DRUNK OR INTOXICATED?

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 61, 26 July 1915, Page 4

DRUNK OR INTOXICATED?

At the last sitting of tbe Magistrate's Court at Waiuku, Mr F. V. Frazer, S. M., held that there was a difference betwaen a man being "drunk" and being "intoxicated." "A man is intoxicated," eaid Bis Worship, "whea the drinking oi intoxicating liquor has made him different from what he ordinarily is.'' His Worship did not define "drunkenness.." Webster's dictionary makes no distinction between the two words in regard to the etfect of intoxicating liquor, and it would be interesting to the lay mind to know what legal difference exists. Presumably we must assume that up to the "merry" stage, when a man smiles blandly no his creditors and other undesirables, he is merely intoxicated; but when be reaches the quarrelsome stage, cusses and kicks the wife of bis bosom, and debet* the warnings of the representative of "law and order," he is "drunk." This question of what constitutes the state of being "druok" is one upon which opinion differs as widely as do tbe individuals who are bo rash as to give tbeir views on the tubjact, Perhaps in due course Mr Prazer will give us a clear, clean-cut, cold, logical, irrefutable definition uf the tantalising term?