Alcohol+and+the+Law

=**Alcohol and Law**= = =

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Alcohol has always been a problem around the whole world because it's been around for thousands for years, so there has always been laws against it and there has always been people who haven't followed those laws. I will talk about some of those laws in Sweden and America, why they were made, how they are enforced, potential consequences and results of not following the law, and some statistics about it all that may be quite shocking.=====

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**Alcohol and Law in America**


Alcohol has been in America and been a problem since early in the 16th century. Alcohol came to America with all the explorers and pilgrims that moved there as it was discovered and since then there has always been laws against it. The first laws against alcohol in America were made in Virginia in 1619 and in Massachusetts in 1657. The law in Virginia was made against drunkenness and the law in Massachusetts was made against the selling of strong kinds of liquor such as whiskey and rum. These laws were passed, not because they were afraid someone might be hurt, but because they thought that drunkenness was from the devil even though they thought that alcohol was a gift from god. Now people are not as religious and have passed many more laws, but because of safety reasons not religious reasons. The most common laws against alcohol in the United States are the laws against drinking alcohol in vehicles or driving while drunk and drinking alcohol before a certain age. The law against drinking alcohol in vehicles or drinking drunk is enforced in 49 states and the law against under aged drinking is enforced in all states but age limit varies. In 47 or 48 states the age limit is 21 and in the other states the age limit is even higher. These laws are important to have because even with them accidents occur all the time when people don't obey them and when people drink alcohol carelessly. Since 1982 the amount of yearly deaths in America involving alcohol has decreased drastically from around 25,000 to 16,500, but as you see that is still a pretty big amount of people and now that decrease has stopped and that is not a good sign. On top of that 600,000 people are injured in alcohol related accidents each year only in the US. With those horrible stats that means that 3 out of 10 Americans will be involved in an alcohol related accident in their lifetime. There are far to many people who don't follow the laws even though the consequences might be death, bad injuries, or being fined or put in jail by the police. Alcohol might be good to some and make them feel better, and other people might just feel really bad without it but everyone must still follow the laws or accidents will occur. The police can't catch everyone who isn't following the laws because there are too many of them. So people have to decide to follow the law on their own. What the police does do when they catch someone not following the law depends on age and severity. Punishments include jail, fines, alcohol awareness class, community service, and some others. In Texas for example where the the highest percentage of teens in the U.S have tried alcohol the laws are, according to the Texas Alcohol Commission,
 * Underage Drinking
 * Fines up to 500 $
 * Alcohol Awareness Class
 * 1 to 6 months of drivers license taken away
 * 8 to 40 hours of community service
 * Underage Drinking for people between 17 and 21
 * Fines up to 2000$
 * Automatic License Suspension
 * Up to 6 months in jail
 * If Second Time Convicted
 * License taken away for up to a year[[image:Beer_-_All_u_need.jpg width="175" height="247" align="right" caption="American ad for beer"]]
 * Even higher fines, jail time, and community service time
 * Drunk Driving
 * Fine up to 2000$
 * 3 to 180 days in jail
 * Open Alcohol Container in Vehicle
 * More then 6 days in jail
 * Between 24 and 100 hours of community service

When a police man sees someone driving weird or over the speed limit he pulls them over and sees if they have alcohol in their blood by taking a breathalyser test, urine test, or blood test in the worst cases. They take them to the police station, give them a ticket, or demand money for not following the law. When someone that is under aged is trying to buy alcohol or even if they are not under aged the shop owner or where ever they are buying the alcohol has the right to ask for ID, if the buyer does not have ID the shop owner shouldn't or doesn't have to sell the alcohol to the buyer. Sometimes the shop owner might call the police and then the police take the person to the police station or fine them. If they see someone under aged drinking alcohol they will do the same. Ads for alcohol just make it a lot harder for police men to do their job because it makes more under aged people drink and more drivers drive drunk. They promote drinking alcohol and that just increases the amount of deaths, injuries, and people who disobey the law so the people making alcohol ads have got to stop and lives will be saved.

Alcohol has been around in Sweden for a very long time as well, even longer then in America because Sweden has been around for a lot longer then America. Alcohol has been in Sweden since the Vikings and that is about 900-1200 years. In Sweden alcohol is not as big of a problem as in America, in Sweden there are a lot less people that don't follow the laws and not because the population of Sweden is much smaller then the U.S, the percentage of people that don't follow laws related to alcohol is a lot smaller. In Sweden there are not as many laws and not as harsh laws; in Sweden the fines aren't as high, the age limit is 18, the jail time, community service time, license suspension time, and alcohol awareness classes are not as long so the punishments are the same just not as harsh. The reason for making the laws are the same as the American's reasons, and so are the ways the laws against alcohol are enforced and the possible consequences of not following the law. In Sweden a lot of people are still involved in accidents and actually more people die from diseases related to alcohol in Sweden then in the U.S. Some Swedish alcohol related statistics:
 * About 6000 people die a year in accidents involving alcohol and diseases caused by alcohol
 * 2-3 kids in every class have a parent who is an alcoholic
 * Every day there are 8000 drunk drivers in Sweden
 * Half of all 9th graders in Sweden have at some point tried alcohol
 * 400 children are born every year with some kind of injuries or damage because their mom had been drinking alcohol while pregnant

Under Aged Drinking media type="youtube" key="ZCP9_1R8d-E&hl=en" height="355" width="425" Drunk Driving media type="youtube" key="9M86symzuVM&hl=en" height="355" width="425"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Police_man_ganson.svg/361px-Police_man_ganson.svg.png
http://www.e2cweb.com/images_art/american%20flag.jpg http://www.boprod.se/media/symbolbilder/2195m_600.jpg http://www.germanaustriansoc.com.au/Images/law.gif http://www.federalreview.com/uploaded_images/beer-767720.jpg http://funk.co.uk/blogpix/Baby-Drinking-Beer.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M86symzuVM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCP9_1R8d-E

Other Citations:
http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/dca0280l.jpg

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