Todays edition of the Waikato Times reports the sad death of a 22year old woman, through motor accident injuries, as a result of alcohol addiction.
This young woman had a history of no less than 4 drink driving charges. Had lost her license at least once. She is now another of our fatal road accident statistics.

Now that we have finally seen the light with regard to nicotine addiction, why can we not do something with our alcohol problem, and I don't mean just increasing the age to 20. I mean to increase the tax on alcohol, particularly RTD's and use that extra tax to assess and rehabilitate,particularly young alcoholics.

Our hospitals do not need the extra work that the over consumption of alcohol creates.

Farmercorby.

Justice and the common man

Having recently retired from a very minor part of the District Court system. A part that lay people can serve on, to assist in the administration of justice. I have become very interested in the communities perception of the above system, more particularly the perception of guilt or innocence and the sentencing of defendants.
Many and varied are the cases that come before the courts and the defendants could be described in the same manner.
The way the defendants appear in court and respond to the questions put to them will to a large extent, determine the outcome.
Few of the cases dealt with are black and white, open and shut. The justice who is sitting on the case has to use his eyes and ears and even then, interpret the response, to questions and answers given.
What you may read in your daily newspaper is not always a good representation of what actually happened in the court.