Beefy Don't Get Rattled

I introduced you to my old friend Beefy awhile back. He was a great guy, and in a quiet, unruffled way. While our old buddy Cloyce would indeed upset him (see here: Cloyce attracts deer), by and large Beef was happy watching the world go by.

Beefy liked his drink. He had purchased a bottle of vodka on his way home from work one day, and then stopped at a favored watering hole for a couple beers. By his own admission, he was feeling it a bit as he left the bar an hour or two later.

He was driving down the freeway when he noticed the smell of something burning. That's when he saw tiny flames licking up around the edges of the hood of his car. It turns out a pair of frayed wires had caused a fire. Beefy steered the car well onto a fortunately wide shoulder which happened to be at that spot of the highway. When he had stopped, he jumped out of the car, not forgetting his precious bottle of liquor. 

Beefy climbed up the berm at the roadside and sat far enough away from the car, by then engulfed in flames, to be safe, and began to ease his pain by uncorking the vodka and taking a nip. Soon enough he took another draw at the bottle and then a third, morosely watching his car incinerate itself.

Naturally enough, the fire drew the attention of a Michigan state trooper. The officer pulled up (well behind the flaming hulk of metal of course) and climbed up to where Beefy sat. "That your car?' the cop demanded.

"Yep," Beefy affirmed, with another shot of vodka.

"Well, would you like me to call the fire department?" the trooper asked, sarcastically.

After another drink Beefy simply answered, "If you want to."

That's it. That's the story. Beefy lost a car yet saved his vodka.

Four Loko and Craft Brewers

Craft brewers in Michigan and elsewhere are jittery in the light of the Four Loko advisory which the Food and Drug Administration aimed at the makers of the aforementioned drink and three other companies which mix alcohol and stimulants such as caffeine in their concoctions. The warning reminds the companies in question that it is illegal to sell drinks which are unsafe for consumption, and that their products appear to fit the bill.

The trouble is that many small breweries, craft breweries which make specialty beers, often use ingredients which contain natural caffeine. They don't add caffeine per se, but it comes into the beverage through the ingredients they use, such as cocoa beans. These brewmasters worry that the recent FDA edict will prevent their making beer their way for the folks who like it.

Part of the issue revolves around the way the Four Loko makers are marketing inexpensive, high alcohol, sweetened, high caffeine drinks to the college crowd and younger. The craft brew industry doesn't do that: they make beer for the love of beer, and are more free to experiment than the large breweries.

When all gets said and done, what we have here is a fine example of the troubles involved in personal freedom issues (at several levels, not simply of the individual), government regulation, and responsible citizenship. It is rather difficult to argue that those of legal drinking age should be kept from a product they want...yet it is also difficult to argue the morality of a company making a beverage aimed at an audience who wants only to get schnockered on the cheap. Toss in the fact that many microbreweries also use ingredients which may violate the standard the FDA apparently seeks to employ, brewers not attempting to entice potentially impressionable youths but, rather, enhance the quality of their product (what true beer lover doesn't appreciate the aroma and rich taste of a chocolate stout?) and we have an interesting mess of rights at work.

How far should the government go, and we must remember we are dealing with a monolithic government, in protecting the citizens from themselves? When considering this question, we must also factor in that there's nothing wrong with that government protecting the citizens not engaging in puerile behavior from the often dangerous antics of those who are. Yet we must also consider the obvious freedoms of the rest: the beer makers and beer drinkers who are not doing wrong but are merely engaging in the responsible marketing and responsible consumption of alcoholic products.

Those in the latter category are surely justified in the fear of what blanket government dictates may impose upon them. Washington certainly seems to use a heavy trowel when issuing edicts. Still, that cannot mean that everything coming from the beltway is wrong or errant. It will be quite interesting to see how the issue plays out.

Drinking and Driving Laws

Great Britain has banned drinking games in bars. The State of Virginia and the City of Huntington Beach, California have done the same. Ontario, a Province in Canada, has put into law the rule that if your blood alcohol concentration is .05 to .08 (.08 being the legal limit for driving under the influence) you will still face serious consequences: you can be fined and your license suspended for three days.

There is no argument against drunk driving rules being strident. But it is left to wonder whether we are going too far: Ontario has said that if you plan on drinking, then don't plan on driving. It is fair to ask whether we may be infringing on individual rights too much in trying to discourage the consumption of alcohol. This is insulting, especially as there is no moral wrong involved in drinking alcoholic beverages.

Drinking games, to be sure, are at least borderline juvenile. Yet that does not seem reason enough to ban them. And while there must be clear legal guidelines as to what constitutes drunken driving, making it virtually a crime to drink then drive at all appears extreme. Individual responsibility is dying at the hands of the nanny state.

This is not to defend alcoholism or drunken behavior. By all means, throw the book at anyone driving dangerously impaired. But to essentially say than any ingestion of alcohol followed by driving is impaired driving strains credibility, and insults the individual. We need to take greater care when devising our laws. We need to remember that responsibility is ultimately in the person, not the state.