Drunken antics as US star Peterson punches friend

SAUZE D'OULX, Italy (AFP) - US freestyle aerials star Jeret Peterson, seventh in the men's final, showed his fiery temperament after the competition, punching a friend in the face as police were called to deal with their drunken behaviour.

Locals tipped off the police about two Americans drunk and disorderly in Sauze d'Oulx, where the aerials competition had taken place, and when police arrived on the scene Peterson and his friend were arguing.

Peterson's friend was trying to calm him down but the inebriated US freestyle star lost his cool and punched his friend giving him a bloody lip and a broken tooth.

Police said the incident was just a minor disagreement between two drunken friends.

Peterson is not renowned as a hot-head although at 24 he has a history of tragedy and family turmoil that would send many off the rails.

When he was five, his sister was killed by a drunk driver and a few months later, an uncle died of an AIDS-related illness.

Three years ago, Peterson revealed he was sexually abused as a child and has been in therapy to deal with it.

Then last June he watched his close friend and room mate commit suicide shooting himself in the head without saying a word.

Peterson has taken refuge in sport and delighted the crowd in the final with his bold 'Hurricane' move - consisting of an unprecedented three flips and five twists - but a poor landing saw him finish seventh.

Denver Post 2/22/06

Judging the system

Man arrested for drunken driving certain he had legal standing to fight, win

By Alicia Caldwell
Denver Post Staff Writer
DenverPost.com



Monte Vista - Even as the handcuffs closed on his wrists, John Wilder couldn't believe it.

He admitted having had a glass of wine and there was an open airline-size bottle of Ernest & Julio Gallo merlot in his car.

But he didn't think the trooper who pulled him over had enough proof to arrest him for drunken driving. He thought Colorado State Patrol Cpl. Kevin Turner was trying to railroad him.

Tests later showed Wilder wasn't drunk. Having an open container was legal at the time, and the charges were dropped. But Wilder filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the trooper for false arrest. He was determined to fight the law.

And he won - nearly a million dollars.

Ironically, he is the law.

Wilder is a municipal judge in this small southern Colorado town. But Wilder, who bucks tradition by not wearing a robe during court or having people stand when he enters the courtroom, said the longer he thought about it, the more he became convinced that the State Patrol's drunken-driving arrest standards violated people's civil rights.

"Ultimately, I realized I had a duty to sue," said Wilder, 63.

The resulting jury verdict sent waves of disbelief through the State Patrol.

"We were in shock," State Patrol spokesman Jeff Goodwin said of the verdict, much of which was upheld earlier this month.

U.S. District Judge Wiley Daniel disallowed $150,000 of the million-dollar verdict, saying the judge did not suffer economic damages, such as losing income.

But he upheld the remainder, $850,000, which was awarded for punitive and other damages. Daniel wrote that jurors in the October trial heard evidence that the trooper arrested the judge for a reason he knew was unlawful: because Wilder refused to participate in voluntary roadside sobriety tests.

The Colorado attorney general's office, which is defending the trooper, vigorously disagrees with the jury and will appeal, said Kristin Hubbell, a spokeswoman for the office.

The case turns on defining probable cause, the standard to legally arrest someone.

Turner, who has been a trooper for about 10 years, did not return phone calls for comment.

However, Goodwin said the corporal is a fine officer and did not deviate from his training, which the State Patrol strongly supports.

"We have not made any changes to our training," Goodwin said. "We believe in our training."

In written briefs, the attorney general's office said the trooper had enough proof to arrest because seven indicators of alcohol intoxication were present - things such as red and watery eyes, a flushed face and smell of alcohol.

However, Daniel, the federal judge, rejected that argument, saying Turner incorrectly assumed that because there was evidence that the indicators were present that this automatically meant there was probable cause to arrest. An arrest must be based on the "totality of the circumstances," Daniel wrote.

It all began at 6:05 p.m. Nov. 30, 2001, when the judge was driving home. Turner later wrote in a report that he clocked Wilder's blue Ford Probe going 57 mph in a 50 mph zone.

Wilder told the trooper he was passing a slow-moving car that suddenly speeded up. The trooper wrote in his report that he smelled alcohol and asked Wilder whether he had been drinking. Yes, Wilder said, he had a glass of wine at a hotel in Monte Vista.

The trooper asked Wilder to do a roadside sobriety test, which Wilder refused. He had undergone back surgery and was worried that he would hurt himself, he said. As Wilder fumbled in the dark for the insurance and registration cards, Turner refused him the courtesy of shining his flashlight into the car.

The trooper arrested Wilder and searched the car, in which he found a handgun that Wilder is licensed to carry. The tro0per took Wilder to a medical center to have blood drawn for a blood-alcohol test. The result was 0.014. At the time, the threshold for being legally drunk was 0.10.

Today the standard is 0.08.

Wilder said that if nothing else about his story is told, he wants one fact to stand out: "I never once told that officer I was a judge or a lawyer or anybody. I know people who will do that. I abhor that."

The arrest, Wilder said, was embarrassing. People gossiped. The rumor was that the charges were dismissed because of Wilder's position.

He filed a lawsuit and went to trial the first time in 2004, and lost. However, Wilder appealed and got a new trial, and this time he won.

As the million-dollar verdict was read in the courtroom last fall, Wilder sobbed.

He said all he wanted was to bring change to the State Patrol arrest procedures. He has offered to settle if the State Patrol changes how they train officers to ascertain probable cause before arresting suspected drunken drivers. Officers need to consider all evidence, he said, including that which would exonerate suspects.

Wilder, who had a serious heart attack in January and no longer drinks alcohol, said he doubts he'll live to see the money. And frankly, he doesn't care about receiving cash.

"I'm never going to be a prominent person," he said. "I'm a small-town judge and a small-town lawyer. But I thought maybe I could do something good. Maybe I can make the world a little bit better place for the countless people who have no power at all."

Use of Ambien and dissociative events in sleepdriving.

February 7, 2006
Record Sales of Sleeping Pills Are Causing Worries
By STEPHANIE SAUL
Americans are taking sleeping pills like never before, fueled by frenetic workdays that do not go gently into a great night's sleep, and lulled by a surge of consumer advertising that promises safe slumber with minimal side effects.

About 42 million sleeping pill prescriptions were filled last year, according to the research company IMS Health, up nearly 60 percent since 2000.

But some experts worry that the drugs are being oversubscribed without enough regard to known, if rare, side effects or the implications of long-term use. And they fear doctors may be ignoring other conditions, like depression, that might be the cause of sleeplessness.

Although the newer drugs are not believed to carry the same risk of dependence as older ones like barbiturates, some researchers have reported what is called the "next day" effect, a continued sleepiness hours after awakening from a drug-induced slumber.

Ten percent of Americans report that they regularly struggle to fall asleep or to stay asleep throughout the night. And more and more are turning to a new generation of sleep aids like Ambien, the best seller, and its competitor, Lunesta. Experts acknowledge that insomnia has become a cultural benchmark — a side effect of an overworked, overwrought society.

"Clearly, there's a significant increase in people who report insomnia and, from my perspective, that is the result of our modern-day lifestyle," said Dr. Gregg D. Jacobs, a psychologist and assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard. Or at least that is an impression that drug makers are clearly trying to capitalize on, he said.

And that concerns him and some other researchers who warn that despite their advertised safety, the new generation of sleep aids can sometimes cause strange side effects.

The reported problems include sleepwalking and short-term amnesia. Steven Wells, a lawyer in Buffalo, said he started using Ambien last year because his racing mind kept him awake at night. But he quit after only one month, concerned about several episodes in which he woke up to find he had messily raided the refrigerator and, finally, an incident in which he tore a towel rack out of a wall.

"The weird thing was that I had no recollection of it the next day," said Mr. Wells, who added that he found the episodes frightening.

Ambien's maker, Sanofi-Aventis, said the drug had been used for 12 billion nights of patient therapy. "When Ambien is taken as prescribed, it's a safe and effective treatment," said Emmy Tsui, a company spokeswoman.

A Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman, Susan Cruzan, said she was not aware of an unusual number of complaints with the drugs.

Drug makers spent $298 million in the first 11 months of 2005 to convince consumers that the sleep aids are safe and effective. That was more than four times such ad spending in all of 2004.

In the last year, much of the advertising surge has been a result of competition from Lunesta, which the drug maker Sepracor introduced last April to compete with Ambien. Through November, Sepracor led the sleeping pill advertising field, spending more than $185 million, according to figures from TNS Media Intelligence, which did not have final figures for December.

In response, Sanofi-Aventis, marketing both Ambien and its controlled-release version, Ambien CR, spent $107 million from last January through November, according to TNS. That was nearly double its ad spending on Ambien in 2004.

Even the most infrequent television viewers would have trouble missing the Lunesta ads, which feature a luna moth fluttering around the bed of a peaceful sleeper. Dr. Jacobs said that in one hour of prime-time television recently, he saw three ads for sleeping pills: two for Lunesta and another for Ambien.

"You've got the patient population being bombarded with advertising on TV," Dr. Jacobs said. "You've got increased advertising to physicians. You've got a formula for sales going up dramatically."

One financial analyst, Jon LeCroy of Natexis Bleichroeder, said Lunesta's ad campaign last fall was tied to the new season of "Desperate Housewives," whose audience is about 55 percent female. Studies have shown that women have insomnia more frequently than men.

Last week, Sepracor's stock jumped $8.53 in one day, after Sepracor reported a profit and remarkably strong use of Lunesta in its first year on the market, with sales of $329 million. More than 213,000 doctors wrote 3.3 million prescriptions for it last year, the company says.

Sepracor announced the addition of 450 people to its current sales force of 1,500 to increase marketing of the drug to physicians.

Sanofi-Aventis, with a sales force of 3,000, is working to shift patients from Ambien, which loses its patent protection in October, to the newer version, Ambien CR. The newer pill has a quickly dissolving outer layer meant to immediately induce sleep, with a slower-dissolving inner layer to sustain sleep.

Another drug in the class is Sonata, marketed by King Pharmaceuticals. Because it is short acting, Sonata is recommended for people who have trouble falling asleep but no trouble staying asleep.

Drugs in the class are frequently referred to as "Z" drugs, a play on both their effect and the Z's in their generic names, like zolpidem (Ambien) and eszopiclone (Lunesta). All aim at a brain neurotransmitter that is believed to reduce neural activity.

Another new entrant to the market, Rozerem, by the Japanese company Takeda Pharmaceuticals, has been available in drugstores since September but has not yet been heavily advertised. The drug works by a different mechanism from the others, acting on the brain's melatonin receptors, which are believed to play a role in sleep-wake cycles.

Mr. LeCroy, the analyst, who is also a medical doctor, predicts the advertising will intensify if Neurocrine Biosciences and its partner Pfizer are permitted to introduce their new sleeping pill, Indiplon; an F.D.A. decision on that is expected in May.

"That's going to make the competition get more cutthroat," Mr. LeCroy said, predicting that the market for branded sleeping pills, currently about $2 billion a year, could grow to $3.8 billion, even with Ambien set to go generic. "This is only going to get crazier."

The Carlat Psychiatry Report, a newsletter by Dr. Daniel J. Carlat, a psychiatrist in Newburyport, Mass., reviewed the Z drugs recently and concluded that their differences were merely subtle. But Dr. Carlat warned that Lunesta, because it was longer acting, was more likely to cause next-day sleepiness problems "in comparison with some of its cousins."

Dr. Carlat cited a 1998 study in Britain, published in The Lancet, which found that taking zopiclone, the compound known as the "mother" of Lunesta and marketed in Europe, was linked to an increased risk of automobile accidents.

But Sepracor's chief financial officer, David P. Southwell, said that Lunesta, while a chemical variant of zopiclone, was a totally different drug. He referred a reporter to the F.D.A.-approved label, which lists clinical studies of next-day effects showing there was no consistent pattern of impaired mental functioning the day after Lunesta use.

The possible role of Ambien was investigated in connection with well-chronicled transportation disasters in 2003 — the crash of the Staten Island Ferry, which killed 11 passengers, and an accident involving a Texas church bus in Tallulah, La., which killed 8 passengers. The assistant captain who was piloting the ferry, like the bus driver, had a prescription for Ambien, but there was no evidence either had taken it before the crashes.

Dr. David G. Fassler, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, said he was concerned that the heavy marketing and prescribing of the sleep medications would lead to use in patients who have underlying conditions that are left untreated.

"I'm concerned that difficulty sleeping can be a sign of multiple disorders, including problems with anxiety and depression," he said, expressing worry that patients who are not thoroughly evaluated might be treated for their insomnia while other problems, like anxiety or decreased appetite, are not addressed.

In clinical trials, the most common side effect of the drugs, however, is that people wake up feeling sleepy the next day.

Dr. Daniel J. Buysse, a University of Pittsburgh psychiatrist who has consulted for the industry on sleeping pills, said they were a rare example of drugs in which the desired effect and the major side effect were the same thing. "One occurs when you want it, and the other occurs when you don't," he said.

Another problem associated with using sleeping pills is a condition commonly called traveler's amnesia, in reference to the frequent use by people who travel across time zones. Such amnesia can occur when people return to daytime activities too quickly after taking the drugs.

The labels carry warnings that the drugs should be used only when people can devote a full night to sleeping. In some cases, however, users have reported that they awakened during the middle of the night in sleepwalking states, but — like Mr. Wells, the lawyer in Buffalo — had no recollection of their activities.

The amnesiac effects of Ambien were a factor in the acquittal last week of a United States Air Force linguist who had been charged with raping a colleague while the two were stationed in Qatar. The woman who said she was the victim, also a linguist, testified that she was not sure whether the incident was a dream because she had taken Ambien, according to the Stars and Stripes report on the military trial, which occurred in Britain.

Dr. Buysse said such bouts of nocturnal uncertainty occur occasionally with various Z drugs.

"There have been some case reports of people who have been sleepwalking only when taking the drug," Dr. Buysse said. "I think it's rare, and it's the kind of thing that no one is going to have a very good estimate of. But if it happens to you, who cares if you're the only person of many?"

This is another indication, in my view, that we are headed to a time when all new cars have built in alcohol interlock devises linked to GPS's and communication devices that then automatically notify law enforcement of the precise location of the operation of a vehicle by someone who has some or an excessive alcohol level. I would not be surprised to see trial programs in the next few years, assuming they have not already happened. 10-20 years from now, it is a likely reality.

_________________________________
Updated:2006-01-31 11:41:38
Star Wars Speed Trap GPS being used to catch speeders




Like tearing off that sticker on mattresses that warns us not to "under penalty of law," most of us don't pay much attention to speed limits. Five to 10 over is the rule, not the exception -- as any survey of average traffic speeds will confirm. We vote with our right foot every time we get behind the wheel, countermanding the diktats of the local bureaucrats who erect limits that are frequently well below what large majorities (better than 85 percent, if you want an actual figure based on traffic surveys) consider reasonable rates of travel.


But what if driving faster than the posted limit became an impossibility?


For years, this has been “The Dream” of safety-badger types, who equate any deviance from often arbitrarily-set posted speed limits with mowing down small children in a gigantic SUV with really loud mufflers, one hand on the wheel, the other clutching a half-empty fifth of Jack Daniels. They pushed for mechanical governors (which never flew) and even managed, briefly, to get a law passed that required all new cars to be fitted with speedometers that read no faster than 85 mph.


Now, however, the technology exists for a great leap forward -- or backward, depending on your point of view.


The Canadians are testing out a system that combines onboard Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) technology with a digital speed limit map. It works very much like the in-car GPS navigation systems which have become so common on late model cars -- but with a twist. Instead of helping you find a destination, the system, prevents you from driving any faster than the posted speed limit of the road you happen to be on.


As in a conventional GPS-equipped car or truck, the system knows which road you're on, as well as the direction you're traveling. This information is continuously updating as you move. But in addition to this, the system also acquires information about the posted speed limit on each road, as you drive. Once your vehicle reaches that limit, the car's computer makes it increasingly difficult to go any faster.


Ten vehicles equipped with this technology are currently being tested in the Ottowa area; if the trail is "successful," a wider series of tests is planned. And it's a sure bet the entire thing will eventually be the object of a very strong-armed push aimed at making it mandatory equipment in every new car. "We are trying to assess the operational acceptance issues," says Peter Burns of Transport Canada's road safety directorate.


But is all of this really necessary -- or even a good idea?


For one thing, if current speed limits are so sensible, why do so many of us disobey them routinely? Are large majorities of us simply indifferent to our own safety and that of others -- even though we seem capable of behaving responsibly in other aspects of our lives?


Or are speed limits often set unrealistically low?


And if they are, wouldn't it make more sense to adjust them so that they reflect a more reasonable consensus -- based upon how we actually drive -- rather than constantly pushing for new ways to compel compliance with limits that most of us clearly think are too low?


Bear in mind that for 20-plus years, we were relentlessly nagged by the self-styled "safety lobby" (and its profiteers in the insurance industry) that to exceed the sainted 55 mph limit was "dangerous speeding" that put ourselves and others at risk. Yet when Congress finally repealed the 55 mph limit in '95 -- and most states raised their highway limits to 65, 70, even 75 mph in some cases -- highway fatality rates did not increase as predicted. In fact, just two years after the majority of states increased their maximum highway speed limits, the total national highway fatality rate reached an all-time record low of 1.64 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT).


This proved that driving 65 or 70-something mph on a highway was not "unsafe." The big difference post-'95 was that you no longer had to worry about getting a ticket for doing it.


The same issue exists on many secondary roads, where under-posted limits are routinely ignored by most drivers -- but vigorously enforced by radar traps. Like the tickets issued to people under the double nickel, the use of radar to nab motorists exceeding these under-posted limits is justified on the basis of "safety" -- even though most of us know that driving five or 10 mph faster doesn't in and of itself constitute unsafe driving any more than doing 65 or 70-something mph did under the old 55 mph NMSL.


And sometimes, it's necessary to accelerate rapidly in order to avoid an accident -- even if it means momentarily exceeding the posted limit.


But Canada's little experiment could bring a screeching halt to all that -- literally. Dumbed-down limits -- and dumbed-down driving -- would become much more than the law of the land.


They would become an inescapable way of life.


Some might welcome a world in which driving faster than whatever the speed limit happens to be is impossibility. But it might be more common-sensical to post realistic speed limits -- and deal with the handful of drivers who won't or can't drive reasonably -- than to treat every driver on the road like the irresponsible one.