Mark Mellinger, reporting for WANE, has a story entitled Candidate wants to license drinking. In a debate in Auburn, Indiana, House candidate Gary Harbaugh proposed legislation that would license people to drink alcohol in a manner similar to the ways drivers are licensed.
This struck me as a stupid idea. The, upon more thought, maybe it wasn’t so bad. Then, upon even more thought, I think I was probably correct initially.
I think we need to treat booze the same way we treat tobacco. Adverse side effects of over consumption of alcohol are well known. Thousands of innocent people are killed yearly due to people driving to a place outside their home to over-consume alcohol, then they turn a thousand pound vehicle into a killing machine. Innocent kids get their heads smashed because someone just had to drink outside their own residence and wasn’t allowed to stay over night at the bar or club.
Maybe we need to ban the public consumption of a known intoxicant. You can still buy alcohol at stores, but it would need to be consumed in the home. Why should innocent people have their legs severed, their heads smashed, just because someone thinks they have a right to consume uncontrolled amounts of an intoxicating substance outside their home?
Thankfully some areas have saved bartenders from possibly developing lung cancer 30 years from now. However, some of those same bartenders won’t stop serving if the tips keep coming. It is time to ban the public consumption of alcohol given its horrific effects on innocent third parties (domestic batteries, DUI crashes, etc.).
That might be the dumbest thing I have ever read about alcohol. It also demonstrates a rural/suburban world view that is decidedly not the case for most, walking to bars is a widely shared experiences in large metropolitan areas and college campuses nation wide. If anything, your argument lends to the solution that more bars should be built closer to individuals, and that the government should not mandate a closing time, permitting time to sober up or find alternative methods home.