After plodding through this long thread I am surprised that nobody seems to have remarked on the oddity of relatively untrained people - whether airline or TSA or XYZ - being able to start a situation like this because they "smell alcohol" or somesuch.
As one with more than a little experience smelling alcohol, I can tell you it isn't all that easy. I would bet that nine out of ten untrained people who think they're smelling alcohol are really triggering on some other familiar smell they associate with alcohol consumption... perhaps the unmistakable malty smell of beer, the fruity or vinegary smells of wine, or the volaitile hydrocarbon smells of just about any liquid that will burn with the touch of a match. Some of these latter ones can be produced by the body of relatively healthy persons who are in a strange place metabolically speaking - ketones and acetone being two very common substances, each smelling somewhat illicit on the breath, which the body manufactures on its own initiative. At least some breath analysis machines will surely be fooled by these as well. This is where a blood test - with multiple samples taken and tested at two or more different labs - can save the reputation of an individual unfairly accused.
My point is this: if people have not gone through a formal training course in discriminating alcohol smells from others, then they should not be allowed to put forward such accusations - and any person should expect to be held fully liable if they venture to do so without proper training.
Wino -- I believe the problem with Melatonin is not that it does not work.. but that it eventually decomposes into Seretonin, a feel-good hormone that might conceivably render the crew member insufficiently nervouus and wrought-up.