What Should The BAC Limit Be?

It is long past time to revisit the issue of BAC limits for driving once again, specifically for small amounts of alcohol, as it is already obvious for larger amounts.

Twenty-One Debunked believes that, in a perfect world, no one would ever dare to get behind the wheel after having even the slightest amount of alcohol in their system, period.  We would also have safe self-driving cars and state-of-the art public transportation, streets would be designed to maximize safety for all users rather than the convenience of only some users, and so on.  But unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world.  And we never will either.  Think protopian, not utopian.

Thus, we need to be realistic in terms of what sort of BAC limits and penalties we set. Note that the swiftness and certainty of punishment is far more effective than severity.  And we need to prioritize getting actual drunk drivers off the road above all.  Focus on the sharks, not the guppies or dolphins. 

Borrowing from Denmark, one of the heaviest drinking cultures in the world and not even remotely a temperance society, we currently believe that the per se legal limit should be 0.05% in general, and 0.00% if observed to be driving recklessly.

Borrowing from most of Canada, we believe that only a BAC above 0.08% should carry  criminal charges, and 0.05% to 0.08% should be only a traffic violation with a brief administrative license suspension and brief vehicle impoundment and a modest fine.  For novice drivers of any age with less than two consecutive, accident and violation-free years of licensed driving, or under 21, whichever is longer, the BAC limit should be either 0.00% or 0.02%, also a traffic violation less than or equal to that above 0.05%.

If the limit is officially set to 0.00% for effect, any test result below the limit of quantitative (LOQ) must be treated as a presumptive zero (by that, I mean a conclusive presumption).  If it is a handheld breathalyzer device, or if the LOQ is unknown for the instrument, any result below 0.02% shall be a presumptive zero.  And all failing breathalyzer results should be confirmed on a second device.

Penalties should be graduated.  For those with above 0.08% but below 0.15%, a first offense should be a misdemeanor, in addition to any administrative license revocation.  There can also be an option to proceed only administratively and thus summarily.  Repeat offenses above 0.08%, or any offenses above 0.15% (or "aggravated DUI"), and/or with any kids under 16 in the car and/or when a serious accident occurs, should be automatic felonies with stiff sentences and heavy fines that can only be downgraded upon successful completion of an alcohol treatment program, that is, the classic "felony hammer".  And license revocations after the second offense above 0.08% need to be (more or less) permanent.  No more people still driving after their second, third, fourth, or fifth (!) DUI, ever again.

And those who drunkenly kill or maim innocent people, well, they need to go away for a very, very long time.  No excuses.  Do the crime, do the time.

And enforcement of these BAC limits should be done not only with checkpoints, but also with roving patrols as well, including the back roads especially.  And also use the "fish in a barrel method" in the parking lots of bars and clubs too.  We need to get these ticking time bombs off the road, yesterday.

So what are we waiting for?

An Easy Way To Quash The Black Market, Solve The Potency Problem, Protect Small Businesses, AND "Bring Back Mids" Too

Here's an idea.  In addition to moving from half-assed quasi-legalization to full legalization of cannabis, how about introducing a new type of retail license:  the "half-license"?  It would be similar to alcohol licenses that only allow the sale of beer and/or wine but not hard liquor, and would only allow the sale of weed or hash with a potency less than, say 10%, and perhaps low-potency cannabis edibles and beverages too.  Meanwhile, only those with full licenses would be able to sell the stronger stuff.  And allow any place that sells beer and/or wine to sell the lower-potency cannabis as well, and allow at least some dedicated liquor stores to sell all types of cannabis products. 

Not only would low-potency, "extraction grade" or "trim" weed (like what was normal in the 1990s and earlier) be incentivized to sell as-is rather than extracting it and turning it into concentrates, as now there would finally be a market for the new (old) stuff, but that would also undercut the black market without interfering with legitimate dispensaries that would carry on as now.  And since nostalgia is back in vogue these days, why not take advantage of that?

So many problems could be solved at once.  But that would make too much sense, right?

Cannabis Legalization STILL Not A Disaster, In Canada Or The USA

Yet another study debunks the prohibitionists once again.  When Canada legalized cannabis for recreational use in 2018 (for flower, followed by concentrates and edibles in 2020), there was no increase in cannabis-related hospitalizations for either 18-24 year olds or those 25+ following legalization.  Keep in mind that in Canada, the federal age limit for cannabis is 18, and the provinces set it at 18 in Alberta and Quebec (the latter has since raised it to 21, alas), and 19 elsewhere, largely matching the legal drinking and tobacco smoking ages in most provinces.  The study, interestingly enough, looked at data specifically from Alberta, which was the only province that kept it at 18 consistently since legalization, and thus the most permissive one.

This dovetails nicely with other studies in both Canada and the USA, in which the dire predictions of the doomsayers notably failed to materialize.

UPDATE:  And before anyone mentions "Tokelahoma", we should note that both violent and property crime in Oklahoma have actually been trending downward, not upward, since their "Wild West" of free market "medical" cannabis legalization in 2018.  Crime in the state is slightly above the national average, but that was true even long before such legalization too.  And a few odd high-profile incidents do NOT a trend make or break.  As we have noted repeatedly before, the correlation between cannabis legalization and real crime is, for all practical purposes, essentially null.  In fact, there is some evidence of a decrease in crime.

And another study finds no increase, and in fact a decrease, of young adults driving under the influence of either cannabis OR alcohol following legalization. 

And while it is debatable whether cannabis legalization actually reduces the use of alcohol or tobacco, data from state tax receipts at the very least shows no increase in the consumption of either of the latter two substances following legalization.

UPDATE:  Another study finds an inverse relationship between recreational cannabis legalization and intimate partner violence, the opposite of what researchers predicted.  That is, legalization appeared to reduce it, contrary to "Reefer Madness" stereotypes.