Beverages of Mass Destruction Pt II

My favorite Sci-fi blog io9 has provided the starting point for the second part in my series on the relationship between alcohol and violence entitled Beverages of Mass Destruction. Citing a Canadian study, How to Build a Violent World in One Easy Step suggests the quickest way to create a dystopia is to just add alcohol.

For every 1,000 litres of alcohol sold in stores (there were no stats for what got sold in bars), numbers of violent assaults and deaths nearby increased by 13%. For young people, the risk increased by 21%. One could easily imagine a dystopian future where cities zone certain “undesirable” areas for more liquor stores, as a way of trimming down or crippling the population there. ~ io9

The study is incomplete, but does it really take a bunch of scientists to figure out that an increase in public alcohol consumption will be followed by an increase in violence? I guess what is more enlightening are those that predictably come to the defense of alcohol in the comments section.

Click “Read more” to continue…

Even though the post’s author is stating facts only and suggests no new legislation or prohibition, the topic definitely raises the ire of a few of the readers that seem awful defensive. From one commenter, “It sounds like you really want to see a correlation between alcohol and violent assaults. That’s unfortunate. It’s much more likely that a third element influences both alcohol sales and violence — warmer weather, the start or end of the sports seasons, etc.” Another commenter states,” Alcohol laws are ridiculous all over the US. It’s what happens when you live in a country colonized by Puritans. I shudder to think what those same Puritans are going to do with a study like this one.”

For the naysayers, here are a few statistics from the US Department of Justice that add credibility to this “just add alcohol” equation for violence.

• About 1 million violent crimes occurred in 2002 in which victims perceived the offender to have been drinking at the time of the offense. Among those victims who provided information about the offender’s use of alcohol, about 30% of the victimizations involved an offender who had been drinking.
• Two-thirds of victims who suffered violence by an intimate (a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend) reported that alcohol had been a factor. Among spouse victims, 3 out of 4 incidents were reported to have involved an offender who had been drinking. By contrast, an estimated 31% of stranger victimizations where the victim could determine the absence or presence of alcohol were perceived to be alcohol-related.
• For about 1 in 5 violent victimizations involving perceived alcohol use by the offender, victims also reported they believed the offender to have been using drugs as well.

There are two very concrete facts here. One is that there is a direct correlation between alcohol and violence, and the other is that most people will turn a blind eye to this fact while many will even try to dispute the obvious. It is a shame that such an easily identifiable problem is considered is reluctantly accepted as unsolvable because of the past failure of prohibition and dry laws.

I however do not agree that we have to accept the status quo and will continue the series focusing on possible solutions later in the week.

Read part one of this series here.

Read part three of this series here.