Against more drinking laws

Dear Editor,

I want to share my letter to legislators pointing out how over- zealous they get on an issue.

We must not allow increasing penalties for DUIs to get passed; these people are not criminals. One reason is that it is a victimless crime. Increase penalties when an accident or burglary is committed under the influence, the way all other laws work. People need help to stop addiction, and not be labeled as a felon. It makes criminals out of decent people.

These penalties will do little to stop DUIs and will over-crowd our already over-crowded prisons. Doyle just released all kinds of victimless crime people.

Mandatory counseling and alcohol devices on cars would be a much better thing. It gives us back productive people. Remember these people you want to punish rather than give help to could be a relative, (son, daughter, mother, father, spouse). This decease is not selective to only the downtrodden. Why ruin lives?

If the argument is they may hurt or kill someone with a vehicle, requires a crystal ball. A meteor could fall from the sky and kill you. If we are going here it is a proven fact that cell phone use is causing more accidents than drunk driving.

These laws affect rural America much more than urban areas. We need a buffer area like 0.08 to 0.12 offenses are different. Canada uses this. These laws along with smoking laws are killing the food and beverage industries especially in rural America. Let’s keep things in perspective.

We cannot legislate morality. This is the churches’ realm. I believe we should watch to see if these morality laws are not violating the separation of church and state where government is taking on a religious role.

I was talking with some senior citizens the other day and they remember not having everything when younger but at least they felt free without government trying to regulate every little facet of one’s life. Please give this some serious thought.

Tags: opinion, letters, dui, laws