How many drinks does it take to blow 0.131?

Liberal MP Tim Smith is fighting for his political life after he crashed into a Hawthorn home and recorded a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.131, nearly three times the legal limit.

The member for Kew has already resigned from his position as the shadow attorney-general, and now opposition leader Matthew Guy wants him to resign from Parliament.

He broke his silence with Neil Mitchell on Wednesday morning, asking for forgiveness from the public, claiming he had only had “a few glasses of wine” on an empty stomach.

Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research Dr Anne-Marie Laslett told Tom Elliott while it’s hard to tell whether that is true, it usually takes a lot of drinks to get to the BAC reading of 0.131.

“This is not a simple question really, there are so many factors you need to take into account,” she said.

“It really depends on your weight, on your age, on whether you’ve got other medical conditions, on whether your liver’s functioning well, there’s a whole range of things that come into account.”

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