1 A Libertarian take on this would be: You can drink, smoke, shoot up, in short do ANYTHING if you don't cause harm to others. If your subsequent behavior does cause harm to another, you have to pay for it in money and/or jail time. If intoxication made you incapable of driving and you drove and killed someone - instant manslaughter. The standard is the same for the sober. It should be results driven, allowing the maximum amount of personal freedom, but with concomitant personal responsibility. If someone doesn't take their medication and therefore flies off the handle and hurts someone, are they excused? Sins of omission and commission should be judged in the same fashion - by the result. I don't see this direction of thought in the ethos of either party at this time. I consistently see over-regulation one the one hand as a solution to abnegation of personal responsibility. It pervades our nation from the classroom to the barroom. Besides, reading about this stuff can just about drive you to drink anyway.

2 Freedom doesn't mean freedom from consequences. Do as you please, but if it caused me or my neighbors harm...you should be busted HARD. There is never an excuse for driving drunk. New prohibition? No, but perhaps a speed bump in the race to utter and complete lack of personal responsibility to which our society is devolving.

3 It's interesting to hear people discuss the differences between the U.S. on the one hand and Europe/Australia/New Zealand on the other. We are so much less tolerant than other Western cultures of really hard, hard drinking. But I think with some exceptions we're right: people who show up hung over at work time and time again have a problem. In other words, I think some Americans are a little Puritanical on this issue, and others are too loose. The driving thing is important, though: that's an attitude that had to change.