 and 2006 Virginia alcohol wholesalers contributed $2,580,161 to state political campaigns. The Virginia General Assembly passed a wholesaler-supported law prohibiting Virginia wineries from continuing to sell wine directly to retailers and forcing them to sell their wine to wholesalers.

[Thanks to The Wine Commonsewer for the tip.]

The Buck Keeps Moving

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 06:57:00 EST

Critics of OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma blame it for promoting abuse of the painkiller by encouraging family doctors to prescribe it. "As a result of the expanded access," said a recent New York Times story, summarizing the rap against the company, "OxyContin wound up in the high schools and street corners of rural America, where curious teenagers crushed the pill, defeating the time-release formula, and ended up addicts or, in some cases, dead."

Miraculous as OxyContin may seem to people suffering from severe chronic pain, it does not have the ability to crush itself and leap up the noses of innocent bystanders. No one "ends up" an addict without repeatedly choosing to seek out and consume a drug for the pleasure or emotional relief it provides. Drug treatment data indicate that regular OxyContin users are typically experienced illicit drug consumers who have undergone treatment before, not "curious teenagers."

Purdue Pharma, which pleaded guilty in May to "misbranding," may have misled doctors by telling them OxyContin was less subject to abuse than other opioids. But depicting OxyContin addicts as innocent victims of corporate greed is equally misleading, ignoring the decisions by which they determined their own fates.

There was no shortage of such responsibility-deflecting narratives in 2007. A few more highlights:

Kentucky Fried Lawsuit. Arthur Hoyte, a retired physician from Rockville, Maryland, sued KFC after discovering what he portrayed as the fast food chain's deadly secret: It fried its chicken in partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. (It has since switched to a trans-fat-free oil.) "If I had known that KFC uses an unnatural frying oil, and that the food was so high in trans fat, I would have reconsidered my choices," Hoyte said.

But the evidence Hoyte cited to back up his class action, which was supported by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, consisted largely of information KFC itself disseminated through its website and point-of-sale posters. In May a federal judge dismissed the suit.

Deadly Drinking. Last spring, after a fraternity initiation rite, Gary DeVercelly Jr., an 18-year-old freshman at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, was pronounced dead at a Trenton hospital. He had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.43 percent. In August local prosecutors responded by charging three students and two university officials with "aggravated hazing," which carries a penalty of up to 18 months in prison.

Unless the administrators were at DeVercelly's side shouting "drink, drink," charging them seems like a stretch, even if you accept the premise that anyone should be held criminally liable for an adult's decision to consume three-quarters of a bottle of vodka in less than half an hour. Although the charges against the Rider officials were later dropped, last week DeVercelly's parents sued the university.

San Francisco Tiger. So far the story about the fatal Christmas Day attack at the San Francisco Zoo has focused primarily on the question of what the zoo should have done to prevent the tiger from escaping, the main criticism being that the wall around the enclosure was not tall enough. But the experts seem to agree that a Siberian tiger does not leap a 33-foot moat and scale a 12½-foot wall without provocation. "There had to have been a tremendous stimulus that made the tiger react the way she did," one told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The teenager who was killed, Carlos Sousa Jr., reportedly saved his friends, 19-year-old Amritpal Dhaliwal and his 23-year-old brother, Kulbir, by luring the tiger away from them. The brothers were hostile to the police, at first refusing even to give their names, and have yet to provide a public account of what happened.

Police found a shoeprint on top of the railing outside the enclosure, and the Chronicle reported that "pinecones and sticks that were found in the moat might have been thrown at the animal." Whatever role the Dhaliwal brothers played in the attack, you can be sure it will be further obscured by their inevitable lawsuit.

The 9th Circuit Upholds the Freedom to Drink a Beer

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:49:00 EST

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit recently rejected a probation requirement that would have forced Marcus Betts, a former TransUnion employee who pleaded guilty to fixing people's bad credit reports in exchange for bribes, to abstain from alcohol for three years. The court deemed the requirement an abuse of discretion, noting that it was not reasonably related to a legitimate criminal justice goal, as required by federal law:

No one suggests that alcohol played any role in Betts's crime. And there was no evidence that Betts had any past problems with alcohol. Under these circumstances, we think it impossible to say that the condition imposed bears a reasonable relationship to rehabilitating the offender, protecting the public, or providing adequate deterrence.
In so concluding, we join the other two circuits to have faced this precise question....

The statute permits a discretionary supervised release condition to be imposed only "to the extent that such condition...involves no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary for the purposes set forth" in sections 3553(a)(2)(B), (C), and (D). Moderate consumption of alcohol does not rise to the dignity of our sacred liberties, such as freedom of speech, but the freedom to drink a beer while sitting in a recliner and watching a football game is nevertheless a liberty people have, and it is probably exercised by more people than the liberty to publish a political opinion. Liberties can be taken away during supervised release to deter crime, protect the public, and provide correctional treatment, but that is not why it was taken away in this case.

A PDF of the ruling is available here.

[Thanks to Eric Sterling, by way of Allen St. Pierre]

Madder Than MADD

jsullum@reason.com (Jacob Sullum) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:54:00 EST

Andrew P. Thomas, the chief prosecutor in Maricopa County, Arizona, has begun shaming people convicted of driving under the influence by posting their pictures, names, and blood alcohol levels online. A misdemeanor offense is enough to qualify. For those convicted of DUI-related felonies, Thomas has rented billboards that say, "Drive Drunk...See Your Mug Shot Here." At the risk of confusing passers-by who might think he's the guy pictured in the mug shot, Thomas reserves the bottom quarter of the billboards for his own name, in white-on-red letters as big as the headline. To someone unschooled in the principles of criminal justice, these billboards might look like thinly veiled re-election posters. Thomas sets the record straight:

The purposes of the billboards and the Web site, Mr. Thomas has said, are to inform the public about drunken-driving laws, and to serve as a deterrent.
"People tend to like it, and it gets a message across to the offender," said Mike Scerbo, a spokesman for Mr. Thomas, who declined to be interviewed. "We haven't heard any complaints."

Taking Thomas at his word, he is imposing extrajudicial punishment, based on his unilateral conclusion that the penalties prescribed by law for DUI offenses provide an inadequate deterrent. Notably, even Mothers Against Drunk Driving has reservations about his approach:

"Some parts of the Web site are good because they are informational and trying to provide the victim's perspective," said Misty Moyse, the spokeswoman for the group. However, she said, "M.A.D.D. would not want to be involved in calling out offenders. We are interested in research- and science-based activities proven to stop drunk driving."

A local defense attorney, as you might expect, is a bit more upset:

"I just can't believe he's doing it," said Mark Weingart, a defense lawyer in Tempe who has advised hundreds of people facing charges of driving under the influence. "Besides the fact that it is in bad taste, D.U.I.'s usually involve somebody with no criminal history. The downside to this person being published on the Web site is tremendous. I don't see the point. Why doesn't he put sex offenders up there?"

Public shaming of sex offenders? How could you get politicians to support something like that?

Boozy Baghdad

mmoynihan@reason.com (Michael C. Moynihan) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 13:32:00 EST

The Times of London reports that with the Mahdi Army having (partially) retreated from the streets of Baghdad, abiding by a ceasefire agreement, Iraqi liquor merchants, once a fixture in the city, are slowly reopening—and doing a brisk trade. With Repeal Day behind us, let us turn our attention east and celebrate the return—how ever short-lived—of a slightly boozier Baghdad. From The Times:

The men emerged from behind the shop's metal grille clutching black plastic bags, or with pockets bulging, eyes peeled for the enforcers of Islamic law. They hurried with their precious, clanking cargo to waiting cars or quickly flagged down taxis. It may be furtive but, for the first time in years, alcohol is being sold openly again on the streets of Baghdad.
With security slowly improving in the city centre Iraqis are returning to a long-forgotten pastime - drinking.

Obviously, tippling in Baghdad is not without its dangers:

In September the Mahdi Army-a sprawling mob incorporating Islamist zealots and hardened criminals-was ordered to observe a ceasefire by its commander, the cleric Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, who was losing control. Since then the alcohol trade has started booming again.

"The Mahdi Army tried to make people live in an Islamic way," Mr Abdul said. "People are still afraid of them. Customers buy alcohol and hide it under their car seats, in the boot or they'll bring in a jerry can and fill it up."

But others are defiant:

Paulus Ishaq, a Christian liquor salesman, sells quite openly over the counter from his shop on Sadoun Street, close to the Palestine Hotel. "The Government controls the streets here. My other shop across the street was burnt down by the Mahdi Army four months ago, and I opened this new one a month ago," he said.
"The Mahdi Army are still around, but not like before. There are many shops opening now around here."
"Business is good now," he said. "Iraqis like to drink."

And who could blame them?

Full story here.