In January 2007, a Wisconsin DUI lawyer, Rick Petri, 64, got a call from a client that he was arrested for DUI.  He went to the station to bail him out and blew a 0.09.   The lawyer who had consumed alcoholic beverages earlier in the evening felt fine and thought the alcohol had worn off.   Breath alcohol is not blood alcohol.  Age, weight, lung capacity, sex, hemocrit, lung to blood ratios, body temperature all can affect breath alcohol levels.  Thus, noone really knows what their true blood alcohol is especially after a breath alcohol test.  I have a portable breath tester.   On a recent evening, I tested my breath after each of four beers consumed over a 4 hour period while watching a pro hockey game.  I never felt impaired.   After the first beer, I blew a 0.05.  After the second beer, I blew a 0.077.  After the third beer, I blew a 0.117.  After the fourth beer, I blew a .099.  The beers were consumed on a beer an hour interval and I consumed a small pizza during the second hour.  My friend blew a 0.002 after two beers in four hours (yes that is two zeros or a two thousandth of g/210l).  Needless to say he drove! What is the difference? Who knows the tests are just as arbitrary as the 0.08 limit itself.  I guess I am guilty of being a lightweight.  

After a 2006 St. Louis Rams Football game this fall an Illnois Circuit Judge refused field test, a blood test and threw away a beer can after an accident with injuries. The police indicated that the Judge who had his chief judge as a passenger had a strong odor of alcohol, slurred speech and red and glassy eyes. Why would a judge do this? Judges know that field tests are a farce and blood tests are not accurate. Judges also know that a DUI without field tests and blood tests are hard to prove because the 0.08 limit is so ridiculously low that impairment is not detectable in the absence of blood tests presumption of impairment. What should you do if you are pulled over for a DUI? Only the Judge knows!

A MADD spokesperson announced their intention of seeking to increased penalties for DUI offenders making a 2nd conviction in 5 years for DUI a felony and a third lifetime DUI conviction a felony as well in the 2007 Georgia legislative session. Again our freedoms are never more in jeopardy than when the legislature is in session. Given the current state of the law, a person can receive multiple DUIs in a single occurence if there are minors in the car as the Supreme Court has held that the offenses don’t merge into a single occurence or transaction. This means potentially instant felonies for first time DUI offenders. Further, given that some people can blow over the legal limit with less than two twelve ounce beers and not be impaired in the slightest, this new law if passed with be a font of hardship and tradegy. It will also be the DUI lawyers full employment act.

Homeland Security’s Immigration Control and Enforcement began a three day sting on Friday Jan 13th, 2007, arresting those with pending DUI charges and DUI convictions who are not citizens in an operation titled Safe Streets. Ordinarily illegal immigrants are only subject to deportation for serious felonies or offenses which include at least a 12 month jail sentence. Because probation sentences were being considered “jail sentences” lawyers were attempting to get around this by having clients plea to 11 month 29 day probation sentences. This seems to put that technique on ICE. A warning to all illegal immigrants who now must take their cases to a jury to hope to avoid deportation. It will be interesting to see if this operation spreads beyond North Carolina.

The Ocean City Police Department’s in the State of Maryland is scrambling to explain why it let a drunk politician off the hook. It is waging a public relations campaign to explain to the public that field sobriety evaluations are relative and not pass/fail. This is testimony that you would never hear on the witness stand from a police officer and should provide excellent fodder for able DUI attorneys in the area.

Maryland Representative John C. Atkins a Republican from Millsboro, Delaware flashed his badge at police during a DUI stop and was not arrested or charged with DUI. A preliminary breath test indicated that he could be nearly double the legal limit. At least in Georgia, these preliminary breath tests are not admissible except for positive or negative for alcohol and the numerical reading should not be used as a basis for arrest but often are to the exclusion of more accurate field evaluations like Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus which when performed correctly under controlled conditions can be highly accurate but rarely is under field conditions. The preliminary breath test showed the Representative had a 0.14 grams blood alcohol level and was reporting swerving prior to being pulled over by Ocean City Police on Coastal Highway near 123rd Street. The Representative indicated to police that he had a few beers.

This is remeniscient of a “My Name is Earl” episode where the local cop lets a washed up actor obviously drunk go stating “its a straight shot to his house after he passes the school.” As the drunk actor pulls off you hear the sound of a school bell ringing and children screaming as they run home and to the bus. It would be funny if it was so sad.
Preferential Treatment? Can anyone say Equal Justice Under Law? A nation of laws not men? Obviously only Democrats can be DUI, Republicans just get self-righteously indignant when they drink or is it indignantly self righteous.

Note: Benefit of Clergy was a legal doctrine of the middle ages in which clergymen and those literate enough to read the bible could avoid prosecution by secular courts and could only be prosecuted in religious courts.

300 DUI Breath tests in 300 DUI prosecutions in Broward County, Florida were thrown out of court because the Area Supervisors in Florida calibrated the Intox breath testing machines with tap water containing unknown chemicals instead of using laboratory certified distilled water. The Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld the trial court judge’s ruling to exclude the breath test results in a DUI case because the machine had been tested with tap water instead of distilled water. Florida Administrative rules require breath test machines be tested with distilled water. Without knowing what is in the tap water, it can not be established that the breath test machines were properly calibrated to be accurate. Yet another reason not to voluntarily submit your liberty to junk science.

By Chip Parkhurst a guest columnist to the ocregister.com.

It is time to re-evaluate our attitudes about alcohol and other drugs.

In purely objective terms, beverage alcohol is a recreational hard drug: mind-numbing, easy to misuse and intimately connected with aggression, carelessness, and despair. When a drugged individual is involved in a violent crime or an accident, the drug is most often alcohol. In America, alcohol is responsible for 65 percent of murders, 55 percent of college rapes (that’s 70,000 per year), 39 percent of traffic fatalities, 33 percent of all trauma injuries, 33 percent of drownings and other accidental deaths, and 25 percent of teen suicides. About 150,000 Americans die from chronic alcohol-related illnesses each year, and another 3,000 from accidental overdoses.

Alcohol is not without merit. With moderate use (one or two drinks a day) alcohol acts like a soft drug, providing pleasant short-term effects (enhanced sociability and relaxation) and favorable long-term effects (lower blood pressure and cholesterol, lower risk of stroke and heart disease and longer life).

A similar scenario exists among pharmaceutical drugs, with substantial risks accompanying their benefits. For pain, over-the-counter painkillers including aspirin and Tylenol are indispensable, yet they kill 15,000 people annually. The antidepressant Paxil raises the risk of suicide. Xanax (for anxiety) is highly addictive. Ambien (for insomnia) causes sleepwalking and sleep-driving. Humira (for arthritis) triples the risk of cancer. Advair (for asthma) may cause pneumonia. Ketek (for infections) is linked to liver damage. Thalidomide (newly approved for treating skin cancer) causes horrendous birth defects. Children are put on ADHD drugs (Ritalin, Strattera) even though each year thousands end up in the hospital from bad reactions, hundreds of children taking the drugs report having suicidal thoughts, and a few end up dead from complications. Oregon physicians can administer intentionally lethal “medicines” to terminal patients.

A legal stimulant – caffeine – is so pervasive and accepted that most of the population (including children) consume it daily via coffee, soda or energy drinks, even though moderate consumption raises the risk of a heart attack, and five grams of caffeine (33 cups of coffee) will kill you.

So, we clearly allow people to ingest hazardous drugs. We just have to give them enough information about the drugs so they can choose and use them safely and responsibly. Against that backdrop, we must evaluate another drug being used by tens of millions of Americans, albeit one that must be used covertly despite its remarkable safety: marijuana.

First, police across the nation readily admit that, unlike alcohol, marijuana doesn’t make users violent or reckless. If anything, it makes them peaceful and introspective.

Second, a comprehensive 1999 study commissioned by the federal drug czar at the time, Barry McCaffery concluded marijuana was a “viable and effective medicine … moderately well-suited for chemotherapy-induced nausea, AIDS wasting, severe pain, and other conditions.” A 2004 study showed it blocks gamma herpes; a 2005 study showed it slows hardening of the arteries; a 2006 UCLA study concluded marijuana isn’t linked to lung cancer and may inhibit tumor growth. A 2006 Ohio State University study indicated it may stave off Alzheimer’s. Other pharmaceutical medicines may be more effective than marijuana in certain applications, but marijuana has an inherent advantage: It’s nontoxic.

The Drug Enforcement Administration itself conceded in 1988 that there are no reported deaths from marijuana in recorded medical history.

Third, regarding recreational use, an independent RAND Corp. study in 2002 concluded that marijuana does not act as a gateway drug or lead teenagers to experiment with hard drugs. According to the drugmaker Merck, marijuana’s active ingredient, THC, unlike alcohol and nicotine, doesn’t cause physical dependence. Merck’s researchers concluded that opposition to the drug “rests on a moral and political, and not a toxicologic, foundation.

Common sense is slowly taking hold, as many states now allow marijuana at least for medical use. Federal lawmakers, however, want to continue to subject marijuana users to arrest and punishment, without scientific or moral basis. There is no aspect of marijuana in a private setting that warrants federal agents breaking down doors and treating as thugs people who have not harmed anyone, arresting them or seizing their property.

Over the 70 years of marijuana prohibition, American citizens have suffered cruel and unusual punishment, as well as unequal protection under the law. Imprisonment should be restricted to those we fear: murderers, rapists, batterers, thieves and people driving under the influence – whether alcohol, marijuana or sleeping pills.

To add insult to injury, the United Nations this fall proclaimed that a quintupling of marijuana’s strength over the past 30 years through cultivation advances has made it dangerous, warranting more intrusive global enforcement efforts. Nonsense. Whiskey is eight times stronger than beer, but people simply adjust their “dosage” to get the desired result and aren’t arrested for it.

If governments truly wanted to solve the marijuana problem, they could allow the tobacco farmers to grow it, the government to tax it, the FDA to inspect it, the liquor companies to sell it, the police to control it, and the adults to use it. The only problem with marijuana is that it’s illegal.

In a word Marijuana is illegal in the United States and while it is no one should use it because the risks of ruining your life aren’t worth it. The fact that it is illegal is simply hysteria and non-sensical. I personally don’t like marijuana, so this isn’t a personal agenda for me. If you must smoke marijuana, you may do so legally in numerous countries throughout the world. Until it is legal in the U.S. don’t possess it or consume it here. By doing so you are financially supporting criminal networks that do bad things. Smugglers are not good people. They don’t donate their money to charity. They sometimes hurt people to protect their profits. Exercise your freedom of speech at the voting both give the North Carolina tabacco farmers something to grow, and tax it til we don’t have a national deficit anymore and then give all of the tax proceeds to public schools, universities and charitable thospitals. And when they do legalize it, in the words of Elliott Ness from the 1987 movie the Untouchables, when the reporter mentions that Prohibition is due to be repealed, he asks what Ness might do then? “I think I’ll have a drink.”

Police urge, offer DUI alternatives

By MARGIE KACOHA
Daily News Staff Writer

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Drivers who get behind the wheel in Palm Beach after having too much to drink are gambling with an unpleasant encounter with the police.

But residents and guests who’ve overindulged can make the encounter much more amicable by staying off the road and calling Palm Beach police instead.

The Police Department endorses the general advice of relying on a designated driver when attending holiday parties. However, failing that, police remain ready to help Palm Beachers get home safely.

The department is continuing its long-standing policy of providing a ride to residents who feel they have had too much to drink to get behind the wheel.

Residents would receive a ride directly to their homes. Guests who live outside the community also can benefit from the service. According to police spokeswoman Janet Kinsella, Palm Beach police will help make other arrangements, such as contacting family members or local taxi companies.

Police provide the service throughout the year but give it more prominence during the holiday season.

Kinsella said no one in the department wants to see a resident lose a family member or loved one in a traffic fatality.

She said law enforcement officers will be looking for drunken or impaired drivers this time of year.

Last year, police in Palm Beach made 39 DUI arrests. This year, the total is up to 25 as the New Year approaches.

According to statistics cited by Kinsella, 23,864 alcohol-related crashes were reported throughout the state in 2005. The number of fatalities was 1,239.

Manalapan Police Chief Clay Walker said his department has no established policy of driving residents home.

“But our attitude is ‘Let us help you,’ if someone calls,” he said. “We would encourage people to drink intelligently.”

Drunken driving is barely an issue in the small, affluent community. Walker said his records indicate officers made two DUI arrests last year and one so far this year.

In South Palm Beach, Chief Roger Crane reported seven DUI arrests this year and four in 2005.

“We don’t have a policy in place,” Crane said of providing transportation. “But if it came to our attention, we would do what we could to assist them.

“If we catch them behind the wheel, we’ll drive them to 3228 Gun Club Road,” he said in reference to the Palm Beach County Jail.

Police should be dui helpers not dui hunters. When the only encounters people have with police are speeding on freeways, marijuana, breaking up parties and DUIs it not only erodes respect for law enforcment especially in the young who fear arrest for underage alcohol consumption. I call these social crimes because they represent acts that are legal in some countries and not in others to varying decrees. This makes the youth afraid to call the police when they need them and makes citizens who become jurors suspicious of law enforcement. We would all do well to decriminalize social crimes and make ordinary citizens encounters with police amicable and not adversial.

Still Drunk The Morning After?

Nov 16, 2006 12:10 AM

Are you still drunk the morning after a binge? We wondered how many people hit the road in the morning without even realizing they are still legally drunk.

We asked four volunteers to conduct an experiment. They drank for four hours, took a drunk test, slept for eight hours, and took another drunk test. The results may surprise you.

Our volunteers started drinking at 7:30 on a Thursday night. A couple of beers into the experiment they start to slur their words. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration guide says that’s a sign of getting drunk.

At 9:30 the group decides to finish a bottle of whiskey.

At 11:00 Virginia Beach Police Officers arrive to conduct the first round of drunk tests. Officer J.J. Manago and Officer B.K. Womble give each man a breathalyzer test. “Just blow into this like you are blowing up a balloon, and stop.”

The first tester has a blood alcohol level of .190. Keep in mind the legal limit in Virginia and North Carolina is 0.08. The research shows at the level of our first tester, most people lose coordination, vomit, or pass out. Our volunteer went on to do field sobriety tests. He failed each one.

The next tester has a blood alcohol level of .150. That’s enough over the legal limit to warrant mandatory jail time.

Next up blows a .108. Drunk, but not as bad as his friends.

The last volunteers is the most drunk. His blood alcohol level is .194. He can barely stand and laughs a lot.

After this first round of tests, the officers leave and the volunteers go to sleep for eight hours.

7:00 Friday morning Officer C.E. Elliot wakes them up for another round of test. The first tester blows a 0.085. He’s still drunk.

Second up still has alcohol in his bloodstream, but can legally drive. He blows a .041. His reaction times may be off and he could be a danger on the road according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Next tester comes in at .03. He’s not drunk but could still be impaired. The final tester blows .077. Just under the legal limit but the Officer says he can still be arrested for drunk driving.

So 8 hours after a night of drinking two testers are still drunk, two are not, based on legal limits. None of our testers drove after drinking at night or the next day. But this is frightening to imagine how many people partying this holiday season are on the road in the morning as you drive to work or your child’s bus travels to school.

Most people process alcohol at 0.01 to 0.025 grams an hour with average alcohol elimination rate being 0.015 grams an hour. This means that it generally takes 5.3 hours to sleep off a 0.08 blood alcohol level and 13 hours to sleep off a 0.20 blood alcohol level. Black coffee won’t do it.