Brickbats

Brickbat: Poison Whiskey

|

drunk
Tarragona / Dreamstime.com

The Utah legislature has approved a bill that would lower the blood alcohol content level for DUI to 0.05 from 0.08. Gov. Gary Herbert says he will sign the bill into law.

NEXT: Has the Ignorant Media Gotten Worse?

Charles Oliver is a contributing editor at Reason.

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time. Report abuses.

  1. $$$

    1. exactly, its all about money and ruining lives. There is not a shred of reason for this shit.

      I would much rather drinking drunk be 100% legal at this point and require higher levels of insurance because the harm that comes from these DUI stops and check points and other ass jacker is not worth it.

      1. driving drunk*

        1. Radioactive

          drunken typing? well I suppose it’s better than one handed typing…

          1. ColoradoKook

            Who says you can’t do both?

      2. Chip Your Pets

        Because higher levels of insurance will bring back the people killed by drunk drivers?

        1. arresting 100,000 of people who are not really impaired is better?

    2. Chip Your Pets

      Meh, I’m thinking that’s just a happy side-effect from the perspective of the govt bureaucrats. This is all about pandering to the Moronians. Utah voters eat this kind of stuff up.

  2. Is it even possible to not have a 0.05 BAC?

    1. CooterBrown

      No.

    2. Chip Your Pets

      For a 160 lb male, it takes 2 drinks to get to 0.05, and 40 minutes later it will be down to 0.04.

      1. Hell IIRC mouthwash can make it that high.

  3. This Machine Chips Fascists

    Next step: Zero Tolerance!

    1. Yep. The Jones-Stalker bill of 1928 is revived in this current attempt at government by bigotry. Then again, if the backlash speeds acceptance of robocars, even the Jim Morrisons among us will soon be able to ride home in stoned safety.

      1. C. S. P. Schofield

        Correction; robocars will allow us to ride hoe un-endangered by any bad decisions of our own. Bad decisions made by the cars? Aww, too bad!

        The thing that scares me about self-driving cars is the idea which seem to permeate the enthusiasts side of the argument that they take the human factor out of the equation. Who do y-all think is PROGRAMMING the furshlugginer things?

        I’ve lived with computers since my Lady (I’m not a techie, but I did marry one) bought he Apple II in college. It used a cassette tape recorder for external memory, and we had to spring for the shift-key modification. Upper AND lower case were an optional extra.

        In that time, I have yet to deal with a computer so stable that its operating system did not crash at least once every couple of months. Now, apply that to cars.

        Not a pretty picture, is it?

  4. Ken Shultz

    It’s all about the Mormons.

    Utah is an amazingly free state–as long as you don’t want to drink alcohol or consume cannabis.

    Want to carry a firearm? No problem!

    They don’t even make you wear a motorcycle helmet.

    I wish California were as free as Utah.

    https://www.freedominthe50states.org/

    I suppose the big difference between the two states is the health of their democracies. In California, the government is largely unaccountable. To the extent Utah isn’t free on alcohol, it’s mostly because that’s the way the voters want it.

    Meanwhile, anybody moving from Utah to California for the freedom is using an extremely narrow definition of the term. There’s more to life than intoxicating substances.

    1. Radioactive

      I throw the bullshit flag…there’s nothing more important to life than intoxicating substances!!!

      1. Radioactive

        except guns, and porn and red meat and tobacco and…well you get the idea…

        1. AlmightyJB

          May not want to mess with their porn

          https://www.ksl.com/?sid=5744801

    2. Chip Your Pets

      Utah is the only state in the nation that would be improved by illegal immigrants going to the polls.

      Unfortunately, Moroni’s followers have almost as high a birthrate as they do, so it will take a while.

  5. DanO.

    I suppose the big difference between the two states is the health of their democracies…it’s mostly because that’s the way the voters want it

    Liberty is whatever the mob says it is.

  6. Rebel Scum

    As if bac wasn’t already arbitrary enough. I probably have a 0.05 bac from taking cold meds this morning.

    1. Radioactive

      Cold Meds for the win esp. when you chase them with a nip of single malt! sleep the sleep of the just and merciful…

  7. Brandon Lyon

    Self driving cars can not get here fast enough

    1. Chip Your Pets

      The Moronians will get them too. Those things have 50% alcohol content in their coolant, and are obviously agents of Jesus’ evil brother.

  8. Let any who doubted that The Prophet Bringham Young and The Prophet Mohammed were somehow different, be disabused of the notion. Nor are the Prophets of the New Testament different. As interpreted by Herbert Hoover, Andrew Volstead, the Wizened Christian Temperance Union, Methodist White Terror, Anti-Saloon League and most of the House and Senate, tha Bauble told us to poison sinners by blinding them with methanol. For it is Written in Bauble and Koran alike that Thou Shall suffer no bitches to live. They differ only in whether burning at the stake is more appropriate than stoning to death.

    1. Chipper Morning Wood

      All Prophets are assholes.

    2. ace_m82

      Yes, stupid/evil people can claim to be “Christian”, too. What’s your point?

      Go read John’s Gospel about the Wedding at Cana for what the Man himself thought about alcohol. And yes, that’s what I point to if Baptists start to complain about it.

      Those who worship government are the worst, “Christian”, “Atheist”, or whatever else. Why the quotation marks?

      “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”

  9. Jerryskids

    8% is malt liquor, 5% is beer. This legislation is obviously aimed at the malt liquor-dranking sorts, supported by people who know very little about alcohol and even less about fractions and percentages and decimal points.

  10. eyeroller

    How long till the first Utah legislator gets busted at 0.05? Drinking and driving (and getting busted) is a long tradition of legislators.

  11. C. S. P. Schofield

    At some point some wisenheimer is going to manage to get a court to examine the issue of just how accurate ARE Breathalyzers? I have a feeling that the laws are pushing that accuracy awfully hard.

Please to post comments

Comments are closed.