Alcoholism is a disease and should be handled as a medical problem under the law. The disease of alcoholism is characterized by three elements: pathological drinking patterns that affect the alcoholic's physical, emotional, and mental well-being; a relationship with alcohol based on a continuum delimited by extremes of total abstinence and total physiological and psychological dependence; and sustained consumption of alcohol over a long period causing physiological dependence on alcohol. Critics of the disease theory fear that it absolves the alcoholic of responsibility for drinking to excess. Courts have also refused to accept the disease theory. Specifically, the U.S. Supreme Court in Powell v. Texas found that chronic alcoholism was not a defense to the crime of public intoxication. New Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) laws are needed, and alcoholics arrested for drunk driving should be channeled out of the criminal justice system and into the health care system. To insure continued safe driving, alcoholic drivers should be treated in the same way as epileptic drivers are treated in many States. That is, alcoholic drivers would lose their licenses until they have successfully completed treatment for alcoholism. Then, in order to keep their licenses, alcoholic offenders would be required to present evidence of continued treatment. 159 footnotes.