With such a large percentage of death directly attributable to alcohol, if I was Alaskan, I'd at least have it as a referendum proposal.
There's something wrong with the vendors that sell to "Jimmy TwoElks" knowing Jimmy's drunk, has nowhere to go, is going outside in 5 below weather and the seller probably silently shakes his head and wonders if he'll ever see Jimmy again.
“There IS validity to prohibition.”
It still gets smuggled into the villages where alcohol is illegal. Once they leave the village and move to town it’s usually downhill from there.
When I worked for the Head Start program in Arizona, I worked mainly with the children on the White River Apache Reservation.
All native Americans have a problem with alcohol [that’s racist] it appears. My town, now a ghost town, was the first place that had bars outside the reservation where alcohol is forbidden.
Indians would be passed out close by ...
But, as to prohibition: can it be done based on race: Native Americans? It is and probably can be on the reservation .... but not by liquor stores and bars.
Jimmy TwoElks drives his snow machine to the nearest town - maybe 50 or more miles away that sells alcohol (since alcohol is illegal in his town - like countless others) buys a case of whiskey, takes it back to his town and sells it to his customers for 2-3 times what he paid.
Jimmy TwoElks and his buddies get drunk. There is literally nothing else to do in many of these small villages in the winter. Drink’n & freeze’n is just one way - there are pills, other drugs, and guns - the boredom is often overwhelming.
In these small villages any referendum is to ban alcohol, not permit it.
The guy that sold Jimmy TwoElks was likely a gal in a large corporate-owned store where groceries are bought in $1000 lots and multiple carts by a single person. No one pays any attention to some smuck buying a case of whiskey - if you’ve never been to AK know that most of this is a winter’s worth of groceries for a individual/family or a commercial fishing boat’s trip supplies. Unless one lives in the city/larger town - trips to buy groceries are infrequent with months going by between trips.
There are many dry towns in Alaska where bringing in alcoholic is illegal. Native Americans tolerate Alcohol slightly better than small pox and plague.
Alcoholism, like diabetes, or even peanut allergies, can be treated if one desires to live more than one desires to die - we don't prohibit sugar or nuts.
If emotions ran our Founders more than rationality, the Constitution would have never come into being......
The problem with that is prohibition never really works. Someone will find a way. Always.
Otherwise, we’d have won the War on Drugs some time ago.
I’d fear more crime with prohibition than without it.
Note in the story how it says some are found with empty bottles of mouthwash. You’ve got to be pretty desperate to get high off of mouthwash! And how do you go about prohibiting mouthwash? Shoe polish? Sterno? Some people resort to ANYTHING.
No, some form of community treatment is a better solution, but if certain people are predisposed to a predilection to getting high I’d say maybe open up a warm safe alcohol “den”.
OR, let them die. Sad, cold-hearted, but honestly, how do you stop someone so determined to destroy themselves?
Yep, prohibit it - then they wouldn't be able to get drunk anymore!
Problem solved!
Regards,
Not going to change that..........human behavior.
I doubt it anyway....
Years back, I participated in a large inter tribal dance competition in Ontario, Canada... Tribal police right at the entrance - huge dudes- nobody was getting booze passed them.
Many Alaska villages are dry. Problem is, most of the native populations get checks from their native corporations and the. Go buck wild, destroying their lives with drugs and alcohol.