Drunken driving—sometimes called America’s socially accepted form of murder—has become a national epidemic. Every hour of every day about three Americans on (36) are killed by drunken drivers, adding up to an (37) 250,000 over the past decade. A drunken driver is usually defined as one with a 0.10 blood alcohol content or (38) three beers, glasses of wine or shots of whisky drunk within two hours. Heavy drinking used to be an acceptable part of the American man (39) and judges were tolerant in most courts, but the drunken (40) has recently Caused so many well-publicized (41) , especially involving, young children, that public opinion is no longer so tolerant. Twenty states have raised the legal drinking age to 21, (42) a trend in the 1960s to reduce it to 18. After New Jersey lowered it to 18, the number of people killed 18-to 20-year-old drivers more than (43) , so the state recently upped it back to 21. Reformers, however, fear raising the drinking age will have little effect (44) (45) . Some states are also penalizing bars for serving customers too many drinks. A tavern (客栈，酒店) in Massachusetts was fined for serving six or more double brandies to a customer who was "obviously intoxicated (喝醉 )’ and later drove off the road, killing a nine year-old boy. As the fatalities continue to occur daily in every state, some Americans are even beginning to speak well of the 13 years of national prohibition of alcohol that began in 1919, what President Hoover called the "noble experiment". (46) As with the booming drug trade generally, there is no easy solution.