PrintJuly 29, 2007
Swedish DA wants to ban alcohol on flights to Sweden
Apparently America is not alone in suffering from a plague of showboating, overreaching prosecutors. A Swedish district attorney is evidently seeking to ban alcohol from being served on flights within and to Sweden, as a countermeasure to incidents of drunk and disorderly passengers.
I have to caution that the source news article is in Norwegian, and I don't really read or speak Norwegian. However, I did grow up in Minnesota, and heard plenty of Norwegian and Swedish in my youth. Besides, the two languages have enough root words common with English (and even more with German) that one can often sort of work out the meaning. Here's the headline, for example: "Vil ha alkoholforbud under flyreiser."
I have never flown into Sweden, but I took the ferry there in days of yore, and remember the Swedes buying tax-free alcohol in a stampede and drinking up at the ship's bar, because alcohol taxes are so damn high at home. It would not in the least surprise me if Swedes tend to look upon free (or even paid drinks in coach) booze on board as a rare and precious opportunity to get tanked without taking out a second mortgage.
High alcohol taxes and binge drinking when they are absent does not seem to me to be the healthiest way to encourage people to drink responsibly. But the nanny state impulse is powerful in Sweden, and high taxes are a way of life. So I suppose the DA ("riksadvokaten") may some day get his way.
Well, at least he isn't trying to send junior high school boys away on felony charges for slapping other students' butts. It could be worse.
Hat tip: Airliners.net
