inebriation

Oh they've done it now. Nope, not talking about L.A. banning new fast food establishments within certain parts of the city. Not talking about Chicago's foie gras ban or New York's War on Trans Fats™ or the country's hatred of smokers. A few days ago there was a headline about New Hampshire introducing a bill to limit the amount of alcohol a bar can serve someone to 1 drink per hour. Fortunately, the aneurysm produced by said headline did not keep me from finishing my unproductive day of work. Unfortunately, it was one of those things that did not immediately leave my head and was, instead, stuck; bouncing quite fervently on my frontal lobe until I simply had to research the matter to satiate my curiosity. As it turns out the bill isn't quite worded that way.

Here it is!

So as it is worded it makes it illegal to knowingly serve someone that is already intoxicated. It seems likely to me the '1 hr/drink' headline comes from the idea that it takes the body about one hour to metabolize one drink (loophole alert: you could technically do three or four shots in the first ten minutes and not ask to be served all night yet still be wayyy drunk and dangerous). Seeing as I now have an agent in New Hampshire I thought I should get her perspective on this. I decided to delicately broach the subject. "WTF is wrong with your state?" I asked politely. "lol. Nothing, why? lower unemployment here" she tartly replied. I was in no mood for verbal abuse, so I quickly presented my scientific findings. "Your legislature is a bunch of stoners that are firmly in the pocket of the powerful Doritos™ lobby and they must be stopped. They're proposing crazy legislation on drinking" I posited. "Like they could ever reinforce that!" she said. Granted, she meant enforce, but lets cut her some slack. She's probably drunk.

The fact that this law is ridiculously difficult to enforce is beside the point. The heart of the issue is that this would essentially make getting drunk, illegal. I realize people are terrified of drunk drivers, but this is not a law that is going address the problem of drunk driving. It seems more likely this law will either a.) make people pre-game a little harder at home before heading out or b.) increase the sale of personal flasks ten-fold. This raises the question, can stores continue to sell twelve packs? or, god-forbid, handles of five-dollar Fleischmann's? Unless there is a special law regarding liquor stores because the way this bill is worded it leaves little doubt " No licensee, salesperson...shall sell or give away or cause or allow or procure to be sold...liquor or beverage to a person under the age of 21 or to knowingly serve an intoxicated individual." I guess the key here is the person being intoxicated. So you're still allowed to go into a store (or bar for that matter) grab a case and head out. And of course everyone is responsible enough to wait until they get home to start consuming their hooch, oh wait, we're legislating responsibility here. No getting drunk at home either!

Oh, and guess what? I happened to find something beautiful while I was researching this. Also on the list of legislation? A bill to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. Yes, you read that right A BILL TO LOWER THE DRINKING AGE FROM 21 TO 18 - awesome. Hey kids, now you can drink when 8th hour lets out, oh...but you can't get drunk! You still have to do that at school. HAHAHA!

I don't understand the desire to legislate personal responsibility on the masses (gay marriage, suicide, smoking). What makes all this especially outlandish is that the same people restricting personal freedoms are the ones giving banks, auto manufacturers, and airlines billions of dollars in corporate bailouts so their CEOs can continue giving themselves eight figure bonuses. The hell? I heard a proposal that we should have given the billions in bank bailouts to individuals with the rationale being individuals would use that money to pay down credit card debt and/or save the money which means it would, largely, end up in the banks. Then you have a consumer base with a reduced credit burden so they feel freer to spend AND the banks have recouped their money from individuals with poor credit, so you've bailed out people AND their banks. The only argument I can think of against this would be that the individuals of this country aren't exactly known for their fiscal responsibility and rather than use the bailout money to pay off credit card debt or save, they'd use it to buy a big flat screen TV, or put a down payment on a boat or something else equally useless. And now my faith in humanity begins its downward spiral, I need to turn on the news and hear about something good to restore my...wow, turn it off, turnitoff!