Good answer Dan

I heard on a discovery show a month or so ago that many prision have 80% of the people in them for non violent drug offenses.

Do you get time for Prostitution? Let the HO GO

There's also no reason for that individual to even have a car or get anywhere near the drivers seat of one...

Interesting idea krijack..

Or meth labs...
Or crack houses...



I shudder to think what my town would be like if the "street drunks" couldn't get drunk...

From my past involvement with Traffic Safety, in states that use sobriety check points, the increased certainty of getting caught was a major factor in a reduction of DUI offenses. I think the over intrusive police state arguements are valid. It is tough to police a democratic society. I favor them simply because they pull drunks off the street and at least no one dies that night.

The comment about other countries is right on. I know from travelling in Europe they are very careful about driving. I have been out with groups of friends and one person always stays sober.

Aunty,
Just because some people will find a way to do something anyways, doesn't mean we should just allow them or make it easy for them. At least we could make it harder. Besides, if it is illegal, I would suspect more of them would do it at home, making them less likely to drive. The guy I stopped from driving home last year was pass out drunk. He was also a 50+ business man, dressed nicely, driving a very nice car. I doubt that if he couldn't get alcohol on the way home he would pull over and get some crack or heroin. The cops told me he had 5 convictions and that they had 20+ calls to 911 in the last hour on him. I really felt bad for him as he kept saying, "I got a problem. Let me drive home and I will be ok tommorrow." Unfortunately he was too drunk to do it or even remember the way.
I also had a sweet old couple late 70's stop by my office one day. They just wanted to ask me a business question. The man apologized, and admitted, "i might forget about this talk because I had a little too much to drink at lunch. A little, you could smell them from 20 ft. After our quick conversation he walked out and got into a brand new cadellac and drove off. Had another guy in his 60's invite me over to his house to see if we could do business. As we walked around his house, he pointed out a boarded up window and laughed, "I got a little drunk last month and shoot out the windows. Went to jail for that one."
Had another guy on a job site explain to me how he just got out of jail for killing someone while drunk. He was actually mad about it. "it's not like I went out drinking with the intent to kill someone, it was an accident."
All of these people, but the last one, were older, established middle to higher income people. I really am not comfortable with them being able to walk into a store and buy alcohol and see no problem if they were forced to either take a break or be stopped from ever having alcohol. If you can't drink responsible, you shouldn't be drinking, period.

That's how we ended up with Prohibition, and we saw how well that went.

Maybe we need "Get High Houses" where the occupants can come in and get as high as they please....free. Paid for by the general population. The participants cannot leave, however, until sober. The dead can be wheel barrowed out to a dump site morgue as necessary to create more room inside the High House.

Kind of an "everybody wins" scenario. No drunks in public, no tweekers stealing to supply themselves, no more dealers, and best of all, no court time and money spent defending, convicting, and dealing with the uncontrollable.

OR....just let WDFW manage them...they'll be all gone in a short time.

Slab, the remark about WDFW would be too funny if it weren't so true.

Some of these replies seem to have a "theres nothing we can do about it so why try " attitude. Every time I see where a habitual drunk driver gets another slap on the wrist it makes me wonder who they will kill before the laws are changed to put them away for good. Raise my taxes to build a jail just to put them in. Make the law say that they must forfeit any vehicle they are driving no matter who the owner is,unless they can prove it was stolen,then add that charge to the list.Use this prison for DUI offenders only and set up an assembly plant for them to help pay for the cost of operation.
For those who complain about the loss of jobs by this competition,let them read about NAFTA to see the corporations are doing this already under the heading of "out sourcing".
Like so many of our laws,this one would be shot down by the bleeding heart liberals that worry about the families and the impact on them.I care more about the families of the innocent person killed by this drunk driver than the family of the drunk. I would be willing to bet that the family could and should have turned in the drunk on many occasions prior to the fatality. This makes them accessories in my mind.


In Aunty's post it stated that...Recently realesad Federal data has prompted a beverage industry group to declare checkpoints ineffective... sounds like the fox saying that they shouldn't be able to lock up the hen house. Why should the opinion of the people who have the most to lose if,heaven forbid, people actually quit drinking. Just like the studies by the commercial fishermen that say the best use of the resource is thru netting.

Good points, but if we were to put 1/10th of the resources into this problem as we do to protect the interests of big business in other parts of the world, we might come up with a solution. The "wars" in Iraq and Afganistan are costing us our national way of life as we know it and we are letting it happen just so someone can't say we are unamerican by not supporting the idiot I did not help select.
This is but one example of what is wrong with the current picture of America. I hope someday we get enough good people in power to finally say enough is enough and quit being the world police. Is anyone stupid enough to think that because we went after these 2 bad guys that we are safer here? They can't even keep the illegals out of the country and they aren't as devious as our real sworn enemys.
Sorry for the deviation from topic.

So true. If you drink the hard stuff (I don't usually) you can ONLY buy it FROM the state. They should have some complicity.

That has always been 2 of my pet peeves for the state to regulate both for the revenue and abandon the ones who become adicted. We "allow" the tax to go higher on both by rationallizing it by saying "I don't drink or smoke enough to make a difference". The more money we give to government, the more they need to survive.They believe in the power of numbers. The higher the number of employees the less chance of the higher-ups being laid off. I know it is a very simplistic way to analyse it but you get the meaning. All governments are like fires, a small controled one can be very good and efficient to have, but too many times they grow out of control and continue to require more "fuel" .I should start a thread on my (our) pet peeves with the government.

I like that term. I'm sure I will steal it and use it in my rants:).

One way the Gov. could have more money for law enforcement is to take some out of the social programs that gives the poor lazy dirtbag sitting at home breeding smoking their dope all day a way to keep their way of life going. Make them get jobs and get off their collective backsides and then the money could be used for a more useful cause. There would then be more money for big government to collect from payrolls which can then be used to grow bigger and move into our homes to tell us how, what, and when we can do what they think we want or need.