Vicewire, 9/12/2004
- posted by Ryan @ 8:23 PM

1) A gunfight in Mexico killed the head of a drug cartel and 2 others, while 5 of his attackers were killed by police officers.

2) Another case of crackdown on underage drinking- 42 teens associated with a Texas high school football team were apparently drinking in a teacher's house. They were fined $65 each. Now they are going after the adults, the police chief explained, to determine if they provided the alcohol to the teens.

3) Here is a story about a lawsuit against the in-car sobriety measurers. The man passed out after blowing into his ignition interlock and crashed his car.

4) And finally, a new story on one of Vice Squad's favorite historical curiosities: the Prohibtion Party. Only now there is a controversy over the present presidential candidate, and whether he is more interested in the goal of alcohol prohibtion or the goal of making really cool looking buttons. So the party has split, and Colorado will have 2 different Prohibtion candidates, the old guard and the young party upstarts. In 2000, the Prohibtion Party candidate, the same one since 1984 and who is running again this year, received 208 votes. There is a nice historical reprise of the ups and downs of the party, as well as some interesting rhetoric from party dissident Gene Amondson. "I'd rather have 100 Al Capones in every city than alcohol sold in every grocery store," he said. "During the 13 years of Prohibition the budget was balanced, prisons were emptied, mental institutions emptied and cirrhosis of the liver declined." For more, search Vice Squad archives for posts on Prohibition and the Anti-Saloon League.

Labels: alcohol, drugs, interlocks, Prohibition, teens, Vicewire