Booze Politics News and Thoughts

I've got a bunch of booze politics things that came in this week; rather than put up a bunch of posts, I'll just address all of it here. It kind of hangs together.

First, the Commonwealth Foundation study about how Pennsylvania's liquor "control" system does nothing to make the state safer from alcohol abuse, drunk driving, or underage drinking (like I didn't know that already?!) has been all over the state newspapers. I got my comments here, on the PLCB blog, go read. Meanwhile, Virginia's governor-elect, Bob McDonnell, made privatizing Virginia's ABC stores (the state sells liquor; wine and beer are in private stores) part of his campaign platform, stressing the windfall. Maybe he should have talked more about how stupid and backwards it makes the state look, and what a pain in the butt it is? And North Carolina's legislature is considering an internal report that found the state's ABC store system is outdated and needs to change. I tell you: it's time to push, and push hard.


Second, the real problem with the PLCB is The Almighty Liquor Code, which needs a total re-write. That's exactly what Frank Cagle is calling for in Tennessee in his latest "Frank Talk" column in the Knoxville weekly Metro Pulse. Tennessee's liquor code, says Cagle, is too broke to fix. "Sometimes a thing has been patched so many times it’s better to throw it out and start over." One look at The Almighty Liquor Code will convince you that it's time to throw it out. The twisted, tangled lawyerese that it is written in damns it to constant tinkering. The PA Liquor Code should be scrapped, and rewritten, in simple language, with consumer oversight, as a model of simple common sense in alcohol policy. First thing to go? All such Repeal-era language as this, the opening justification for the Code:

for the protection of the public welfare, health, peace and morals of the people of the Commonwealth and to prohibit forever the open saloon, and all of the provisions of this act shall be liberally construed for the accomplishment of this purpose.

Are you kidding me? In the trash with it, and we need never soil our minds with it again. An alcohol code should establish taxes -- of a reasonable level, based on pure alcohol content, not whether its wine, beer, or spirits -- a licensing facility for producers, importers, wholesalers, and retailers that benefits the state, not lawyers or speculators; provide rules for operation that are not based on moral or religious grounds, punishments for breaking those rules, and an enforcement procedure for dealing with this in a prompt manner; and puts the Commonwealth out of the booze business completely. Sheesh. How hard can it be?


In the New Dry section, there's this revamped informational site. It shows just the kind of inertial, pie-in-the-sky policy-driven stuff drinkers are up against; specifically, the continuing march of keg registration laws, after even the New Drys have admitted that they don't actually work. I'll say it again, for Google: Keg registration laws don't work, and PIRE confirms it. Why do 31 states have them? The same reason we got national Prohibition: someone thought it was a good idea, and would work, if only we had the whole county/state/country under control. Sorry. Turns out this one's wrong, too.


Finally, when 0.08 BAC laws were slammed through during the Clinton Administration, we were told that MADD -- the major supporter of the laws -- didn't want to go further than that, that they were not a prohibitionist group. True colors, folks: MADD Canada is recommending 0.05 BAC in Quebec. When do they stop?

So. Good, bad, interesting. That's the booze policy news this week.

PIRE admits keg registration doesn't work!

Amazing! In an article that's so new I can't even find it online*, keg registration is found to have no effect in reducing underage drinking and driving fatalities. That's actually admitted in a press release put out by the Substance Abuse Prevention Research Program today. It's not the main thrust of the article; that's about laws that do work. (BTW, I contacted the folks who put out the release: you'll find the full cite below.)

Sorry this is kind of disorganized, but it's wild to see that right there in the middle of the press release, James Fell of PIRE (Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, noted New Dry screamers) says “We didn’t find that laws mandating that beer kegs be registered to the purchaser made any difference in reducing underage drinking and driving fatal crashes. In fact with this particular law, we saw 12 percent more drinking-related traffic fatalities amongst those under 21.” Keg registration doesn't work, dopes, I've been saying that for years!

It's almost as interesting to note the main point of the piece. According to their research, the most effective laws in preventing underage drinking-and-driving fatalities are: the 0.08 BAC DUI law, automatic license suspension for driving with 0.08 BAC, primary offense seatbelt laws (allowing officers to pull drivers over for failure to wear seatbelts, not just citing them for it if they find it after pullovers for other reasons), and the 21 LDA. I'm not getting into the LDA law, but I will note that the other three laws affect all ages of drinking-and-driving. I'd also like to know the difference they found between fatalities under 0.1 BAC laws and 0.08 laws, whether individual state drinking culture/attitudes or enforcement budgets and priorities were taken into account, but if I ever see the article, there will be time for that.

For now, could we get the main message out? Stop wasting time and money and effort on keg registration laws, because they don't work. Period. Tell your legislators. I already have, and as I said in that e-mail, "I'm against keg registration laws because they are unfair to beer drinkers, they are a bureaucratic annoyance, and they are invasive of privacy. But primarily, I am against them because they don't work, and I would much rather see the Commonwealth spend what money and effort we have on programs that DO work."



*I'm not the only one who can't find the article: SAPRP was so excited to get this press release out the door that it includes neither the title of the article or the authors, exactly the kind of sloppy research we're all familiar with from the New Drys, and thanks for keeping the faith, guys. It's also interesting to see that the only person quoted in the press release is a researcher from PIRE. Is Fell one of the authors? [yes, see below] Maybe, but the inkslingers at SAPRP fail to make that clear. Good job, folks.

Just more proof that there is a vast, New Dry conspiracy, connected by funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and they maintain separate agencies and foundations in part to look more numerous and important (and believable) than they are, and quote and comment on each other to look smarter. Even if the newspapers aren't on to this scam, I am.

I also have the full cite for the article: The Impact of Underage Drinking Laws on Alcohol-Related Fatal Crashes of Young Drivers, in the online version of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research (though it doesn't appear to actually be up yet), authored by James C. Fell, M.S., Deborah A. Fisher, Ph.D., Robert B. Voas, Ph.D., Kenneth Blackman, M.S., A. Scott Tippetts, B.A. The authors, BTW, are all members of PIRE; I've seen Voas's work before.

Shocking! Iowa's keg registration law is ineffective!

From today's Daily Iowan, the student-run newspaper at the University of Iowa, Iowa City:

A keg-registration law passed in 2007 apparently has yet to be effective in combating underage drinking.

Even the police admit it:

"There haven't been any [convictions] that I am aware of," said Sgt. Troy Kelsay of the Iowa City police. Police were able to track some stolen Liquor House kegs, he said, but noted, "That was for theft, not for providing alcohol to underage drinkers." (Some empty kegs were stolen off someone's porch, and when the thieves tried to claim the deposit, they got busted. Best use of a keg registration law I've ever heard!)

Well, the working police admit it. The bureaucrats are still toeing the party line:

Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine said he does believe that the law has reduced the number of kegs that get into the hands of underage drinkers."It has been very effective," he said. "It sends a message to all those over 21.""

Ah, it sends a message. Some of my favorite words: they mean, "We can't quantify any results at all, but we'd hate to think we wasted every single damned minute we put into working on this dumb-ass project." As usual, the folks on the front-line know better:

"It's a good waste of our time, I guess," said Charlie Uthe, a Liquor House employee.

The New Dry contacted for comment gave a typically evasive response:

Shellie Striegel, the community health action partnership project manager, worked vigorously to pass the keg law in many counties prior to the legislation." I would hope that people would begin to take the law seriously," she said. Taking down the buyers' names makes a statement that hasn't been made before, she said: The authorities are aware of who are buying kegs and watching where they go." (They see you when you're drinking, they know when you're of age...)

"Makes a statement," "sends a message," same difference. But it sounds like people do take the law seriously, Shellie: exactly as seriously as it merits. As the chief himself said:

"It is a tool available to us," the chief said. "But we're busy. It's not like we're just sitting around waiting for a call to come in."

No, I hope you're out patrolling, maybe looking for evidence of property damage, DUI, you know: real consequences of the destructive drinking behavior that is the real problem...that keg registration has yet to show any evidence at all of affecting, anywhere. Great article.