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Star Tribune writer Paul Walsh reported recently in Minneapolis man pleads guilty to growing hundreds of pot plants that "Donald Roy Letourneau admitted he began growing marijuana in 2007 and continued to do so until February 2009.  Letourneau faces a potential maximum penalty of 40 years in prison, with a mandatory minimum penalty of five years in prison."

Up to forty years!  When I read that I wondered if any people ever died because of Letourneau's pot growing?  I ask that to put things in perspective.

In another recent story, Kirsten Driscoll was sentenced for killing Christopher Iverson while he stood at a bus stop on Lake Street.  If reports are correct, Driscoll was driving drunk after attending a party celebrating her daughter's graduation.  She dozed off and hit Iverson.  She was charged with vehicular homicide and according to the Star Tribune: "Beginning Feb. 2, she will spend eight months at the county workhouse.  She was sentenced to a year.  She must serve the first four months in the jail full time.  For the final four months, she can get out during the day and return to a women's shelter where she has been a longtime volunteer."

What's wrong with this picture?  Is it possible that the alcohol industry and the drinkers that support it are getting off easy when it comes to taking responsibility for their actions?  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2006 there were 13,050 alcoholic liver disease deaths in the U.S. and 22,073 alcohol-induced deaths.

The National Vital Statistics Reports gave a bit more specificity to those CDC 2006 statistics.  All of the deaths of the 22,073 people classified as "alcohol-induced causes" fell into the very specific categories.  These category includes not only deaths from dependent and nondependent use of alcohol, but also accidental poisoning by alcohol.  Causes of death attributable to alcohol-induced mortality are Alcohol-induced pseudo Cushing's syndrome, mental and behavioral disorders due to alcohol use, degeneration of nervous system due to alcohol, alcoholic polyneuropathy, alcoholic myopathy, alcoholic cardiomyopathy, alcoholic gastritis, alcoholic liver disease, alcohol-induced acute pancreatitis, alcohol-induced chronic pancreatitis, finding of alcohol in blood, accidental poisoning by and exposure to alcohol, intentional self-poisoning by and exposure to alcohol, poisoning by and exposure to alcohol, undetermined intent.  Alcohol-induced causes exclude accidents, homicides, and other causes indirectly related to alcohol use, as well as newborn deaths associated with maternal alcohol use.

A couple of weeks ago 15-year-old Jared Gilbertson, a 10th-grader at Bagley High School, was found by his father outside their family home, unresponsive.  In the Star Tribune's Dad finds son dying in snow after party the byline reads: A Clearwater County teen's friends said they dropped him off at his house after drinking.  The article goes on to report "autopsy results will help determine whether Jared died from hypothermia or alcohol poisoning."

The article also reported that some of the teen's friends admitted they had been drinking at a party.

If alcohol abuse has caused so many life threatening injuries and deaths, why are we so hell-bent on keeping marijuana illegal?  The health problems associated with drinking are clear.  But by contrast reports attributing psychopharmacological violence to marijuana users have been discredited. In fact, marijuana ameliorates violent tendencies. According to Paul Goldstein, University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health, the drugs which contribute to psychopharmacological violence are alcohol, stimulants, barbiturates and PCP. 

To compound my confusion "no evidence exists that anyone has ever died of a marijuana overdose [2, p. 53 - 54].  Tests performed on mice have shown that the ratio of cannabinoids (the chemicals in marijuana that make you stoned) necessary for overdose to the amount necessary for intoxication is 40,000:1 [1].  For comparison's sake, that ratio for alcohol is generally between 4:1 and 10:1 [2, p. 227-228].  Alcohol overdoses kill about 5,000 yearly [3] but marijuana overdoses kill no one as far as anyone can tell."

Unfortunately, even after alcohol ends a life, it continues to destroy families.  I know, because my father was killed by a drunk driver in a head on collision when I was a young girl.  It not only dramatically changed my family's future, it also greatly impacted my aunt and uncle's lives.  My aunt was a passenger in the car and survived the accident.  So when the drunken actions of one man took my father's life, he also changed the dynamics of both of our families.

My aunt sustained major injuries and was hospitalized for quite some time after the accident, causing damage that would effect her for the rest of her life.  To this day she will not discuss that night, whether by choice, or because she's blocked her memory of it.

The drunk driver left my mother, who had just lost her own father a week and a half before my dad, a widow at the age of 29 with three children and one on the way.  My dad had just turned 30, two weeks before his death.  My family had just begun their journey out of poverty.  My parents had just purchased their first home shortly after my dad graduated from Dunwoody and landed an excellent job.  I recently found out this past year that his employer was planning to send him to Japan.  My mother's life as she knew it turned upside down.  Friendships changed when she was no longer part of a couple.  She was forced to decide whether to work or stay home to raise four children on Social Security benefits.  She had to learn to drive.  For me, when there were father daughter dances at Regina High School, I had to take an uncle.  The mere fact that unlike most other kids, we no longer had a father.  I could go on and on how our lives changed.

The damage that man did to our families was not enough to teach him a lesson.  After murdering my father and maiming my aunt, he had numerous other drinking incidences and to my knowledge never did any jail time.  Why would he have changed when insurance paid for our loss?

In February of last year another drunk driver struck close to home resulting in the death of Jay, a close family friend.  Jay was 21 years old and his parents' only child.  He was attending college at MCTC, majoring in Biology.  He planned to volunteer at AmeriCorps and then return to pursue a Masters degree in Zoology.  He dreamed of owning a ranch some day.

For the crime, Michael Tabor, his killer, 60 months in St. Cloud MN Correctional Facility stayed for 10 years, local confinement in the Hennepin County Workhouse - Adult Corrections for 365 Days with Work Release after serving 120 actual days.  He will submit to 10 years of supervised probation with conditions.  He was ordered to pay a fines of $20K of which all but $5K was stayed until 9/8/2019. 

That's two alcohol related deaths too many that have impacted my life.

According to Drunk Driving Lawyers' website, alcohol-related traffic accidents in 2005 accounted for nearly 17,000 American deaths and over 700,000 injuries. The national economic loss is estimated at more than $50 billion every year.  Alcohol-related traffic fatalities accounted for 39% of all traffic fatalities.  Alcohol-related traffic accidents accounted for 7% of all traffic accidents.  One alcoholic-related fatality occurred approximately every 31 minutes. 13,000 of the fatalities involved a driver with a BAC of .08 g/dL or higher.  Over 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence ( DUI ).  One driver was arrested for DUI for every 139 licensed drivers.  The highest percentage (32%) of DUI arrests involved drivers ages 21-24.

My family is not unique and there's no shortage of examples of the horror caused by drinking.  At the end of last year the Star Tribune reported a drunk woman driving the wrong way on an exit ramp, where she collided into a van with a family on-board.  In this case the mother lost her unborn child and her five children, aged 3 to 10 years old, were also injured.  According to the Strib, court documents preserve the drunk driver's explanation, "I'm drunk. I'm sorry."

The damage is done.  Those who have been directly impacted by this tragedy recognize the problem, but those that have been spared, treat the issue in a very nonchalant way.  A life is a life and should not be taken lightly.

How many of our jails and prisons are filled with people who sold some weed, yet drunk drivers keep walking away over and over again.  Calculations based on the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report prepared using data from a 1997 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities suggests that, at any one time, 59,300 prisoners charged with or convicted of violating marijuana laws (3.3% of the total incarcerated population) were behind bars, at a total cost to taxpayers of some $1.2 billion per year.  They represented almost 12% of the total federal prison population and about 2.7% of the state prison population.  Of the people incarcerated in federal and state prison and in local jails, 37,500 were charged with marijuana offenses only and an additional 21,800 with both marijuana offenses and other controlled-substance offenses.  Of the marijuana-only offenders, 15,400 were incarcerated for possession, not trafficking.

Even without much documentation, common sense would lead most people to conclude that alcohol abuse and domestic violence go hand in hand.  However, here are some statements collected by the Marin Institute that have proof to back them up.  Alcohol availability is closely related to violent assaults.  Communities and neighborhoods that have more bars and liquor stores per capita experience more assaults [4].  Alcohol use is frequently associated with violence between intimate partners.  Two-thirds of victims of intimate partner violence reported that alcohol was involved in the incident [5].  In one study of interpersonal violence, men had been drinking in an estimated 45 percent of cases and women had been drinking in 20 percent of cases [6].  Women whose partners abused alcohol were 3.6 times more likely than other women to be assaulted by their partners [7].  In 1997, 40 percent of convicted rape and sexual assault offenders said that they were drinking at the time of their crime [8].

How many of your co-workers smoke weed?  Marijuana is the Nation's most commonly used illicit drug.  More than 94 million Americans (40 percent) age 12 and older have tried marijuana at least once, according to the 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) [9].  Do you smoke weed?  How many of you would be honest if asked in front of your coworkers or your boss?  In spite of its relatively benign effects, we seem determined to imprison people for marijuana related offenses.  I maintain that by decriminalizing marijuana, most of the problems that arise from it would simply go away.  I've never heard of anyone dying at the hand of someone who smoked too much pot.  The same cannot be said for alcohol, yet it's legal.  I say legalize marijuana.  I'd like to see stricter laws for alcohol, especially if a life has been taken.  Someone who kills another while drunk should be charged for what it is, murder.

Why is a drunk driver's apology considered sufficient in exchange for taking a life?  With such lax enforcement, it's no wonder people continually get behind the wheel of a car after drinking too much.  People like Kirsten Driscoll and Michael Tabor might be legitimately remorseful, but they have still have their lives.  My dad, Jay and Christopher Iverson do not.  Is it likely that the multitude of those convicted of murder are not equally remorseful, especially if they committed a crime as minors?  It seems in their cases, remorse means nothing, and many will spend the rest of their lives in prison in exchange for the lives they took.

If we're willing to send Donald Letourneau to prison for a minimum of five years, but Michael Tabor for 365 days in the county work house, we need to reevaluate our vehicular homicide laws and change them to send a message.  The notion that we will incarcerate someone for a minimum of five times longer for growing marijuana than for taking someone's life seems like a gross miscarriage of justice and the punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime.  In my eyes, a drunk driver who kills someone is as much of a murderer as someone who pulls the trigger of a gun and should be treated as such.

[1] Mikuriya, T.H. "Historical Aspects of Cannabis Sativa in Western Medicine," New Physician, 1969, p. 905.
[2] Grinspoon, Lester. Marihuana Reconsidered. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971.
[3] Nadelmann, Ethan A. "Drug Prohibition in the United States: Costs, Consequences, and Alternatives," Science, Vol 245: 943, 1 September 1989.
[4] Scribner, R. A., MacKinnon, D.P., and Dwyer, J.H. "The risk of assaultive violence and alcohol availability in Los Angeles County". American Journal of Public Health 3(85):335-340. 1995.
[5] http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ac.pdf . Accessed 9.26.03
[6] Roizen, J. Issues in the epidemiology of alcohol and violence. In: Martin, S.E., editor. Alcohol and Interpersonal Violence: Fostering multidisciplinary perspectives. Bethesda (MD): National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; 1993. p. 3-36. NIAAA Research Monograph No. 24.
[7] "Risk factors for injury to women from domestic violence". Demetrios N. Kyriacou, Deirdre Anglin, Ellen Taliaferro, Susan Stone, Toni Tubb, Judith A. Linden, Robert Muelleman, Erik Barton, and Jess F. Kraus. The New England Journal of Medicine 341:1892-98. December 16, 1999.
[8] Greenfield, L., and Henneberg, M. "Alcohol, crime, and the criminal justice system." Alcohol & Crime: Research and Practice for Prevention, Alcohol Policy XII Conference: Washington, DC, 11-14 June 2000.
[9] Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Results from the 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: National Findings. NSDUH Series H-25. DHHS Pub. No. (SMA) 04-3964. Rockville, MD: SAMHSA, 2004.

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