Prohibition Policy of the National Forest Service

[XLFD]

Carrying that unopened beer across some local bridges could see you potentially doing five years hard time.  Alcohol possession is now a punishable offense on three Michigan rivers starting this summer.  Bet those small canoe and kayak businesses love this decree by the National Forest Service.

The NFS announced Wednesday that alcohol will be prohibited on the following Michigan rivers within the Huron-Manistee National Forests:

AuSable
Manistee
Pine

Between May 24 and Sept. 2, alcohol will be banned on large portions of the rivers and within 200 feet of the rivers. Violators could be fined up to $5,000 or face 5 years in prison.
The Forest Service said pollution, disturbing fish/wildlife habitat and more people using the areas are the main reasons for putting this into action. The order doesn't apply to private land or designated campgrounds.

It's a crazy world we live in when somebody can be found guilty of the felony charge of fleeing an accident involving death and three misdemeanors: vehicular manslaughter, driving without a license and destroying evidence and yet face two years less prison time than somebody wanting to use, or just transporting, a legal substance an arbitrary distance away from a river in a supposedly 'public' forest.  Not to mention pay up to $5000, a rather steep fine that eclipses the fines of the worse high class misdemeanors ($2000) and fees associate with many felonies.  

The first reason the NFS gives for adopting this policy is to cut down pollution, so I guess they are implying that the can of soda or bottle of water that will replace the alcoholic beverage is somehow less likely to be discarded into nature than the beer it replaces.  For the second reason, I don't understand how alcohol consumption would negatively impact fish and wildlife habitats.  Lastly, one must agree that it would cut down on having more people use the facilities, as they take their business and pursuit of happiness elsewhere, like the very successful  Paddle for Pints event to the north, or...  

They can note that there are zero penalties for those who wish to use Mason County's lovely, meandering, Pere Marquette River without having to worry about whether they will have a federal ranger check their cooler on the back of their truck parked at an access site and take them to jail for just having a cold one inside.  

Michigan already has rather stiff penalties for boating while intoxicated, why must the NFS out of Cadillac create unilaterally-prepared edicts like this that makes the mere possession of alcoholic beverages in a public place a serious crime with penalties worse than most felonies?

[XLFD]

Update:  The alcohol ban with penalties that test the limits of the Eighth Amendment gets lifted as the USDA Forest Service  bureaucracy of Cadillac after intense backlash has them reconsider.  The outright ban is not happening for now.

“We heard from a lot of folks after the alcohol ban was put in place who were surprised and often quite upset that they would no longer be able to responsibly have a beer on the river,” said Peeters.
They dropped that approach.  Now, their plan is based on educating the public with posters and offering mesh bags to discourage littering.

They finally realized it was set to be killing off the businesses relying on tourism in that area.  Most vacationers could probably get by without some adult beverages going down the river, but a significant amount would also be scared by a decree made by the Forest Service against an otherwise legal substance indicating that they were a bunch of fun-hating pricks that would sooner throw you in the slammer for lacking enough life preservers than do something productive.  You don't see a lot of tourists in Iran and North Korea for the same reason.

[Willy]

And smoking dope won't work. To many water hazards, but I'm sure some forward thinking dopers will figure out a way to put the active ingredients in bottles of soda or bottled water or even beer.