Sign In Sign-Up

Welcome!

Close

Would you like to make this site your homepage? It's fast and easy...

Yes, Please make this my home page!

No Thanks

  Don't show this to me again.

Close

Until fairly recently in human history, alcohol played an important part in many civilizations for a simple reason. A constant source of clean water is harder to come by than you might think. Without modern materials and methods, stored water quickly stagnates.

Today, We turn on a faucet and hopefully drinkable water comes out. To get to our faucet, massive amounts of water are first collected, processed to make sure it is safe, and stored before piping it to our homes. The collection, processing, and distribution system for clean water was actually devised in the 20th century. Until then, safe, drinkable water even here in America, was scarce. 100 years ago, diseases like dysentery, cholera and typhoid would spread through water killing hundreds of thousands. And that’s the way it had been throughout the ages.

As early man abandoned nomadic lifestyles and created villages and towns, clean water supplies would not last. Invariably, the source of the water becomes tainted, perhaps by animals, or perhaps by another tribe upstream. As an alternative to water, alcohol could be stored longer and was usually safer. It wasn’t fully understood then, but most of the deadly viruses and germs that lived and worked in water could not survive in alcohol. So it was that alcohol became a staple in most people’s lives. It’s no wonder that between killing germs and dulling pain, alcohol was also always widely used as a medicine.
History of Man and alcohol continued"

So today is drinking alcohol legal?

DWI laws were originally proposed because it was felt by some people that other people just may be drinking too much and crash their cars when "too drunk to drive". So Driving while intoxicated was created and if you couldn't walk you were not allowed to drive.

There is a commercial currently being shown on TV that says that the newest policy is that buzzed driving is drunk driving and the average bust costs the subject ten to fifteen thousand dollars in lawyer fees, court costs, court ordered rehab, increase in insurance and a mark on your licence that hangs around for ten years or more in some states... Not to mention loss of license, your freedom, your right to vote and own handguns, possible job loss or getting kicked out of school. Basically your whole life can be ruined because you got caught with an arbitrary amount of alcohol in your system and people wonder why someone would run from the cops?

The main reason DUI laws were passed was to "save lives", But it was already illegal to run somebody over with your car. Isn't charging someone who has not been in an accident and who has not hurt anyone is basically punishment, for something that might happen and usually didn't happen. It makes as much sense as charging all males with rape because they have penises. The realty of today's laws are that in the United States around 12,000 people are killed in DUI accidents (if you include the pedestrians, one third of which are also drunk) 1.2 Million people are arrested for dui each year. It seems to me that 99% are serving time and expenses for the one percent that need to be off the road. Another ten twenty million people got away with because they didn't get in an accident or were not in the wrong place at the wrong time. Further more under the same reasoning another Million people are now being arrested for driving high and with the trend towards Forced blood draws these numbers will quickly rise as well as the new driving under prescription drug offenses. Then the prohibitions will cry about the rise in numbers and call for even stricter laws.

Alcohol Prohibition was overturned over 75 years ago, yet today many people are harassed, assaulted, jailed and forced into treatment for using a product that is legal to buy. You can't drink in most public places due to open container laws. You can't drink and drive. You can't drink in your own home if minors are present. So how is alcohol legal?

The legal limit for bac is now as low as .02, which means more than one drink you are legally intoxicated. So a half shot at communion or a swish of mouthwash can get you a DWI?

The first state to adopt drunk-driving laws was New York in 1910, with California and other states soon following. These early DUI laws simply prohibited driving while intoxicated, but there was so set definition of what level of inebriation qualified as drunk driving. Impairment tests (walking the line) were given to determine, if you were in fact drunk. Then along came Breathalyzers, but as late as 1980, the Breathalyzer was only used if you failed an impairment test.

Seventy percent of Americans use some form of alcohol. Why can't the prohibitionists realize that drinking doesn't make you an alcoholic and that having a drink doesn't make you drunk?
It also make me wonder why the 30% who don't drink get to tell the 70% what to do?
Why is the government, who gladly taxes the hell out of alcohol taking the minority stance?

The wolf cry of the century has been that drunks get into car accidents and kill people. The truth is occasionally a person who has been drinking gets into an accident. The truth is that an alcoholic, is less likely to get in an accident, than the stars of amateur nights like Saint patty's day and New Years eve... Less likely than the occasionally people who haven't had enough sleep doze off and have an accident. Accidents happen, that's why they are called accidents. So now we want to lock up everybody who drinks, then there will be no accidents right?

Besides that most DUI's and DUI accidents happen between midnight and two am when all the good people are home in bed... So even if we give in on the drinking and driving myth. Why do they know issue DUI's to people riding bicycles or lawn mower's?

Are they going to drive a hundred miles per and crash into someone and kill them?
Why do we have open containers laws and public intoxication tickets?
When I was growing up the drinking age was 18, BAC levels were .15 and if you got pulled over and could walk a straight line you drove yourself home. We used to go to clubs and concerts with upwards of a thousand people and their were 500 cars in the parking lot. Across the country there was hundreds of thousands of such bars and we didn't have a million car accidents every Friday and Saturday night. Why not?

Because most people can drive fine after a couple drinks, some people can drive fine when they are buzzed, perhaps it's a skill. What I do know anyone who can't drive after one drink couldn't drive before they drank. Does anybody else wonder what effect closing all those clubs has had on the economy? and it's not just the waitresses and bartenders, how many talented musicians are out of work because they can't get any gigs?

I read an article once that said the highest BAC ever recorded was .68, .50 is supposed to kill you. The unlucky fellow that blew .68 was pulled over for having a tail light out...

I once was at a Libertarian event where a speaker said that the solution to drunk driving was to teach people how to drive while drunk. At the time I thought this was a logical but ridiculous concept. But is it any more reasonable than jailing everyone who likes to drink?

Once, I was pulled over by an officer, whose first question was, "have you been drinking any alcohol tonight?"
I responded "that I had exactly one drink a few hours ago".
She said, "Would you please exit the vehicle."
I responded "why?"
She said, "because you are under arrest!"
I responded, "for what?"
She said "You just confessed to driving under the influence."
After being handcuffed and stuffed into the back seat of the patrol car, I watched as several other police cars arrived. My Delivery van contents was thoroughly searched, every box opened, contents dumped out of every container. After three hours, I was told that I had a suspicious amount of cash, and it would be confiscated, and I was also being charged with a concealed weapons violation, because I had a baseball bat behind my front seat. Finally the officer's supervisor came over and asked me "what I thought about the events that had just occurred?"

I was quite pissed at this point and responded that "I thought that the entire fiasco was uncalled for and every officer there would be lucky to have a job when I was done suing them for multiple violations of my civil rights" He agreed with me and took off the cuffs and allowed me to continue home without any tickets at all...

Does anybody wonder why they keep lowering the BAC levels, when it's obvious that people who are not drunk are being charged with DWI and DUI? In Pennsylvania, if you are under twenty one and in possession of both alcohol and a car. You will be charged with DUI, even if you haven't had a drop to drink or an open container. In New York, if under 21 the BAC is .02%
Well other than the obvious revenue enhancement ability. It's the only way they can keep claiming that most car accidents are alcohol related. Got to keep the statistics alive, no matter how many lives they wreck along the way.

Now police cars are being equipped with the newest toy, a little camera that records the licence plate of every car they encounter, then automatically runs that plate to see if the car is properly registered, inspected and insured. Never mind if the car has not otherwise committing a moving violation, like speeding. Is this really any different than setting up random roadblocks?

Which by the way is where most DUI tickets come from, being stopped for being in certain place at certain time. How long before they expand the parameters, to include past arrests. Then they will pull you over just in case you've been drinking or carrying drugs around. Or how about, if your prescription drug has a drivers warning on it? Zero tolerance will jail you as well!

Finally, Marijuana has been made legal in some states and the police are harassing people, who may be driving under the influence of marijuana. Standard drug tests are being used and the same fees being applied. Problem being that a drug test for marijuana does not prove impairment. The threshold levels being considered could get you a Dui a week after you smoked pot. I once failed a drug test for marijuana three weeks after eating a brownie, that didn't even get me high. So now the lawyers want police to charge people with pot and prescription drugs in their system with DUI?

It seems to me that "legalization" could easily turn into a sick joke to persecute pot smokers, the same way we do users of alcohol. How long will it be before the cops regularly do a "random" drug test to every one they pull over?
Very soon my friends...