DWIs, marijuana, and overkill

I lost my sympathy for Paris Hilton. Not that there was much there to begin with, but when she resorted to having her quack psychiatrist make a bogus diagnosis to get her out of jail early, what little there was evaporated. Apparently, irregardless of what little sense it makes, if you do the crime, you do the time, which in her case is the full 45-day sentence.

My question is: Where's the crime?

Sure, I know, something about a parole violation on a DUI charge or something like that. But still, where's the CRIME? Murder, armed robbery, and embezzlement are all crimes. What she did is worse than a traffic ticket, but is still pretty piss ant and is definitely not a crime.

It's easy to not have sympathy for Paris Hilton, but what about all of these other people who are caught in our current national pastime to sticking to misdemeanor offenders? I am all for law and order, but I don't think for one second that treating slightly tipsy drivers or those who have a piddling amount of dope like criminals make our county any safer. What it does is give criminal records to many decent people, bail bondsmen more business, and fill jails when the space could be put to better use.

I don't do drugs myself, and the fact of the matter is I feel that there are few types of people who are more annoying than the very stoned, but how is someone puffing on a doobie a threat to others or himself? So how is it justified that if a person is unlucky enough to be caught in the act by a cop, he's looking at night in jail, fines that are way out of line, and a criminal record he'll carry around for the rest of his life (records also can never really be expunged).

If you're under 50, statistics say that you've probably smoked pot at some point -- maybe many points -- in your life. So how would it be different if, say, you were busted for smoking weed when you were at college? Would you still have gotten your original post-graduation job? Maybe. With some occupations it'll never come back to haunt you, but in others it will, with law enforcement, military, and medical professions leading the group. So you say that potheads shouldn't be in those professions? Sure, I'll give you that, they shouldn't. But what if those people who were caught are like you probably were. They just did it a couple of times, and unlike you, were unlucky enough to get caught. How does not getting caught make you any better morally?

The above sentiment goes double for DWIs/DUIs. Back in the 80s, state governments started increasing the severity of DWI offenses in response to groups like MADD who rightly lobbied against the fact that many profoundly drunk drivers who injured or killed people mostly got off with a few years probation instead of hard time. The problem is that the people MADD and others are concerned about are on one side of the spectrum, while the rest of us are at the other (and I do mean us, if you drink, you've driven over the legal limit, it's that simple).

The system should come down like a ton of bricks on drivers who are so blitzed they are seeing double, driving all over the road, and stained with their own puke, but what's served by coming down that hard on people at the other end? A case in point is Pete Coors, chairman of Coors Brewing, who, as it turns out, was busted last year for DWI. The cop spotted him not quite stop at a stop sign. Nothing dangerous, it's something we all do. Anyway, long story short, there was nothing Coors was doing that would have hurt anyone (the stop sign was a block from his house), but the cop followed him and Coors blew a breathalyzer reading of slightly over 0.08. He gets taken to the station and had to go through the legal system.

How is that fair to him? Or more importantly, to you or me in the event it ever happens to us (he's rich and can afford Ivy League trained lawyers)? My take is this: If you can walk a straight line, touch your nose, and do the rest, you're not drunk. I'm not saying you should get off completely, but the current system is ridiculous.

And besides, with cops not wasting their time on minor things like these, they can concentrate on those idiots who fire guns into the air on New Year's and the Fourth. How many times have you heard about one of those guys being arrested?