A God’s Lake Narrows man has been sentenced to four years in prison for bludgeoning and stabbing his girlfriend to death, a sentence that didn’t fit the crime, but in this case, fit the offender, a Thompson court was told Monday.
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If you are arrested for DUI and a breath test shows a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08% or higher, you are guilty. It does not matter, of course, whether you are a man or a women: the laws do not discriminate.
Maybe they should…
Researchers at the University School of Medicine in Trieste, Italy, found that the stomach lining contains an enzyme called gastric alcohol dehydrogenase that breaks down alcohol — and that women have less than men. To determine the relative effects of the enzyme, they gave alcohol both orally and intravenously to groups of alcoholic and non-alcoholic men and women. They found that women reached the same levels of blood alcohol as men after drinking only half as much; with weight differences taken into account, they found that women reached BAC levels illegal in a DUI case after drinking 20 to 30 percent less alcohol than men.
The scientists’ conclusion: legislatures may need to consider sex differences in drunk driving laws when defining safe levels of drinking for driving motor vehicles. Frezza and Lieber, "High Blood Alcohol Levels in Women: The Role of Decreased Gastric Alcohol Dehydrogenase Activity and First-Pass Metabolism", 322(2) New England Journal of Medicine 95 (1990).
Yet another study has found that women have lower "partition ratios" of blood to breath. What kind of ratios? Well, all breath machines in DUI cases measure the amount of alcohol in a person’s breath. But the what we really want to know is the amount of alcohol in the person’s blood. So how do we get that? Simple: a small computer in the breathalyzer multiplies the amount of alcohol it detects in the breath sample by 2100 times.
This is based upon the theory that, on average, there are 2100 units of alcohol in the blood for every unit of alcohol in the breath. (Note: that’s an average — but it varies from person to person.) According to the study, women have a significantly lower partition ratio. Jones, "Determination of Liquid/Air Partition Coefficients for Dilute Solutions of Ethanol in Water, Whole Blood and Plasma", Analytical Toxicology 193 (July/August 1983). And the lower the ratio, the higher the reading — even though the true BAC does not vary. Example: a woman with a true BAC of .06% and a ratio of 1500:1 (rather than the presumed 2100:1) will get a reading on the machine of .09% — above the legal limit. Put another way, the breath machine will show an average man accused of drunk driving to be innocent — but a woman with the same blood alcohol level to be guilty.
And then there’s the problem of birth control….
Scientists in Canada have found that "women taking oral contraceptive steroids (O.C.S.) appeared to eliminate ethanol significantly faster than women not taking O.C.S." Papple, "The Effects of Oral Contraceptive Steroids on the Rate of Post-Absorptive Phase Decline of Blood Alcohol Concentration in the Adult Woman, 15(1) Canadian Society of Forensic Science Journal 17 (1982). That means that women will reach peak BAC faster, and return to lower levels more quickly. This, of course, can create serious problems in a DUI case when attempting to estimate BAC at the time of driving based upon a breath test administered one hour later. Making the problem worse, researchers have also discovered that women who were taking birth control pills or who were pregnant had higher levels of acetaldehyde on their breath, due to the decreased ability to metabolize the enzyme as the level of sex steroids increases.
So what?
Well, most breath machines use infrared analysis in measuring the breath sample of a DUI suspect. But these machines don’t really measure alcohol, rather they measure any compound which contains the "methyl group" in its molecular structure. And acetaldehyde is one of these compounds. Result: a higher "blood alcohol" reading on the breathalyzer. Jeavons and Zeiner, "Effects of Elevated Female Sex Steroids on Ethanol and Acetaldehyde Metabolism in Humans", 8(4) Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 352 (1984).
It’s always a problem when the law, in its infinite wisdom, assumes that all of us are exactly the same.
A Morgantown woman was pulled over early Saturday morning on suspicion of drunk driving. A North Carolina Highway Patrol trooper says he saw her vehicle driving erratically. The trooper claims the woman nearly ran into the side of a bridge while trying to exit Interstate 40 around 12:35 a.m. Saturday. The woman apparently spoke to the trooper during the North Carolina DWI traffic stop.
The trooper claims during the traffic stop, the woman said her boyfriend had kidnapped her children. The trooper called in an investigator from the Morgantown Department of Public Safety to look into the kidnapping incident. Police claim the woman’s blood-alcohol content measured .19 after the traffic stop.
The woman was charged with a number of charges, including DWI, failure to maintain lane control, driving with a revoked license, using a fictitious tag, borrowing a license plate and having an open container. Law enforcement released the woman Saturday.
Authorities continued an investigation into the potential kidnapping. Matters became worse for the woman during the day Saturday. The Department of Public Safety investigator claims the woman dropped her children off at a friend’s house and was stopped early Saturday en route to picking up her kids. By Saturday evening, authorities arrested the woman at her home on allegations of a false police report and two counts of child abuse.
The woman was booked into jail on ,000 bond with a court date scheduled for Tuesday. Monday night the DWI charges became more severe. The trooper reported signed an arrest warrant Monday night charging the woman with habitual impaired driving. Police now claim the woman has three prior DWI convictions on her record dating from 2008 and 2009.
In North Carolina any allegations of DWI are serious matters. Prior convictions on a driver’s record can significantly increase the penalties for a new DWI charge. Greenville and Pitt County residents can help to protect their constitutional rights by speaking with an experienced DWI defense attorney any time allegations of DWI arise.
Source: The News Herald, “Mom charged with habitual DWI,” Matthew Hensley Aug. 10, 2011
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control released a new report – “CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities Report — United States, 2011″ – which sheds light on disparities between racial groups on a wide variety of health issues. The report touched on binge drinking, and noted that binge drinking is highest in the 18-24 age cohort:
“Binge drinking prevalence decreased with increasing age, from 25.6% among respondents aged 18–24 years to 3.8% among respondents aged ≥65 years…The average largest number of drinks consumed by binge drinkers decreased with increasing age, from 9.1 among adults aged 18–24 years to 5.5 among those aged ≥65 years.”
Donald McNeil offered a summary of the report’s findings for the New York Times:
“Binge drinking — defined as five drinks at a sitting for men and four for women — is increasing. In a switch from the norm for health problems, it is more common among the better-educated and more affluent, including college students. But poor people, and especially American Indians, drink much more heavily when on binges.”
The new report’s findings come from an analysis of the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. The full CDC report is available here.
2009 saw traffic fatalities in the United States fall to their lowest recorded levels. Likewise, drunk driving fatalities have fallen to their lowest levels since recording began in 1982 according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In its annual State of Drunk Driving Fatalities in America 2009 report The Century Council has summarized the latest available data in easy to read graphs tracking more than 20 years worth of data and detailing state-by-state statistics.
Drunk driving fatalities, defined as a fatality involving a driver or motorcycle operator with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level of .08 or higher, accounted for 32% of all traffic fatalities in 2009. Since The Century Council’s inception in 1991 drunk driving fatalities have declined 32% nationally and even more significantly among persons under 21, decreasing 52%. While much progress has been made hardcore drunk drivers continue to be involved in a disproportionate share of drunk driving fatalities – 72% of drivers killed in alcohol-impaired fatal crashes had a BAC of .15 or higher in 2009 down only slightly from 74% in 1991.
Over the past two decades The Century Council has been a leader in the fight to eliminate drunk driving and underage drinking – two of society’s top safety concerns – and will continue to develop and distribute award-winning programs, initiatives and research toward meeting this important goal. While even one drunk driving fatality is one too many we estimate The Century Council has contributed to more than 100,000 lives being saved on our nation’s roads over the past two decades. We hope this report will serve as a useful resource in the fight to eliminate drunk driving nationally and in your community.
Today, the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) announced the release of a new publication entitled, “The Implementation of Alcohol Interlocks for Offenders: A Roadmap“.
Alcohol ignition interlocks are a proven tool to effectively monitor impaired driving offenders and reduce recidivism. Today, almost all U.S. jurisdictions have implemented an alcohol interlock law targeting repeat and even high-BAC offenders. More recently, at least 12 jurisdictions have moved to also include some or all first offenders in alcohol interlock legislation and several others are considering such laws.
The Roadmap was designed to help administrators and staff plan, develop and implement improvements to alcohol interlock strategies to ensure that the goals and objectives of legislation are achieved. It contains practical steps to guide the implementation of alcohol interlock devices as part of a strategy targeting either repeat, high blood alcohol concentration (BAC) or first offenders. Critical steps in the process ranging from the drafting of legislation and the development of an implementation, to the organization of staff education and public awareness through to the creation of an evaluation plan for the strategy are discussed. Important considerations and caveats that impact decision-making at each stage of the process are also highlighted.
The Roadmap was created with input from seasoned professionals who have played a leadership role in these initiatives or who have been intimately involved in interlock delivery. Input was sought from representatives of driver licensing, criminal justice, and hybrid (licensing and justice combined) interlock initiatives to achieve a balanced and inclusive perspective on effective strategies to apply these tools to supervise drunk drivers.
Funding for this initiative was provided by The Century Council.
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