Your Arm Please, Comrade

Police in Illinois will take blood samples from individuals suspected of drunk driving. For one weekend, suspects refusing to submit to testing will have their blood drawn involuntarily.

The program, appropriately dubbed "No Refusal Weekend," will be enacted in three Illinois counties. Officials will not say which weekend it will take place.

My opinion on drunk driving laws is that they should be abolished altogether. As Lew Rockwell brilliantly illustrates in his criticism of drunk driving laws, the premise of existing DUI laws is flawed. Government and Police should not be allowed to legislate and determine guilt based on a probability that you may commit a crime due to the existence of a chemical in your system. There are plenty of other toxins--not to mention distractions--that complicate driving, yet they remain legal.

To be sure, this is not an easy position to defend. The usual response from naysayers (after laughing uncontrollably and asking whether or not I'm serious) usually comes in one of two ways. First, there's the "the streets will be choked with drunk drivers, is that what you want?" Second, there's the "Crime rates will increase, more people will die...what an irresponsible argument to make."

In my view, both arguments above are irrational and make the same mistake of equating drunk driving with criminal activity. As I stated above, I do not believe that the presence of a chemical in your body constitutes criminal activity; rather, I define criminal activity as an act of aggression against someone else's life or property. To engage in the criminalization of substances (drugs, etc.) is to take the first step down a very slippery slope, one that is heavily regulated by government. And government has no business regulating the substances we put inside our body.

Using my definition of crime, then, two things become obvious: one, driving while drunk is not a crime; two, any aggression against another person (vehicular homicide, destruction of property, etc.) should be treated as criminal activity. In other words, a crime does not become a crime until the act is committed. Moreover, once the crime is committed, the crime is the act, not the substance that could have caused the act.

As for the argument that the streets will be choked with drunk drivers, I say so what? Are we any less safe with roads filled with cell phone users, portable DVD players, satellite radio, etc.? As Rockwell avers, is it not equally dangerous to drive after you had a fight with your spouse, an exceptionally challenging workout, or find yourself down in the dumps after a breakup? Everything listed above is a distraction and contributes to lessened states of awareness on the roadway, yet there are no major movements afoot to regulate "driving while depressed." At least not yet...

Finally, while I believe there is some truth to the argument that more people refrain from driving drunk because they are more afraid of getting caught than believe the act itself is reckless endangerment of life and property, I reject such utilitarian claims because they conflict with law and justice in a free society. Using the same logic, then, citizens would be forced to accept a whole slew of injustices, from racial profiling to involuntary searches. In a free society, the ends never justify the means.

Programs such as "No Refusal Weekend" are not only an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, they are also incapable of achieving their desired goals. As one of the biggest revenue-generators for government, increasingly strict DUI laws (as well as methods to determine drunk driving) are in everyone's best interest...save for the citizenry, that is. What is in everyone's best interest is to reject laws that govern probability instead of crime, and all programs that the privacy of responsible citizens.