Shortly before the Christmas holidays, Anchorage law enforcement officials challenged the community to refrain from drinking and driving. To bring awareness to their campaign, police erected a Christmas tree and said they’d add a blue-ribbon ornament to the tree for each charge of impaired driving.
How’d it go?
Even though recreational marijuana use in Alaska has been legal since 2015, there’s reason to believe the move could have devastating effects for drivers in our state.
Hopefully, those of us here in the Last Frontier state will not experience the devastation that legalized pot has had in nearby Washington state.
An alarming report by SafeHome.org has found that Alaska sixth most arrests in the nation for driving under the influence (DUI).
Researchers used FBI and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data from 2017 to compile the report.
Statistics from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism tell us that by the age of 15, 33 percent of American teens have tried alcohol. Those numbers tend to increase as they reach their late teen years.
In fact, those between the ages of 12-20 drink 11 percent of all alcohol consumed nationwide.