Court Opinion

ID: 9549476
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:19:21.600292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:23.233368
License: Public Domain

Hill, J.
(concurring in the result)—I disagree with much that is said in the majority opinion; however, I agree with the result reached—that the laws with which we are concerned are constitutional and. should be enforced until the legislative bodies of the city and state devise a more humane and effective way of dealing with the particular offense. As a *803court, we are no more entitled to refuse to enforce the legislation here involved than we are to refuse to uphold the death penalty because we might personally believe it to be barbarous and ineffective.
On the other hand, I agree with much that is said in the dissent, particularly with that portion which points out that the criminal-law approach to chronic addictive alcoholism, as manifested by public drunkenness, is a total and costly failure. However, our polemics should be directed to the legislative bodies rather than at the majority opinion. The majority, like the Seattle police in this case, is doing the best it can with what it has.
The dissent’s concession of 27,000-37,000 addictive alcoholics in the Seattle-King County area prompts me to two or three additional observations. While the dissent points out the pitiable condition of these unfortunates, we should not lose sight of the fact, generally overlooked, that the cause of alcoholism is alcohol; and we should also be deeply concerned about the number of men, women and children killed and injured annually on our highways by the drunken and the drinking drivers. Most of these are not included in the addictive alcoholics; they just had a few drinks too many at that particular time.
Under ordinary circumstances, we would ban the sale of any product which could produce an illness of the type described by the dissent in 27,000-37,000 people in one city or county in our state. These, of course, are no ordinary circumstances, and I understand fully that we are not about to ban or limit sales, regardless of how many lives may be wrecked or traffic accidents caused. Indeed, as a state, we are endeavoring to increase such sales. However, it would seem that we should at least take adequate care of the increasing number of alcoholics, addictive or preaddictive—rehabilitating where possible and ameliorating where rehabilitation is impossible. The staggering cost1 of such care should be borne by the business which makes it necessary.
*804Were we to pour our boasted “profits” from the state’s participation in the business into meeting the social consequences2 and the costs thereof, we would find the “profits” entirely illusory. I join with the dissent in its desire for a better and more humane solution of the problem; but I would not jettison the only procedures that we have.

No pun intended.

This would include the additional policing and court costs made necessary.