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Alcohol (ethanol) is a legal drug and the toxic substance most often encountered during police investigations of sudden, suspicious, and/or unnatural deaths. There is a strong correlation between the amounts of ethanol a person consumes, the resulting blood-alcohol concentration (BAC), and the impairment of body functioning. Heavy drinking and drunkenness are underlying factors in many types of accidental death as well as diverse criminal activity, such as impaired driving, sexual assault, and domestic violence. The analysis and interpretation of BAC provides important information when cause and manner of death are investigated and when culpability for various alcohol-related crimes is determined. Although the same methods are used for the determination of ethanol in blood samples from living and deceased persons interpretation of the results is more difficult in death investigations, because of various …