Archives for the 'drinking' tag
Wisconsin food police tackling beer before cheese
The New York Times has a piece today in which it looks down its arugula-eating nose at Wisconsin’s drinking culture. The article starts by explaining that 15-year-olds are routinely served beer at bars there—so long as they’re accompanied by a consenting parent. This is no doubt meant to shock, and I was indeed shocked that Wisconsin still manage to receive federal highway money.
The point of the article seems to be that Wisconsin, apparently alone among the states, has a population that gets drunk a lot, and that public health people there have had enough. Specifically, a group led by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health plans to start a campaign to “to dramatically change the laws, culture and behaviors in Wisconsin.” How? “[S]tate agencies would use a $12.6 million federal grant to step up screening, intervention and referral services at 20 locations around Wisconsin.” Do you know how many PBRs and shots of Yeager $12.6 million can buy?
Now, I can do without puritan moralizing; I drank plenty in Spain the summer after I turned 15 and I’m the better for it. But what about drunk driving? Is that not the definition of negative externality? I was a bit surprised to learn that in Wisconsin drunk drivers “are not charged with a felony until they have been arrested a fifth time.” Have I lost my libertarian credentials for thinking that you should be free to drink as much as you’d like as long as you don’t get behind the wheel of a car? What’s the right way to tolerate, if not encourage, a healthy cultural relationship with alcohol while keeping drunk folks off the road?
