BAC.08

[mrdutton]

Drew, you have my support - 100 percent.

There is nothing wrong at all in using anecdotal information to conduct a qualitative analysis. And that is what you have done.

As complex an issue that it is, the bottom line is still relatively simple (to me). As long as there are people who insist on drinking and driving to the point where they cause harm to others, then we should have a law that punishes them for their un-acceptable behavior.

In Japan, drinking and driving is a criminal offense. However, Japan has an especially sophisticated public transportation system. One does not need a car to get from point A to B and back again.

So another part to this complex issue of social drinking and partying in this country needs to address our lousy public transportation systems.

In Europe and Japan anyone can travel from one place to the next (even the seemingly most remote places) without ever having to rely upon a privately owned automobile.

However, consumption limit legislation should be generated at the local level, not the federal level. I still think it is wrong for the Congress to pass and the President to sign into law legislation that "blackmails" the individual states into a particular behavior. I don't think it is wrong for suggested federal guidelines based on sound research, but the method of foisting those guidelines upon us is wrong.