Decreasing the legal blood alcohol content level for driving vehicles: The effects of lowering the legal blood alcohol content (BAC) for drivers are unclear. However, the average BAC among fatally injured drivers is .17 and about half have a BAC of .20 or higher (which is twice the legal limit in most states). Thus, the problem is primarily among very heavy drinkers, who tend to be male, aged 25-35, have a history of DWI convictions, and be polydrug users.

Automatic license revocation may be the single most effective measure to reduce drunk driving. But the problem is not simple and it resists simplistic solutions. [see Drinking And Driving]

Advocates of the reduction-of-consumption theory commonly promote the idea that alcohol is a "gateway" substance that leads people to use marijuana, which supposedly leads them on to use cocaine and other hard drugs. The New York State Division of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse presents this questionable theory as established fact by titling one of its publications, Alcohol: The Gateway Drug. The "evidence" is that most people who use illegal drugs drank alcohol first. Of course, most people who use illicit drugs also drank milk, ate candy bars, and drank cola first. But only a very few of those who consume alcohol ever continue on to use cocaine or heroin. On the other hand, about a quarter of hard core drug abusers in New York City have never consumed alcohol. The theory is clearly wrong, but that doesn't stop it from being promoted as truth and as a basis for the public policy of zero tolerance for youthful alcohol use.

Recent research casts further doubt on the gateway theory. Following their examination of the scientific evidence, researchers Stanton Peele and Archie Brodsky point out that the best predictors of abusive substance use are social, family, and psychological depredations that occur independent of supposed gateway linkages.

Rather than promoting the misleading gateway theory, they suggest that "What makes far more sense is to acknowledge the obvious to children -- that there is a healthy and unhealthy drinking," and explain that "Both research and common sense tell that the young people least likely to drink disruptively are those who are introduced to alcohol by moderate-drinking parents, rather than being initiated into drinking by their peers." The researchers explain that an exaggerated focus on alcohol as a supposed gateway to illegal drugs ignores the reality of responsible, moderate consumption and re-directs attention from effective measures to reduce alcohol abuse. The impact of the theory is, therefore, negative.

It appears that risk-takers may be more likely to skip school, to drink at an early age, to drive too fast, to engage in unprotected sex, and to use illegal drugs. In that case, preventing people from engaging in the "gateway" behavior of drinking, or skipping school, or driving too fast will not prevent a risk-taker from taking drugs. Any policy based on the "gateway" theory can be expected to fail.

Based on the experience of societies around the world, advocates of the moderation approach to reducing alcohol problems tend to assume that:

Because of this, most moderationists propose that we abandon the current negative reduction-of-consumption attack upon alcohol and moderate drinking. There is much evidence that this negative approach to alcohol is based on questionable assumptions, that its policies fail to achieve their objectives, and that its policies may be counterproductive.

Stop stigmatizing alcohol as a "dirty drug," as a poison, as inherently harmful, or a substance to be abhorred and shunned. Alcohol is neither a poison nor a magic elixir capable of solving life's problems.

Stigmatizing alcohol serves no practical purpose, contributes to undesirable emotionalism and ambivalence, and increases the problems it seeks to solve. In stigmatizing alcohol, reductionists may unintentionally trivialize the use of illegal drugs and thereby encourage their use. Or, especially among younger students, they create the false impression that parents who use alcohol in moderation are drug abusers whose good example they should reject. Thus, their misguided effort to equate alcohol use with illicit drugs is likely to be counterproductive.