ABSTRACT
Road-traffic fatalities represent the leading cause of death in people under the age of thirty. Measuring the concentration of ethanol in blood and other biological specimens requires relatively simple analytical procedures and the results are accurate, precise, and fit for forensic purposes. The good reliability of the Erik M. P. Widmark method made it possible for countries like Norway and Sweden to introduce statutory blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) limits for driving. Norway set a BAC limit of 0.05 g% and Sweden 0.08 g%, which was later lowered to 0.05 g% and then to 0.02 g%. The problem of alcohol intoxication and transportation started to attract attention from the US federal government after prohibition was abolished in 1933, because in the intervening years ownership of private motor vehicles had increased astronomically. Tolerance to the effects of alcohol has been recognized for centuries and anecdotes about people who “can hold their liquor” or “who never seem to get drunk” are illustrations of this phenomenon.
