New alcohol law only punishes social drinkers

President Bill Clinton signed a bill Monday that is considered one of the toughest laws against drunken driving yet, but in actuality, it does nothing more than punish social drinkers.\nThe new law requires states to implement a 0.08 percent blood alcohol content standard as the legal level for drunken driving by 2004. States that fail to impose that standard would begin losing millions of dollars a year in federal highway funds.\nThe only thing this law will do to curb drunken driving is to bring the issue to media attention and to get people seriously discussing the issue on a national level once again. But if a person chooses to drink and then drive, a few tenths of a percent won't change their mind. Few people who do drive drunk do so with no concern about their blood-alcohol content.\nGranted, the laws are too slack, and with the unreasonable amount of deaths each year resulting from drunken driving, there needs to be tougher laws. But lowering the limit 0.02 percent barely strengthens the current law. \nIn fact, it is an attack on social drinkers. The American Beverage Institute cited studies by the National Highway Safety Administration which found, if a 120-pound woman drank two 6-ounce glasses of wine over a two-hour period, she might be over the limit. \nIf the U.S. public thought drinking one or two alcoholic beverages before driving was dangerous, the blood alcohol standard would be 0 percent. The United States has a long tradition of going out and having a drink, not necessarily getting drunk. With the lowered alcohol-content limit, social drinkers will have a hard time staying legal. \nInstead of lowering the limit, maybe Congress should increase the punishment for breaking the current law. Repeat offenders definitely need to be punished more severely. People will be more nervous to drive drunk if they face stiff jail sentences than if the limit is at .08 percent.\nA decision to drink and then drive is usually made after the person is already drunk. At this point, it is unlikely the person will take into account the fact that they are two-tenths of a percent more likely to get arrested. But if the person thought they could go to jail for years, then maybe that would have more of an effect.\nThe bill President Clinton signed might have been in good conscience, but it certainly won't solve any problems.