Over the past week or so, D.C.-area radio stations have been airing a commercial that’s making me ill. It’s directed at parents, and warns them that if they host after-prom parties where alcohol is available, they’ll be fined $1,000 per underage kid at the party, and could face jail time. The commercial even specifically mentions the act of collecting keys to ensure no one gets behind the wheel, and promises that the fines and possible jail time will ensue regardless of whether or not keys are collected.

It’s part of “Party Safe ‘05,” an ill-conceived campaign sponsored by various do-gooder community groups, government agencies, and AAA.

The arguments here will ring familiar to anyone who reads this site regulalry.

(1) The fines and possible jail time are punishing precisely the wrong people — the parents responsible enough to understand that high school juniors and seniors are going to drink after prom, and that it’s better they do it under adult supervision with keys out of reach than in a parking lot, rented hotel room, field, or in their cars. The oblivious parents who think an arbitrary drinking age is going to keep their kids or their kids’ friends from drinking, or who turn a blind eye to underage consumption, won’t get fined. And it’s their kids who are going to kill someone. The party-throwing parents are keeping these kids off the road. And they’re getting punished for it.

(2) The PR campaign is even worse. It endangers not only the kids who will inevitably drive home from those alternative drinking spots and their passengers, but anyone who might be on the road when they do. Think of it this way: For every supervised, keyless party that this campaign prevents, an additional 25 or more kids could potentially be drinking at locales they’re likely to drive away from.

(3) Courts are notoriously lenient about letting cops break into homes and raid suspected underage parties without a warrant. A Virginia couple was recently sentenced to eight years in prison (reduced to 90 days on appeal) for throwing such a party, after cops entered their property without a warrant.

This is zero-tolerance thinking at its finest. Shut down the people who have a firm grasp on reality and try to engage in a little harm reduction. And make the roads more dangerous for everyone in the process.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 27th, 2005 at 4:01 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Alcohol, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.