In People v. Koch (250 App Div 623, 294 N.Y.S. 987 [2nd Dept. 1937]) the issue before the Court was whether a conviction under Vehicle and Traffic Law 70 (5) (the former "driving while intoxicated" provision) could be sustained when the evidence established that defendant was driving under the influence of an inadvertent overdose of a drug prescribed by his physician to relieve pain. The Court held that, under those circumstances, the conviction would be reversed because the "statute contemplates only voluntary intoxication resulting from imbibing alcoholic liquors or the voluntary taking into the system of other intoxicating agents; and not the condition from which the appellant was suffering, induced by the drug." Id. at 624.) This holding in Koch is questionable for several reasons. First, the Court stressed that its ruling was confined to the facts presented there (i.e., whether the intoxication under the statute must be voluntary) but then went on to find that "The term 'intoxication' includes also the condition produced by excessive use of agencies other than alcoholic liquor, when they are taken voluntarily." (Id. at 625.) This language appears to be dicta since the Court did not need to address the issue of whether intoxication by a substance other than alcohol was covered by the statute after it concluded that the Legislature only intended to proscribe voluntary intoxication. Second, one of the decisions that Koch offers in support of its holding (Ring v. Ring) comes to the opposite conclusion, as discussed above. Finally, the Court in Koch acknowledged and took judicial notice that the intent of the Legislature when it enacted this law was "to relieve persons on the highway of the menace of automobile drivers intoxicated by alcoholic beverages." (Koch, supra at 624.) Yet, the Court disregarded this finding and extended the meaning of the word intoxication to the state produced by "other intoxicant agents."