2003 Drunk Driving Deaths
Decline to Lowest Level Since 1999

Alcohol-related fatalities declined significantly in 2003, the DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced recently. The decline was led by impaired driving reductions in 28 states, and is the first drop in the level since 1999. “Tougher impaired driving laws and the enforcement of those laws by tens of thousands of dedicated police officers across the country, are saving hundreds of lives nationwide,” said NHTSA Administrator Jeffrey W. Runge, M.D.

Moreover, NHTSA said that alcohol-related fatalities dropped in 12 of 13 states that participated in an intense, multi-faceted NHTSA-funded campaign to reduce their severe impaired driving problems. A total of 17,013 alcohol-related fatalities were recorded in 2003, down by 511, or almost three percent, from the total of 17,524 recorded in 2002. The greatest reduction in fatalities was among those in crashes where the highest blood-alcohol content (BAC) was 0.08 and above.

The decline comes as all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have now enacted laws making a BAC of 0.08 the legal definition of impaired driving.

Twelve of the 28 states that had decreases in alcohol-related fatalities were Strategic Evaluation States (SES), accounting for 75 percent of the total reduction in alcohol-related fatalities. The SES states (Arizona, Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and West Virginia) have taken a leadership role in reducing impaired driving that includes sustained enforcement, periodic enforcement crackdowns, and paid media advertising funded by Congress.

The 2003 Alcohol-Related Fatalities announcement comes as more than 9,000 law enforcement agencies mobilize for the end of summer/Labor Day “You Drink & Drive. You Lose.” crackdown against drunk and drugged driving. The crackdown consists of 16 days and three consecutive weekends of high visibility enforcement with more than $14 million in national and state advertising to stop impaired driving.

“While we made progress in 2003, losing 17,000 people a year in alcohol-related crashes is unacceptable,” said Runge.

A chart of 2003 state alcohol-related fatalities data is available from NHTSA’s.

Vital Organs Recover From Alcohol Damage
Chronic alcohol consumption leads to numerous structural, functional and bio-chemical alterations in the heart, liver and skeletal muscle. One such alteration is a decreased protein content, caused in part by diminished rates of protein metabolism. This study examined how long alcohol’s adverse effects on protein synthesis persist after withdrawal.

Researchers first exposed rats to a chronic diet of alcohol for 16 weeks and then examined the effects of removing alcohol from their diets for a period of 72 hours.

Withdrawing alcohol from the rat’s diets led to a restoration of protein synthesis in the heart and skeletal muscle comparable to levels found in those rats not exposed to a chronic diet of alcohol. The organ weight and protein content per muscle was not affected by withdrawing alcohol from the diet. In summary, changes in protein metabolism observed during chronic alcohol intake appear to be reversible and do not, at this stage, seem to represent an irreversible change in cardiac or skeletal muscle.

Out Of The Past
After 1890 beer surpassed distilled spirits as the principal source of beverage alcohol in the American market. The aggressiveness of brewers trying to expand their retail sales through saloons meant that intense competition sometimes ensued. The number of saloons proliferated; it was not uncommon for towns to have a saloon for every 150 or 200 persons.

The rise of scientific medicine after 1850 led to changing views and by the end of the century the therapeutic value of alcohol was widely disputed and discredited among the most advanced practitioners. In 1916, whiskey and brandy were removed from the list of scientifically approved medicines in The Pharmacopeia of the United States of America.

FACTS
According to a 1999 study by the Institute of Medicine, 9% of marijuana users, 15% of alcohol users, 20% heroin users and 32% of tobacco smokers become addicted. One marijuana cigarette deposits four to five times more tar in the lungs than a tobacco cigarette. Marijuana was outlawed in the U.S. in 1937. There are now an estimated 500,000 marijuana arrests in the U.S. each year.