Now itsjustme, if you bought a new car when you pull it off the lot you should by law have insurance, the only way that Orr or Nissan should be responsible for the wreck is if the vehicle was found to be defective. When you buy a firearm to protect your house and some one is stupid enough to break in while you are home they deserve to get shot. The government is not selling alcohol, but they require licenses, permit, and taxes to be paid on it in order to sell it, yet they can afford to spend billions a year on persecuting, prosecuting and incarcerating non-violent marijuana users who have not endangered anyone while under the influence (There is no evidence to prove any different). Claiming alcohol as the only legal mind altering substance for all the people (Evidence supports the idea that it isn't the right substance for all of the people) the government has essentially obligated themselves into the position of being responsible for the damages and deaths that result from consuming alcohol.

Itjustme, the problem with your concept is that if you eat your car or a gun it does not alter your mental state. The federal government doesn't approve what type of vehicle you drive or what type of weapon you are allowed to use to protect yourself and family. The government does claim the responsibility of approving what you can consume for recreational and medicinal purposes. This is about morals. Alcohol consumption is far more dangerous to an individual or a community than consuming cannabis will ever be. Approving the greater danger over the lesser danger is sometimes considered reckless endangerment, especially when enforcing the law usually ends up with non-violent people being chained up for transport and thrown in a cage with violent drunks who get out of jail quicker.

Wallfisher, I just bought a new car from Orr Nissan. If I wreck it and kill 7 people, should Orr be responsible or would it be Nissan? See, they both made a profit off of the sale. When I buy a new firearm, and someone breaks into my house, and I shoot them, would it be the firearm manufacturer or the ammo manufacturer that would responsible? I need some clarity just in case these things happen to me.

@ender929, you wouldn't be paying for it..Alcohol taxes and money paid from alcohol related offenses would pay for it...after all, it would be keeping you, the sober driver, safe from drunk drivers..and having insurance won't save a life,not sure what insurance has to do with it.. besides they handle non-insured drivers already. In AR, if you get into a wreck w/o insurance, they suspend their license and garnish their wages until the damage they caused is paid off. I agree with the road blocks but they can't be at every bar, every night..Not enough police resources.

With today's technology, why not immediately notify the police when your insurance expires? Secondly, increase the taxes on those products which wreak havoc upon our country. Beer is actually cheaper than sodas in some cases, and drunk drivers cost us a fortune (health care, missed work, court costs, ...). Tobacco cost our health care system a fortune, so increase those taxes so they can pay for the costs they inflict. Target the problems instead of throwing out some huge law that non-drinkers (such as myself) have to pay (breathalyzers). I have to pay the cost for my bills, or my legal infractions (speeding tickets, parking tickets...), so why shouldn't these people? Sobriety checkpoints should be set up near bars, so they can get drunks off the road quickly rather than letting them get too far. We have limited resources, so why not use them intelligently?

with modern technology the way it is today, how hard is it to install those breathalyzers into every vehicle? maybe it should be a manufacturing regulation..I hate regulation but it would be worth it! The govt makes manufacturers install pollution control technology so why not protect innocent people in the process.. Sure, personal responsibility is the only player in whether or not someone drinks and drives but, when so many innocent people are effected by drunk drivers, it's just time to do the smart thing...start installing them in all new vehicles sold in the US. Take money from DWI fines and alcohol taxes so that older vehicles can have them installed too. That MADD can use some of their money to throw in on the project as well.

ender929; Even though insurance is required by law; it doesn't mean everyone abides by the law. I've worked with people, and have known people, that will get insurance when it's time to renew their tags, then stop making payments once the tags are renewed. Butch; After watching the report on FNC yesterday about voter fraud - people voting more than once, more votes in a precinct than registered voters, "dead" people voting; I wonder how much our vote really counts. And this was just in Philly; we've all heard about voter fraud in Chicago, and I'm sure it is all over the place. wallfisher; I have to agree with most of what you have to say. I have personally known people in my lifetime that needed to stay away from alcohol, but didn't; and in some cases, it cost them their lives. I'm sure all would agree that booze and prescription drugs kill more people than weed; but the government has a vested interest in the "war on drugs" and a financial interest in booze and prescription drugs. Personal responsibility is the bottom line though; knowing how much of anything one may consume, and still act, perform, and drive in a manner that is safe. One more comment about voting - I'm wondering how many of the countless people that lost their homes and jobs since 2008 wish they could go back in time and change their vote?

wow fish...i never thought of it that way...responsibility...if your making money of of it your should take responsibility for it...if your going to endorse one product over the other...and thats what the government is doing...when someone behaves like a good little communist and use's the Government aproved product then the government should take responsibility for those actions....it like conspiracy to commit murder...if you talk somebody in to killing somebody your just as liable as the killer is...

BTW, I'm talking about the government using the money they generate from the licenses, permits and taxes on alcohol to cover the damages and hospital bills. Sorry to say but just because the government approves a product and claims it to be the only legal recreational product, doesn't necessarily make it the right choice for all the people.

Yes, I believe in personal responsibility. I also believe that the government claiming the responsibility for deciding what a person can or can not legally possess to consume they have an obligation to accept the responsibility for the damages and deaths associated with what they consider acceptable products to consume. It's fairly obvious to me that alcohol, over the counter medications and prescription drugs that the government approves as being our only legal options isn't the right choice for all the people. You can't have it both ways, the present policies concerning substances are one-sided. So before we can or should persecute, prosecute or incarcerate people based on what they possess to consume, we might want to re-evaluate who is responsible for what damages and deaths. Regardless of whether a product is legal or not, and whether you want to admit it we have a substance abuse problem in the USA the present policies are a complete failure. We spent more per year on fighting a drug war that hasn't accomplished what it was intended to do, when we should have been spending the money on education.