The New Temperance Movement

As we have learned all too well of late, it is hard to keep a bad idea down. The Trump administration turned to tariffs, New York City elected a socialist, and prohibitionism is again on the march — if in a somewhat more, so to speak, watered-down form thanks to lingering memories of the 18th Amendment’s grim reign.

Somewhat. Forty years ago, Candace Lightner and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), the organization she founded, went their separate ways. This was, in part, Lightner said, because of MADD’s “neoprohibitionist” direction. Lightner had started the group not “to deal with alcohol” but “to deal with the issue of drunk driving.”