If not contested the charges will stand. Agreed. My premise was that they would be contested. I certainly would rather not have a public intoxication record if I could help it. YMMV.
You’d pay several thousand dollars in travel, lodging, and attorney fees to fight a couple-hundred-dollar ticket in another state?
Well, okay, maybe you would. But you’d be greatly outnumbered, which is the whole point.
Which is what whole point? I must have missd it. Can you show me where it was made before?
The whole point of my assumption was that the charges would be fought. Feel free to reject that premise, but having done so, there is really nothing more for you to say.
Why are we assuming that the folks arrested were from out of state?
Because the one bar specifically mentioned is a hotel bar. You’re right, though, we know nothing about the other 35 bars targeted.
Why couldn’t they be from out of town?
According to Wikipedia, a toxin is a “poisonous substance produced by living cells or organisms.” A poison is a substance that “can cause injury, illness, or death to organisms.” The effects of alcohol on the body include the following: blurred vision, vertigo, intoxication, ataxia, respiratory depression, damage to cell membranes, interference with synaptic firing, memory impairment, death of brain cells, esophageal cancer, liver cancer, liver cirrhosis, Wernicke encephalopathy, atrophy of the vermis, coma, death. Granted, some of these conditions require long-term heavy use to appear. In any case, ethanol is most definately a toxin.
Sure, alcohol and other drugs aren’t only consumed for their drug effect. Many people drink for the taste, smell, appearance, etc. Many people smoke tobacco for the flavor and aroma. Marijuana is also highly aromatic and flavorful. Coffee, tea, and chocolate (caffeine) are tasty. But the drug effect is still a primary motivation for the use of these drugs.
Ethanol may be a food (it certainly is high in calories), but it is also a drug. Another example: marijuana can be consumed as a food (and parts of the plant are highly nutritious). But pot brownies will still get you stoned off your ass!
I’ve known people who consider methamphetamine a social lubricant. Some users of cocaine, marijuana, opium, etc. would make similar claims regarding their drugs of choice. Alcohol is obviously not the only drug that can claim to be a “social lubricant” (whatever that really means). Although, personally, I think alcohol makes people boorish and annoying. And in my mind, when I hear the term “social lubricant”, I imagine large crowds of naked people covered in KY Jelly… 
And labeling those of us who are concerned about the effects of alcohol as “neo-prohibitionists” is not “attempting to control the debate by controlling the language”?
But it is a drug. Is that a bad thing? Well that’s another debate. You know, many producers of other drugs take pride in their work. Marijuana growers and breeders put a lot of work into improving the quality of their bud. It takes a talented chemist to properly synthesize LSD. Converesely, alcohol can be made in a bathtub or toilet. Regardless of the mode of production, intention of the producer, or quality of the finished product, they’re all drugs.
Hmmm, I thought that the effects of alcohol on the body were better cardiovascular health , fewer strokes, reduced risk of hypertension, reduced risk of Alzheimer’s, increased HDL levels, preventing osteoporosis, improved cognition, and, in some beverages such as red wine and dark beer, high levels of antioxidants.
Your definition of a poison is “a substance that can cause injury, illness, or death to organisms”, so what isn’t a poison? According to that definition; salt, oxygen,vitamin E, and water are poisons.
Once again, I understand that alcohol is a drug, I concede that point. And I have no problem with educated people using the term in a reasoned debate. But the fact remains that groups that have a clear agenda to make the consumption of alcohol illegal use the word ‘drug’ and it’s negative connotations to demonize and stigmatize alcohol.
Maybe, but they have every right to do so. Alcohol is not only a drug, but a drug more dangerous than many other illegal ones. It’s addictive, debilitating and you can easily overdose on it. It’s only because it’s traditionnally a socially accepted drug that it is, completely arbitrarily, put in a distinct category.
I seem to remember that you have to join the club to buy a drink. The “membership” is about $5.00-which is credited toward your purchase. Does this mean that the local cops are out of bounds when they enter a place and start making arrests? Would’nt a cop need a warrant to enter a private club?
Wasn’t in Dallas, it was in Irving.
That said, i’m not sure of the rules in Dallas, but I have been to a few bars there (about 8-10 years ago though); and I don’t recall having to ‘join’.
Wrong. Alcohol, when not abused, is safer than any illegal drug and I have repeatedly shown that it is, in fact, a health benefit. People that drink moderately live longer than people that do not drink.
Alcohol is addictive to some. Billions of people drink every day with no compulsion or addiction.
Do I really have to go into debilitating? OK, I will,
*A Harvard study found the risk of death from all causes to be 21% to 28% lower among men who drank alcohol moderately, compared to abstainers.
*A large-scale study in China found that middle-aged men who drank moderately had a nearly 20% lower overall mortality compared to abstainers
*Harvard’s Nurses’ Health Study of over 85,000 women found reduced mortality among moderate drinkers.
*A British analysis of 12,000 male physicians found that moderate drinkers had the lowest risk of death from all causes during the 13 year study.
Dammit, hit ‘enter’ by accident.
Continuing…
*A large study of about 88,000 people conducted over a period of ten years found that moderate drinkers were about 27% less likely to die during the period than were either abstainers or heavy drinkers. The superior longevity was largely due to a reduction of such diseases as coronary heart disease, cancer, and respiratory diseases.
*A large study funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that moderate drinking increased the length of life by about 3% among white males.
Hardly sounds debilitating to me.
And yes, alcohol is traditionally a socially accepted drug. In fact, if it weren’t for alcohol there might not be societies to decide what is acceptable or not. There is credible evidence to show that civilization began due to agricultural practices arising from the need to grow grains for beer. I think 12,000 years of history is hardly an ‘arbitrary’ reason to place it in a different category.
It occurs to me that all of those studies are about longevity, here are a couple others dealing with your “debilitating” comment.
*A nine year study of predictors of good health found moderate alcohol consumption to be associated with the most favorable health scores.[sup]1[/sup]
*A nation-wide Canadian study found moderate drinkers who consumed alcohol daily to have 15% less disability than the general population.[sup]2[/sup]
- Wiley, J., and Comacho, T. Life-style and future health: evidence from the Alameda County Study. Preventive Medicine, 1980
2.Richman, A., and Warren, R. A. Alcohol consumption and morbidity in the Canadian Health Survey. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 1985
The definitions of ‘moderate drinker’ (in the studies i’ve seen, I have no idea what the definition in each of those studies were) normally involve 1-2 drinks per day (or less, some say 5-15 drinks per week, etc). They also elimiate ‘binge drinking’ (in the studies I’ve seen). Not exactly your ‘classic’ bar croud (and thus a bit far from the topic of this thread, perhas a new thread is in order).
[hijack] askeptic I have no news letters, yet. However, here is a letter I recently sent to my uncle. He was once a preacher in Texas and seems to share the spirit of these authorities.
The zealots have again overstepped their bounds; even as they attempt to justify their actions with words of law. Public intoxication is not in itself a threat, the spirit of the intoxicated is easy to see especially in a bar or behind a badge. [/hijack]
apologies
r~
This really isn’t anything new. I used to work security in bars in texas years ago. We arrested people for public intoxication all the time (citizens arrest…its considered a breach of the public peace). Never had to go to court on one because most just pays the fine and go (its like a traffic ticket with a free bad hotelroom)…but some of the security and cops I knew did go to court some times. I’ve watched cops tack on a public intoxication charge just because someone was being a jerk (one case I’m almost certain the guy had not had anything to drink the whole night). There was no standard other than the officers opinion and yes it does hold up in court. No breathalizer or any thing of that sort. Jurys tend to believe cops over some guy who was arrested in a bar.
They do these stings every once in a while. Last time they were arresting bartenders as well because it is illegal to serve alchohol to an intoxicated person. Personally I think its as much about revenue as it is about reducing DWI.
Oh, and yes, a bar is considered public in Texas. And if IIRC the cops do have a right to be there because of the liquor license. The TABC (Texas Alchoholic Beverage COmission) who is the one doing the sting absolutely has the right to be there as they are the ones who regulate bars. Try throwing a TABC cop out of your bar and see how long it takes them to padlock your door and yank your license.
Another fun law in Texas is Use of abusive language in a public place. That’s right, curse in that bar when you are getting arrested and get another fine tacked on.
Honestly, I got popped on a bogus DWI charge (I hadn’t been drinking at all, and I was sent off to jail for three days) and I paid out the ass for a lawyer specializing in defending DWI cases to fight that shit in court, I won, and then I am going to have to pay out the ass again to get my record exponged to get the arrest off the record.
Having that meaningless alcohol violation on your record can really screw you over if you are in a position to have your record run, like when you get a job. An alcohol violation takes a lot more explaining to someone than a speeding ticket.
Most people I know would rather pay a few thousand fighting this to keep it off the record than to just give in to the Shitty of Dallas Revenue Machine. YMMV
Prove it. I don’t believe marijuana, when consumed orally or with a vaporizer, is any more dangerous than alcohol (because the main health risk of pot comes from inhaling the smoke), and it doesn’t have the bad interactions with common medications that alcohol does.
We seem to have deviated from the OP into a beer vs. pot exchange (which is all cool… :))
Just sayin’.
Dammit I knew you were going to call me out on that one, Mr. 2001.
I can’t. You are correct. I should have said “most”.
Sorry for hijacking the thread. I’ll shut up now.