I just got back from a weekend in New Orleans. Let’s just say that I’ve been freshly reminded of how alcohol can lead to some questionable decision making. Dear God, what a town.
Of course, I’m not the first person to wake up in a gutter on Bourbon Street thinking, “How did it come to this?,” and tracing it all to a drink of some kind, the “one drink too many.” All joking aside, only people who work for beer companies act like alcohol isn’t a huge factor in many serious crimes in this country. Assaults, domestic violence, rapes, even murders are often fueled by excessive consumption.
That said, very few people are abducted, unknowingly saturated with alcohol, and then set loose on an unsuspecting public. Lots of people consume alcohol responsibly. Many people consume alcohol irresponsibly without hurting anyone else, and a few irresponsible individuals consume to excess and then commit heinous acts. What are we going to do, sue the beer companies because some individuals get liquored up before they commit crimes?
Well, for some criminals in Idaho, that’s exactly what they’re doing….
According to the Idaho Statesman, five inmates at Idaho’s Kuna prison sued major beer companies on the theory that alcohol makers don’t sufficiently warn people that their products are addictive.
It’s a lot like the tobacco lawsuits, only if people were claiming that getting hopped up on lung cancer made people go out and shoot people.
Lead plaintiff Keith Allen Brown shot a man to death. I don’t know about you, but I’ve gotten pretty blind stinking drunk before, and I’ve never shot anybody. If anything, I’d rather focus on keeping drunk people away from guns than keeping sober people away from beer.
But Brown feels a warning label would have done him good:
Brown, who pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Bonner County in 2010 after fleeing to Florida, said he’s spent nearly 30 years in prison.
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