Wintergreen Chewing Tobacco - DUI

benyflyguy said:
I guess I get it. Getting behind the wheel after the three drinks in 30 min was clearly poor judgement. The DUI is deserved but the high bac that put him in much bigger FAA trouble is bittersweet
The AME has their hands tied with the numbers though.

I think the lesson learned to ppl who chew tobacco keep in mind that it can really booger things up!!! I didn’t know that.
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Most level headed commenter on this thread benyflyguy!
 
overdrive148 said:
zploSZ0.png


9 ounces divided by 1.5oz per shot glass... carry the two... 6 shots? That doesn't sound like 3.
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Sounds like you want to critique the pour master on how much each weighed. I said 3 shots but I am a non drinker and don't know the rule on shot size. They were campfire shots. You have a huge chip on your attitude.
 
I tried chewing tobacco 1X in my life. The poison, Copenhagen, probably not the best choice...I was in high school. I remember it vividly. All was fantastic in the world for about 2 minutes, then the spinning started, then throwing up...for the next hour. The experience was so unpleasant I never chewed again. I have no idea the chemicals introduced to the body when chewing, but clearly I experienced a near-alcohol experience. To me, I'd like to better understand the physiology. I can see how chewing might impact a sobriety test.
 
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Where I live , refusing a breathalyzer brings the same charges as impaired driving .... hefty fine , lose licence for a year and attend AA meetings before you can re-apply for a licence.

I had a rural job that often had me working to 11:00 pm ... the nearby small town had no restaurants open but the bar had excellent pizza at a good price so I would sometimes go there for pizza and a coke then go home to bed .

One night a friend had ordered a round of drinks including a beer for me , which I did not want , but took it mostly to be polite. At my size and weight I could drink 2 beer in an hour and not be impaired according to government charts. I barely sipped the beer while the pizza cooked , ate the pizza , then guzzled the beer quickly because I was anxious to get home.

Just my luck , I had untied my work boots which caused me a bit of a stumble stepping out of the hotel at midnight ... and just my luck police were driving by. Of course they pulled me over and administered a roadside test.

The device was the type that flashed a light if over the legal limit ..... of course the light did not flash when I did it .... but the (Lady) police officer thought I was drunk .... told me to do it again .... still no flashing light ... then warned me I had one more chance or she would charge me with refusing the breath test.

My Jaw dropped .... I knew a refusal charge was as bad as an impaired charge .... knowing I was cornered I told her I wanted to go immediately to the hospital for a blood test that could be lab tested with accuracy .... she must have realized I was not bluffing and not impaired and said blow as hard as you can into the machine and if no readings I will let you go on your way.

I passed and went home .... but I confess it was a hell of a scary time for me .... I could have lost my job and licence and pilots licence.

.
 
FlyFish said:
The FAA only cares about alcohol related incidents. Even if charges were dropped, never going to court, I would be in the same predicament. Again, one DUI under .15= ISSUE for AME. My .19 was false

Not one of you understands. Chewing Tobacco must be removed from the mouth 15 or more minutes before test. I tested with tobacco in my lip 1st time and 2 ND test was immediately after I spit I try out. Both tests were false. .19 with chew in, .16 moments after spitting it out.

I deserve to jump through the hoops related to my true bac...not the bac with Copenhagen containing ethyl alcohol adding to lung air reading.
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In retrospect you should have refused the breathalyzer and insisted on blood draw instead. I think you have a right to do that in most states IIRC? But too late now. If you actually never drink at all, and can document that fact somehow, (letters from employers, etc.) and the circumstances were getting your boat out of the water, it’s not like you were driving on a public road (and assuming your wife was going to drive on the way home) you’re going to eventually get issued but like the others said, not the under .15 way, you’ll have to jump through the expensive and very annoying hoops because the FAA will go with that discredited false reading.

I can’t imagine going to AA meetings when I never drink at all and never did. I’m like you, I might have one drink per year. That one drink gets me pretty loopy although I doubt I’d try to back a trailer down a boat ramp (I’d mess that up sober), I can see how this happened. The law is always looking for drinking and boating on warm holidays. Drunk boaters are a problem.

But how do you attend AA meetings and “admit you’re an addict” when you’re not? That looks like being in denial. Being in denial is proof you’re an addict, right?

I think you’re trapped. They’re going to start with over .15 but at some point during the process maybe they’ll ask for a personal statement and you can give your side of the story, including documentation about how chewing tobacco affects breathalyzer tests. And how you never drink but accepted shots on the 4th and then made the gross error of judgement by backing your car down a boat ramp.

The house AMEs might come along and say if that will work or if that will be seen as “failure to admit your addiction”. If you indeed never drink and are telling the truth about that, I feel for you. What a mess.
 
A Martin said:
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Where I live , refusing a breathalyzer brings the same charges as impaired driving .... hefty fine , lose licence for a year and attend AA meetings before you can re-apply for a licence.

I had a rural job that often had me working to 11:00 pm ... the nearby small town had no restaurants open but the bar had excellent pizza at a good price so I would sometimes go there for pizza and a coke then go home to bed .

One night a friend had ordered a round of drinks including a beer for me , which I did not want , but took it mostly to be polite. At my size and weight I could drink 2 beer in an hour and not be impaired according to government charts. I barely sipped the beer while the pizza cooked , ate the pizza , then guzzled the beer quickly because I was anxious to get home.

Just my luck , I had untied my work boots which caused me a bit of a stumble stepping out of the hotel at midnight ... and just my luck police were driving by. Of course they pulled me over and administered a roadside test.

The device was the type that flashed a light if over the legal limit ..... of course the light did not flash when I did it .... but the (Lady) police officer thought I was drunk .... told me to do it again .... still no flashing light ... then warned me I had one more chance or she would charge me with refusing the breath test.

My Jaw dropped .... I knew a refusal charge was as bad as an impaired charge .... knowing I was cornered I told her I wanted to go immediately to the hospital for a blood test that could be lab tested with accuracy .... she must have realized I was not bluffing and not impaired and said blow as hard as you can into the machine and if no readings I will let you go on your way.

I passed and went home .... but I confess it was a hell of a scary time for me .... I could have lost my job and licence and pilots licence.

.
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Refusing the breathalyzer brings the same charges as impaired driving but you have the option of a blood draw? If the blood is clean are you good?

Someone refresh my memory on what the FAA does with that? I thought blood in lieu of breath was acceptable but I don’t remember.
 
The rules of life are often not fair.

At 18, I entered the Montgomery County safe driving competition, and won the right to go to the Maryland State competition.

A county police officer gave me a ticket for continuing through an intersection, even though I was past the stop line when the light turned yellow. The judge asked him if he would have given me a ticket if I had stopped blocking the crosswalk, and he said "Yes".

Case dismissed.

But, I was out of the competition, the rules required that you had NO CHARGES FILED. Not no convictions.

The rule was to prevent rich kids with citations from having good lawyers save them from having convictions on their records. The rules did not consider the ticket that should not have been written. I knew the officer was behind me, and made a snap judgement on whether to stop or go. Lose either way.

Life is like that, over and over.
 
FlyFish said:
You didn't read my post. The breath test was tossed and I was never convicted.
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read this carefully…it…doesn't…matter…to…the…FAA.

The AME’s hands are tied. You plead guilty. The breathalyzer was over .15, even if for an explainable reason, even if the evidence was thrown out of court. An FAA medical is not a legal court. They use different rules.

their game. Their rules. Play or don’t.

if you feel strongly about this, you could try to lawyer up and sue the FAA, but I’ve heard of the courts siding with the airman exactly once. Every other time, they say “the FAA makes the rules”.
 
I believe your argument is with the FAA and not all of us SOGOTI folks (some old guys on the internet). I don't think anyone here is sympathetic to your rationale as you admit that you pled guilty to DUI and you know you are guilty.

You are wanting to split hairs and your AME has a required course to follow. As far as you winning with this particular argument, I can root for you, but I won't bet on you.

The truth is ... you might as well learn to dance to this song cause it's the one that playing right now.
 
I think you have a right to do that in most states IIRC?
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I do not believe you are remembering it correctly. A few states allow you to choose the chemical test, most states do not. What is true in most states that if you are over 21, then you can refuse the PBTs. You can also (and probably should) refuse the FSTs. The only point of the PBT and the FST is to give the officer probably cause to arrest you and demand the chemical test. The FST can also be used to prove intoxication even if your BAC comes back zero in many states.
 
Rushie said:
Refusing the breathalyzer brings the same charges as impaired driving but you have the option of a blood draw? If the blood is clean are you good? .
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Refusal typically is someone who is impaired but will not take a test.

In my case the police suspected I was not blowing hard enough on purpose ... it requires a high volume of air to work and first time I blew hard , but not as hard as I could .... next test I blew harder but still no reading .... third time I absolutely blew as hard as I could ... I thought my eyes were going to pop out and I still passed.

I believe if a driver blows an alert at the roadside then they take you to the detachment and use the much more accurate breathalyzer machine which gives the actual alcohol levels in the blood. I believe a driver with diminished lung capacity can request a blood test instead.

But I haven't really answered your question .... if my roadside test did not show a reading I would think I could then take a blood test to avoid a refusal charge.... but the way she presented it to me It was a refusal because some people dont blow hard enough on purpose.

Maybe she was bluffing me by calling it a refusal on the roadside but I couldn't risk it.

.
 
eman1200 said:
"wintergreen chewing tobacco".......far more of a crime than a coupl'a shots......or actually letting your wife drive your boat........
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That wad ‘o backer’ll get ya in trouble <spit>

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I have so many questions like, how did the officers know who had been driving, how much did the OP actually drive, and why would someone plead guilty if all the evidence was thrown out, but they don't really matter. The OP drank and drove, pleaded guilty, and has no evidence his bac was under .15. There are a lot of coulda, shoulda, wouldas, but the FAA isn't reaching on this one, IMHO.
 
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Lindberg said:
I have so many questions like, how did the officers know who had been driving, how much did the OP actually drive, and why would someone plead guilty I'd all the evidence was thrown out, but they don't really matter. The OP drank and drove, pleaded guilty, and has no evidence his bac was under .15. There are a lot of coulda, shoulda, wouldas, but the FAA isn't reaching on this one, IMHO.
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This is why I suggested that there’s gotta be more to the story. Boat slip or not, cops don’t usually just loiter around with a breathalyzer in hand, ready to test random people, unless they’ve gotten a report or have reasonable suspicion to do so.

Seems fishy…bah dum tsss!
 
All I read is someone making the argument that they were only about double the legal driving limit, and the cops gave him a pass because they screwed up the breathalizer, and he's whining because the FAA rules don't allow the exclusion for being "just a little bit drunk while driving".

Most self absorbed thread I've seen on the Internet. I can understand why it was posted anonymously. Happy that OP didn't kill anyone, and hope that the possibility of that happening doesn't recur, by whatever means happens to happen.
 
To quote you:

"I was drunk."
"I retrieved the boat with my wife's SUV"

This sounds like you were drunk and drove a car to me.

Your word game seems to be that by the time the cops got to you you were "wiping down the boat" and "alcohol consumption was rare" and somehow dipping is a factor.
You literally state you drove drunk. The rest sounds like how to I find a technicality to get me out of the FAA part like I did the breathalyzer part?

#VictimCard
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
You literally state you drove drunk. The rest sounds like how to I find a technicality to get me out of the FAA part like I did the breathalyzer part?
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The chewing tobacco thing is pretty much a technicality. Some dip states 'ethyl alcohol' as one of the ingredients and the industry of DUI attorneys has latched on to this as a wedge to get DUI cases dismissed.
 
RyanB said:
This is why I suggested that there’s gotta be more to the story. Boat slip or not, cops don’t usually just loiter around with a breathalyzer in hand, ready to test random people, unless they’ve gotten a report or have reasonable suspicion to do so.

Seems fishy…bah dum tsss!
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Of course they do. If the town bar has access along a particular road, that's where the cops are hanging out around closing time so they can astutely observe that a car 'crossed the fogline', 'drove too slow', 'drove too fast' or any of the other made up excuses to pull someone over. A drunk zig-zagging down a boat ramp is like 'shooting fish in a barrel' ;-)
 
weilke said:
The chewing tobacco thing is pretty much a technicality. Some dip states 'ethyl alcohol' as one of the ingredients and the industry of DUI attorneys has latched on to this as a wedge to get DUI cases dismissed.
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Those are also very specific specialty products, and it isn't hard to see that they have booze in them (they are marketed and labeled as such). Your run-of-the-mill Copenhagen doesn't have alcohol. I'm still confused about how this is exonerating in the OP's mind??? There is no question that dip after some drinks will make your buzz stronger, but I don't understand how it also increases your BAC......it's just an additional drug acting on your body in concert.
 
35 AoA said:
Those are also very specific specialty products, and it isn't hard to see that they have booze in them (they are marketed and labeled as such). Your run-of-the-mill Copenhagen doesn't have alcohol.
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Its a listed component for the wintergreen flavored variants of Copenhagen. They don't state how much it contains, you know, trade secret and stuff. If this was more than a nominal or trace amount, snuff would be regulated by state liquor authorities.

I'm still confused about how this is exonerating in the OP's mind???
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The argument is that he 'only had 3 drinks' and that his BAC was much lower. The repeated high readings were the result of 'mouth alcohol' and not a true reflection of his BAC.
It's a commonly used excuse similar to 'post accident ingestion', 'mouth wash' , 'air freshener' and a bunch of others that keep DUI attorneys in business.
The problem for the OP is that in the FAAs view the high readings combind with the fact that he was still functional point to habituation.
 
Btw. If you plug 6 1.5oz drinks*, 175lbs bodyweight and an ingestion time of 30min into a calculator, the resulting BAC is 0.17






* to account for the fact that campfire pours are larger than the 1.5oz assumed for measured bar pour
 
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SixPapaCharlie said:
To quote you:

"I was drunk."
"I retrieved the boat with my wife's SUV"

This sounds like you were drunk and drove a car to me.

Your word game seems to be that by the time the cops got to you you were "wiping down the boat" and "alcohol consumption was rare" and somehow dipping is a factor.
You literally state you drove drunk. The rest sounds like how to I find a technicality to get me out of the FAA part like I did the breathalyzer part?

#VictimCard
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In addition, he was able in that condition not only to simply drive, but to back a boat trailer down a ramp and load a boat. That much functionality would tend to make the FAA conclude that he drinks often enough to have developed tolerance.
 
geezer said:
The rules of life are often not fair.

At 18, I entered the Montgomery County safe driving competition, and won the right to go to the Maryland State competition.

A county police officer gave me a ticket for continuing through an intersection, even though I was past the stop line when the light turned yellow. The judge asked him if he would have given me a ticket if I had stopped blocking the crosswalk, and he said "Yes".

Case dismissed.

But, I was out of the competition, the rules required that you had NO CHARGES FILED. Not no convictions.

The rule was to prevent rich kids with citations from having good lawyers save them from having convictions on their records. The rules did not consider the ticket that should not have been written. I knew the officer was behind me, and made a snap judgement on whether to stop or go. Lose either way.

Life is like that, over and over.
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We used to have unsafe driving competitions. Nobody sponsored them, the prize was some pretty good laughs at how stupid some of us were.
 
PaulS said:
We used to have unsafe driving competitions. Nobody sponsored them, the prize was some pretty good laughs at how stupid some of us were.
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I got to drive the drunk driving simulator car perhaps 20 years ago. I forget now who sponsored it, but it toured the country with a small team of operators, and it could be programmed to simulate the decreased reaction time associated with drinking. I was a passenger for a couple of trips around the course with other drivers simulating 2, 3, 4 drinks, and that got progressively scarier. When it was my turn, they set it to 5 or 6 drinks. It was eye-opening. I must have mowed down hundreds of cones--the car just wouldn't go where my mind wanted it to. I'd manage to stop a hundred feet past the pop-up foam pedestrians that would appear in my path. There were two, I think, at different points on the course, and I 'killed' them both.

I wish these were more available and could be used in every driver's ed course. I still vividly remember what it taught me.
 
GaryM said:
I got to drive the drunk driving simulator car perhaps 20 years ago. I forget now who sponsored it, but it toured the country with a small team of operators, and it could be programmed to simulate the decreased reaction time associated with drinking. I was a passenger for a couple of trips around the course with other drivers simulating 2, 3, 4 drinks, and that got progressively scarier. When it was my turn, they set it to 5 or 6 drinks. It was eye-opening. I must have mowed down hundreds of cones--the car just wouldn't go where my mind wanted it to. I'd manage to stop a hundred feet past the pop-up foam pedestrians that would appear in my path. There were two, I think, at different points on the course, and I 'killed' them both.

I wish these were more available and could be used in every driver's ed course. I still vividly remember what it taught me.
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On the more fun and less contrived side of things I have driven drunk on a closed course in a controlled setting while other officers were following me to observe drunk driving and subsequently get trained for field sobriety testing. It was fun. And enlightening. At .08 there is obvious impairment but interestingly it took a noticeable variation in dosing to get there for each one of us.
 
People talk about the legal limit, but understand that .08 (or whatever it is in your state) is not a "legal limit" that makes it legal to drive if you are below. You can still be convicted of drunk driving at lower levels. The so-called legal limit is only the per se limit where you are ASSUMED to be intoxicated. Otherwise, the state has to show via some signs (FSTs are a good one) that you were intoxicated.

Same thing with the FAA on flying. .04, you've had it. Less than eight hours, you've had it. Doesn't matter if your reaction times are like a puma. Act impaired at a lower level, well that can get you as well. The FAA doesn't even have the criminal burden of proof nor do you have a legitimate chance at an independent judiciary.
 
weilke said:
Its a listed component for the wintergreen flavored variants of Copenhagen. They don't state how much it contains, you know, trade secret and stuff. If this was more than a nominal or trace amount, snuff would be regulated by state liquor authorities.
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Hah, interesting, I did not know that.
 
Yeah but you have an alcohol related arrest with no BAC. That's 0.15 in FAA's book. You'll be getting evaluated.... if you wanted good testimony you should not have polluted the test and should have blown......Too bad too late.....Here you go..................

.....and you gave some good evidence for tolerance.
 
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I've done the breathalyzer a few times on random drug and alcohol screens. Seems like it would be hard to stash the wintergreen dip somewhere while blowing...
 
I hope the OP did not hire the heavy drinker he interviewed on the lake side.

Pouring that much alcohol in such a short time implies that his existing employee and that "prospect" are serious candidates for drunk events.

The probability of arriving on the job with residual high BAC makes them a danger to the workplace. My employer had a couple of that kind of events, and they were expensive to all parties.
 
IK04 said:
The reason I don't drink any more is that it makes it impossible for me to be DUI.

No, I don't use drugs or smoke anything. If I am driving wacky, it would be due to a medical emergency.
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I chose this route decades ago, due to a rather sad family history I didn't want to be a part of.
 
Everskyward said:
I've done the breathalyzer a few times on random drug and alcohol screens. Seems like it would be hard to stash the wintergreen dip somewhere while blowing...
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.

that is my thinking too .... the test requires clamping your lips on the mouthpiece ... and blow as hard as you can ... which means your lips and cheeks are blown up like a balloon ... anything in your mouth would go into the machine.

.
 
FlyFish said:
Ethyl alcohol from chewing Tobacco
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Hmmm.... Alcohol, eh... No wonder cope always made me feel immediately drunk. And sick. And kept all the girls away. Yeah.... it was the cope.. that's why the the women never talked to me... yeahh.....

eman1200 said:
Three shots in 30 minutes?
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If the first two are within the first two minutes, then the third at minute 29 tho....

weilke said:
I270 in Montgomery County
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Damn right. I was on that road today and saw so many stupid driver tricks, I should have gotten them on video for my new YooooToooooob drive-by, click-bait channel. Almost got run into by three bikes going about 100 threading the needle between the lanes of slowed traffic.
 
The more I read of this thread (and the OP's responses), the more I think the FAA knows exactly what they are doing with their cutoffs for procedures...

Confirmation bias: "the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories."
 
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