When someone drinks a spiked drink, they may not even know that they are consuming alcohol. This is especially true if they are relatively young and they’ve never had alcohol before – maybe they’re at a high school party with friends, for instance, and someone spiked the punch. They don’t know what taste to expect, so they don’t realize that alcohol has been added.
This could be highly problematic for many young drivers. It could drastically increase their odds of getting arrested on drunk driving charges. Why is this so dangerous for young people, presenting a greater legal threat than it even would be for older drivers?
A different BAC limit
The problem is that the two groups don’t have the same BAC limit. For most adults, the limit is a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08%. It takes multiple drinks for an average adult to get to this level, so one spiked drink wouldn’t break it anyway. Additionally, an adult who consumed enough alcohol to reach 0.08% would likely feel impaired and intoxicated, and they could identify those symptoms before driving.
Drivers who are under 21 years old, on the other hand, have a BAC limit of just 0.02% in Georgia. A young driver could get to this point without even having a full drink. They may not actually be intoxicated, but they would still fail a breath test.
As such, a young person who unknowingly consumed a spiked drink could face arrest and drunk driving charges much more easily than an adult. This is why teen drivers and their parents need to be aware of their legal defense options.