About a week ago I spent the day in court. No, it wasn’t for me. I didn’t arrive in cuffs. I merely strolled in and took a seat in the gallery, both to ‘spectate’ and to see if there was a story therein.
A friend of mine is a prosecutor and she was there for the sentencing of a guy. A guy she had prosecuted. I like prosecutors. I like what they do to keep the rest of us safe. When I was young and foolish I liked defense attorneys, but then a transition happened that often gave rise to the thought: “Fry the bastards!” Well, not really. I am actually more tolerant than that, but I do like the concept of justice being brought to bear on somebody who deserves it.
Anyway, I had never seen her in action, so I was curious about how she worked at her task and how it was all going to come out. When I was a young reporter I used to do court as a regular beat, and my favorite day was ‘call day’ for first appearances. I could always get some good stories and at times there were even moments of moderate drama.
This day was one of those call days and it was a bit like déjà vu for me to be there. It almost took me back to the days when a local retired postmaster in a drunken rage many years ago fatally blasted his wife with a shotgun, or when an investment advisor who worked two doors down from me was running a mini-Madoff scheme from his desk. Human tragedy, no doubt, but drama, definitely yes.
Anyway, as assorted souls took their places before the learned judge I could not help but be struck by the obvious fact that at least 80 percent of the cases (and there were many that day) involved alcohol abuse in some way. There were the usual DUIs. In one case it was the guy’s third in the last decade. Not very comforting to know that bastard is out on the road, especially since he was driving while disqualified.
Another was a 60-ish (I suspect) woman – though she could have been 40-ish, so ravaged was her face. A lot of miles on her, as we used to say when younger and crasser. She had violated a restraining order to avoid contact with her estranged spouse. Booze was a very big factor in that charming relationship. Anyway, the restraining order was reinstated; she was put on probation, admonished to stay away from the hard stuff. Think that’s going to happen? Me either.
And so it went, case after case. At different points we were linked up with assorted out-of-town places of incarceration where sad souls would sit on camera and find out the dispositions of their bail hearings. In those cases, involving men and women, alcohol was the default factor in their being inside and attempting to get bail.
I make no judgment on the people here – that’s up to the courts – but I reiterate what I have said many times before, and that is that we devote so much time to fulminating against street drugs, but we turn a blind eye to the social and legal havoc arising from the abuse of our ‘legal’ drug.
I am not a prohibitionist. Alcohol treated with respect causes no red flags for me. Fine malt scotches and vintage cognacs are heavenly tipples — if i recall. And while it’s true that I no longer drink, due to the fact I didn’t have a particularly good relationship with the stuff, I do not begrudge others who take pleasure in fine wines or a cold beer on a hot day.
But it is true that 80 percent of beverage alcohol is consumed by 20 percent of the drinking public. It is that 20 percent that gives me pause. It is that 20 percent that brings about a huge cost to society and costs loss of life, loss of health, and loss of productivity.
In fact it has recently been revealed that the costs of addressing the societal distress stemming from alcohol abuse outweighs the revenues governments gain from selling the stuff. That really should give the bean-counters pause, but probably won’t.
And I still think so 
As long as the bean counters are making money, they don’t give a damn do they?
An excellent and much-needed post. I couldn’t agree more. It makes me very angry that every day I see people driving dangerously, putting those of us who are sober at great risk, and nobody does anything about it until there is an innocent corpse to deal with .
Interesting food for thought, Ian. I don’t know what the answer is. For various reasons I have a very complicated relationship with booze and the people whom drink it excessively. I have zero-tolerance for it and yet like you say, it’s not like we can just ban it. Or could we…?
It infuriates me that peole are able to rack up repeat DUI’s.
It seems to be that alcohol crimes get less punishment than others. I often wonder if it is because it is a ‘legal’ drug. Our son went through a period where he referred to his father as a ‘drug peddlar’- we had a hotel.
I’m in agreement and don’t have much to add.
On a personal note, it sucks to be a kid and be told that there’s no money for clothing, doctors, dentists etc. but you can see there’s plenty of money for booze, because there are bottles and bottles right on top of the refrigerator.