Intoxication Defense - Discussion

Discussion

Societies have tended to have an ambivalent attitude toward public intoxication. In some eras, alcohol consumption or drug-taking have formed the basis of religious or other socially approved ceremonies and festivals. In other eras of a more puritanical nature, intoxication has been stigmatized as a sign of human weakness, of immorality, or as a sin. This lack of consistency reflects different attitudes and cultural standards of public behavior and propriety. Alcohol and other drugs may affect the inhibitions that help to keep socialized individuals from breaking the prevailing social taboos which may or may not have been expressly criminalized. In more modern times and depending on the nature of the crime, the potential effectiveness of the defense will sometimes hinge on whether the defendant's intoxication was voluntary or involuntary. Hence, the potential defense would be denied defendants who had voluntarily disabled themselves by knowingly consuming the relevant liquids or substances, while allowing a defense to those who had unknowingly consumed them.