Alcohol, the brain and murder

By Ellen Ratner
Last Thursday's Science Times section of the New York Times presented stunning evidence that, if acted upon, will put a cork in teen drinking and hopefully change the way we think about brains.

The article was based on a recent study that proves what anyone who has shared living space with a teenager knows all too well—teenagers are, in a word, different. They are even different when it comes to how alcohol affects their brains. Many parents have a love/hate relationship with alcohol. They love it, but they hate for their kids to love it. Many parents take a ''do as I say, not as I do'' approach. Parents lose sleep waiting for their offspring to make it home safely. School health and driver education classes are famous for their ''scare'' movies that show slow reaction times and the increase in accidents and fatalities as a result of driving while intoxicated. But only recently has there been the technology to show exactly what drinking (and other drugs) can do to the young brain.




The Science Times article summarizes the body of research. The Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine shows 47% of teens that begin drinking before the age of fourteen become alcohol dependent and that verbal and non-verbal learning and memory are affected ... and not in a good way. The data on brain damage is most startling. Dr. Scott Swatzwelder of Duke University found there was damage to the brain of adolescent drinkers in the frontal areas of the brain. That's the part of the brain that is crucial for controlling impulses and thinking through the consequences of intended actions. This may help explain some teen ''alien-like'' behavior.

For those of you who frequently read my weekly column, you may be a bit confused right now. After all, my motto is, ''Liberal and Proud,'' which some believe is code for ''live and let live,'' no matter the age.

I don't want to disappoint.

This body of evidence is another compelling reason to ban the death penalty. While I don't believe the death penalty is a liberal or conservative issue – it is, in a word, a moral issue; my beloved Science Times has once again, illuminated what most of us know about brains. They are different, and these differences can be a handicap, a horrible handicap.

The brain chemistry and anatomy of most of those who commit murders is different, very different. Take for example, Karla Faye Tucker. The facts of her early life were cited as mitigating circumstances. She began using drugs when she was eight years old. Her mother was a drug addict and prostitute. Karla Faye Tucker was encouraged into prostitution when she was fourteen and given drugs and alcohol to encourage her entry into street life. She had been on a three-day drug/alcohol high when she took part in two murders.

Karla Faye Tucker was 23 years old when she committed the murders, and there was never any sustained period in her life, since she became a teenager, when she was not on drugs. Her first period of sobriety was in prison when she read the Bible, attended Alcoholics Anonymous and became a born-again Christian. Her brain had never been given a chance.

These were mitigating circumstances, and George W. Bush, the ''compassionate conservative,'' knew all this when he decided to let her execution go through. He also knew first hand about alcohol's numbing effect on judgment given his charge for driving while intoxicated in the state of Maine.

The Supreme Court has made it unconstitutional to execute anyone who is mentally retarded or under the age of 18 when they commit a crime. What about those who are chronologically an ''adult,'' but whose brains are those of a young adolescent?

Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith Wiley's, ''Ghosts From The Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence,'' was published seven years before the current brain research. Yet, it is a compelling study of murder and the brains of those who commit murder. The backgrounds of those in prison for murder are as moving as those of Karla Faye Tucker.

I asked the newly elected President Bush in May of 2001 whether he would be willing to put money in the National Institute of Health's budget to study violence and the brain. He seemed genuinely surprised that it was not already in the budget.

The state-sponsored murder of Karla Faye Tucker in Texas, under then-Gov. Bush, has always haunted me. She, along with Christian supporters who had seen her jailhouse transformation, pleaded for her life. Then-Gov. Bush laughed about her statement, ''Please don't kill me.'' Sister Helen Prejeen, commenting on the night of Karla Faye Tucker's execution said about Gov. George Bush: ''A hammer, when presented with a nail, knows only one thing.'' We now know for sure a brain under the influence of alcohol has as little choice as that hammer. Karla Faye Tucker's brain had no choice or chance at the time of the murders, George W. Bush's brain did.