Targeting social drinkers is simply MADD

“Groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving have decided to wage war on social drinkers,” writes Fox News columnist Radley Balko in the Los Angeles Times. Balco gives voice to a sentiment we’ve been airing for five years -- that MADD is now a $45 million bureaucracy that has outgrown its original purpose.

Consider the much-discussed and MADD-inspired “sobriety checkpoints” (also known as “roadblocks”). They “do little,” says Balco, “to get dangerous drunks off the road. Rather, they instill fear in people who have a glass of wine with dinner, a beer at a ballgame, or a toast at a retirement party.”

Even more telling, New York Newsday warns that the impending .08 BAC standard “should make casual drinkers even more leery about getting behind the wheel.”