ERIC PETERS says that MADD needs to admit victory:

However, there is no evidence that minimal BAC levels of .06 or less — which are reached after a normal-sized person has had a single drink, no more — correlate with a greater likelihood of having an accident as a result of diminished capacity.

It’s one thing to lock up the person who is weaving all over the road — quite another to arrest a person at a sobriety checkpoint simply because he has trace amounts of alcohol in his blood.

The anti-drunk-driving groups have done a great service in helping to enlighten the general public — and make it socially unacceptable to drive while drunk. But knowing when to say “when” applies just as equally to social and legal policy. Just because we went on a bender in the past doesn’t mean neo-Prohibitionism is the answer today. Reasonable people favor reasonable laws.

And that should satisfy all but the crazies — who should be kept away from the levers of power regardless.

Yes. As I’ve written before, I think that MADD has succumbed to the institutional corruption that afflicts all public-interest groups in time. Promoting the organization — which requires a constant flow of new policy items, regardless of how half-baked — eventually takes over from the goal of actually accomplishing something worthwhile.

Heck, to the extent that they discourage moderate drinking MADD may actually be killing people, rather than saving lives. Is that silly? Sure, but no sillier than some of the things that they say.