Posted on 01/27/2018 7:20:45 AM PST by JP1201
A new report issued last week by the National Academies of Sciences, Getting to Zero Alcohol-Impaired Driving Fatalities: A Comprehensive Approach to a Persistent Problem, urges a host of draconian measures in an effort to eliminate every alcohol-related driving death in the United States.
The NAS report suggests that policy approaches expand dramatically from their present focus, preventing drunk driving, "to also encompass reducing drinking to the point of impairment"—the latter, in other words, targeting all drunkenness.
Getting to zero, in the report's estimation, means a host of nefarious, neo-Prohibitionist approaches to alcohol regulation, including "lowering state per se laws for alcohol-impaired driving to 0.05% blood alcohol concentration (BAC) [from 0.08%, the law today in most states], preventing illegal alcohol sales to... already-intoxicated adults, strengthening regulation of alcohol marketing, and implementing policies to reduce the physical availability of alcohol." It also calls for stepped-up sobriety checkpoints, which can be constitutionally questionable.
The means the report recommends to achieve its unrealistic goals are both obnoxious and intrusive. In the case of reducing the physical availability of alcohol, for example, the report recommends specifically that state and local governments restrict the number of establishments allowed to sell alcohol and reduce "the days and hours of alcohol sales[.]" Among its key recommendations, the report also calls for the federal government and state governments to "increase alcohol taxes significantly."
Dr. Steven Teutsch, chair of the NAS committee that authored the report, admits that eliminating every one of America's more than 10,000 annual alcohol-related driving deaths "sounds like an overly ambitious goal."
It doesn't just sound overly ambitious. The study's title, along with its stated "goal of zero alcohol-impaired driving fatalities" and most of its contents, smacks of bluster, much like previous White House efforts to end poverty or to rid America of childhood obesity—each purportedly capable of being accomplished, at the time of their announcement, "within a generation."
Some members of law enforcement have voiced support for the NAS report's recommendations, particularly for reducing the blood-alcohol threshold to 0.05%.
"I would agree with it," an Ohio sheriff, Larry Mincks, told the local Marietta Times, speaking of the report. "Any amount of alcohol can affect you. I'm a believer in no drinking and driving whatsoever."
Bar owners disagree.
"I think it's going back to the days of the prohibition," said Mary Eddy, a Marietta tavern owner.
Even some law-enforcement officials are skeptical.
"I'm not sure lowering the limit is an effective way to lower deaths from alcohol-related accidents," said Marietta Police Chief Rodney Hupp.
"If our ultimate goals are to reduce driver impairment and maximize highway safety, we should be punishing reckless driving more consistently," wrote former Reason editor Radley Balko in an excellent 2011 article. "It shouldn't matter if it's caused by alcohol, sleep deprivation, prescription medication, text messaging, or road rage."
Drunken driving is a serious problem. I support stiff penalties for those found guilty of driving drunk. But if drunk people shouldn't drive, then sober lawmakers also should not dumb down the term "drunk" so much that it loses meaning and puts anyone who's had a sip of alcohol before getting behind the wheel of a vehicle in the crosshairs of law enforcement.
Despite the fact that most of the NAS committee report's recommendations are both unrealistic and potentially harmful, it's not entirely devoid of reasonable recommendations. For example, it recommends that cities expand transportation alternatives, including allowing smartphone-enabled ride sharing services like Uber.
As I detailed in a 2015 column, "restricting adult access to alcohol is a farcical and failed policy." The disastrous period of alcohol Prohibition in this country led to violence, law-breaking and disrespect for the law among previously law-abiding citizens, and widespread production and consumption of stronger alcohol beverages. Reports like the one issued by NAS last week, which seek to inch us back toward the awful era of Prohibition, are nonstarters.
Soaring stock market. Check.
Calls to outlaw booze. Check.
What year is it?
I have a better idea. Let’s stop giving government grants to “scientists.”
Ban cars! Mass transit and bikes for everyone!
Prohibitionists never go away, they just change targets for a while. It's a mindset. It's antithetical to freedom, but it's persistent.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ― C.S. Lewis
Take you a glass of water Make it against the law. See how good the water tastes When you can't have any at all.…
These people are insane. It’s all about power and control. This kind of thing cannot be implemented without nazi-like tactics, which is what these people want.
We didn’t elect them to become the nazi gestapo.
Fixed...
All it would take would be congress amending the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 and it’s over. THe CSA of 1970 exempted alcohol and tobacco from the definition of controlled substances... Tobacco and alcohol are exempted from drug scheduling, despite their detrimental impacts on individual health and society as a whole, due solely to economic reasons. No constitutional amendment needed.
That's about the same as saying "no Constitution needed", if Rights can be redefined away by bureaucratic shenanigans...
National Academies of Sciences needs to be disbanded. They are nothing more than nanny state leftists.
I’m sure these same bozos are perfectly fine with legalizing pot and other drugs. Nevermind the consequences.
Ban illegal immigrants. It’s a part of their culture and police don’t want to deal with foreign nationals who are in the country illegal so they cut them loose from DUI arrests.
10,000 alcohol related deaths?
i think that number is low...
if you consider the number of one night stands and resultant abortions...
Why don’t these “scientists” want to prevent the deaths caused by people talking or texting on cellphones?
Soaring stock market. Check.
Calls to outlaw booze. Check.
What year is it?
—
LOL!!
Sweden has a 0.01 BAC standard. The push is on to take the US’s standard down to 0.05 and push it even lower to 0.03.
The woman who founded MADD was upset that repeat offenders were getting a slap on the wrist. Decades ago she left MADD when she saw it was being used for a neoprohibition movement which was never her goal.
She later lobbied on behalf of bars and alcohol producers.
We’ve already tried prohibition, it didn’t work out so well.
Well, the BOOZE RUNNERS made a big profit.
Big word that “if”....plus addiction being what it is...someone will find a way to defeat system...i heard that making offenders attend and watch an autopsy of dead drunk driver worked very well...same technique might be useful to curb morbid obesity...smoking...sexual disease transmission...rat racing car drivers...texting idiots...
Lol
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