Stop the New Prohibition
In the words of Al Franken, MADD "has turned into the new 'Women's Christian Temperance Union. It has become a quasi-governmental agency bent on eradicating the use and sale of alcohol. '" Violating their tax-exempt status, undermining your rights, and fudging statistics in the pursuit of more funds to further the prohibitionist agenda. These are religious zealots at their worst.
Salaries/benefits for some at this "volunteer" organization are estimated at:
Dean Wilkerson
$311, 919.00
Bobby Heard
$189,489.00
Janice Bloom
$154,248.00
Kyle Ward
$152,619.00
MADD’s activities were originally geared towards legitimate educational and victim support oriented functions. MADD’s political focus was geared towards removing chronic/alcoholic drunk drivers from the nation’s highways. Responsible social drinkers who drove home after a wedding or after good conversation with friends at the neighborhood pub were not targets of MADD’s efforts. To the extent that MADD has worked to support victims and to educate the public about legitimate chronic alcoholic/drunk driving issues it should be commended. Unfortunately, in recent years the national MADD organization and most of it’s local chapters have been taken over by ultra-conservative, anti-alcohol extremists who have adopted a political agenda that threatens the second coming of Prohibition.
Based in Irving Texas, also home to the Boy Scouts of America, MADD headquarters is in a partially dry county. There are 46 dry counties in Texas. MADD is undeterred by the fact that government accident and fatality data clearly show that low BAC "drivers who have had something to drink" do not pose a legitimate threat to public safety. The fact that a sleepy person or a person talking on a cell-phone while driving may be inherently more dangerous than someone who has had two beers to drink appears to be of no concern to MADD. If MADD’s attempts to criminalize low BAC drivers really saved lives it would be one thing. However, all available valid government data indicates that it does not. Even the principal founder of MADD has left the organization, citing a lack of focus on the real public safety issue, that of getting high BAC chronic/alcoholic drunk drivers off the road.
Within a period of two decades, Mothers Against Drunk Driving has degenerated from a public service organization devoted to reducing traffic fatalities into an anti-alcohol bureaucracy largely focused on raising ever more money for itself. Candy Lightner, the founder and first President of MADD says “it has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I ever wanted or envisioned.” She explains “I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving.”