July 9, 2005

Right To Drunkeness?

Man Sues Mass. for Right to Get Drunk

Eric Laverriere, 25, of Portland, Maine, was taken into protective custody by Waltham police and locked in a cell for nine hours until the effects of the alcohol wore off.

Legal experts said his lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Boston, is the first to challenge a state law allowing police to lock up drunk people against their will for their own protection.

Laverriere argues that the Massachusetts Protective Custody Law was written to combat public drunkenness and that the police had no right to use it to take him from a private residence. He also says he had planned to spend the night at his friend's and wasn't going to be driving anywhere.

"One thing people should be able to do is drink in their own house," Laverriere told The Boston Globe. "That's the beauty of the land of the free."

Posted by Ithildin at July 9, 2005 3:14 PM | PROCURE FINE OLD WORLD ABSINTHE

Anther stupid lawsuit by some greedy lawyer and some drunken idiot frankly the lawyer should be made to drink urine and the drunk to

Posted by: condor at July 10, 2005 5:13 PM

Actually, the man *does* have the right to get drunk, in his own home.

He apparently was at the home of a friend, not his own home. If his friend had planned to put him up, why did his friend not speak up for him? As for his picking up the video camera, he was probably doing a bit more than just taping.

Methinks we don't have the full story here.

Posted by: Lornkanaga at July 12, 2005 1:11 PM