Radley Balko is mad about MADD – and he’s right. Just like the anti-smoking crusade has little now to do with health, so MADD, once a valuable response to a real problem, has now let its flirtation with prohibitionism get the better of its original purpose. What a shame.

And while we’re on the topic of destructive legislation, it’s worth repeating what one former university president has had to say about this country’s idiotic minimum drinking age:

“The 21-year-old drinking age is bad social policy and terrible law. It is astonishing that college students have thus far acquiesced in so egregious an abridgment of the age of majority. Unfortunately, this acquiescence has taken the form of binge drinking. Campuses have become, depending on the enthusiasm of local law enforcement, either arms of the law or havens from the law.”

Indeed. And it’s something to remember next time Elizabeth Dole comes up for re-election.