Jason started a new thread about conservatives against MADD in the NYRA Forums quoting an article on the National Review Online that quotes a column on FoxNews.com written by Radley Balko who works for the Cato Institute and maintains a blog called the Agitator.

Whew, anyways, I am intrigued. Radley’s column has a pretty good critique of MADD’s actions over the last 15 years or so, and accuses them of leading a neo-prohibitionist movement:

On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, perhaps its time Congress revisit the spigot of federal funding flowing to MADD, and consider revoking the organization’s tax-exempt status. Clearly, MADD isn’t the same organization it was 25 years ago. It has morphed into an anti-alcohol lobbying organization.

He says many other tender, loving things about my favorite enemy, and I’m glad to hear other folks speaking out against Mother’s Against Drunk Driving. I was a bit dismayed to see him attack the .08 BAC but not mention anything about lowering the drinking age. As I look over the Cato page I recall that Radley wrote a great piece for the Washington Post about underage drinking back in August that I read and enjoyed.

I did some digging at that point too, and found a study he wrote for Cato called Back Door to Prohibition: The New War on Social Drinking. After really digging his Post column and reading through his study, I sent him an e-mail:

I read your article in the Washington Post about zero tolerance for underage drinking. I’m glad to see more people speaking out on this issue. We seem to be of one mind. I see that you’ve written on other areas of our current alcohol policy, but in your study I didn’t see any mention of the drinking age.

I’m wondering what research, if any, you’ve done on the drinking age issue, and whether you have come across this study that refutes the claim by MADD and NHTSA that raising the drinking age saved 18,000 lives.

There are a few others like it, which it cites, this one seems to be the best, and most recent.

He never responded, that makes me a sad panda.

But, as I’ve come across his anti-MADD work once more, and since I’ve now discovered his blog, I feel he can’t escape me forever. Perhaps some juicy trackbacks will lure him in to my sordid youth rights web.

His blog, btw, is a pretty good read. Not a casual MADD critic, he takes a genuine delight in bashing everyone’s favorite bunch of prohibitionist nannies. He writes a lot on his blog, but on his front page alone he has posts about MADD hypocrisy about underage drinking, MADD arresting drinkers (no where near cars), and his Fox News column blasting MADD (with some additional links that are interesting too). Good stuff, all of it, check it out. Three anti-MADD posts just in the last week makes for a mighty fine track record in my opinion.

Now if only he would respond to e-mail, he seems like a great ally to have indeed. I’ll take another stab at contacting him, though hopefully he will spot this entry, realize I spit hot fire, and go searching for that long forgotten e-mail I sent back in August he accidentally overlooked and send me off a response.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 12th, 2005 at 5:35 pm and is filed under Youth Rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.