Saturday, January 21, 2012
MADD invades Canada as ideological neo-prohibitionists in its anti - DUI / anti - drunk driving campaigns, say attorneys & thinkers
Canada's new crime crusade is against DUI or drunk driving, thanks to MADD and breath test estimating gadgets, lawyers believe.
MADD shows again why it's considered probably the most influential interest group in the country as ideological neo-prohibitionists.
In crazed movements, extremists and fanatics often lead the way.
The breath test estimator gave police a relatively non-invasive test purportedly providing results to determine one's BAC.
A BAC or blood-alcohol content of .10% means that 0.10 (one 10th of one per cent) of a person's blood, by volume, is alcohol. In both the US and Canada, the legal limit is 0.08.
Contrary to what MADD suggests, though, this is not the equivalent of fingerprints or DNA. It is controvertible evidence as there are many scientific, physiological and other test issues not always mentioned by MADD
MADD was founded in 1980 in California by Candice Lighter after her 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver.
In Canada, local activities are carried out by MADD chapters in approximately 100 communities across the country.
MADD has now become neo-prohibitionist. This refers to the belief that the influence of alcohol should be reduced through laws and policies that further restrict the sale and possession of alcohol to reduce consumption.
In other words, they have become the modern version of an old Protestant-based organization, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Founded in Cleveland in 1874, the purpose of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was to create a "sober and pure world" by abstinence, purity and evangelical Christianity. The group was instrumental in bringing about prohibition in the United States in 1919.
The law resulted in the criminalization of producers, suppliers, transporters and consumers of alcohol and allowed gangsters like Al Capone to flourish. It was repealed in 1933.
In 1885, Letitia Youmans founded the Canadian arm of the organization. In 1898, a federal referendum on prohibition was held, receiving 51.3 per cent for and 48.7 per cent against prohibition.
Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier chose not to move forward. As a result, Canadian prohibition was instead enacted through laws passed by individual provinces during the first 20 years of the 20th century. However, between 1920 and 1925, five provinces voted to repeal prohibition - though Prince Edward Is-land stayed dry until 1948.
But we now have a wave of neo-prohibitionism. While the Criminal Code sets the legal limit of alcohol in the blood at .08, most provinces have created a le-gal grey area, where drivers with a blood-alcohol level above .05 can be fined or lose their licence.
In Ontario, for example, drivers with a level between .05 and .08 face a three-day roadside suspension the first time they're caught, which increases to one month for people who break the rules a third time. Alberta has recently passed a similar bill.
Such laws, which allow police to make roadside DUI stops and test people at random - even those who do not appear drunk - will make it almost impossible to have more than a glass of wine at a party or restaurant. If you do not carry breath-alyzers around with you, why risk losing your license?
In light of the prism of previous crusades. McCarthyism, like MADD, identified a real evil, in the one case, communism, in the other, excessive use of alcohol. But both eventually went too far.
It was one thing during the Cold War to expose a Soviet agent or spy, another to fire from a job some movie actor or teacher who had long ago belonged to a communist front group. There were no degrees of culpability. Informing on people was encouraged. And many a target com-mitted suicide or ended up working as a janitor or clerk for the rest of his or her life.
Today, Canada & the US attempt no longer distinguish between a reckless drunk barrelling down a major thoroughfare at two o'clock in the morning and crashing into a tree, and someone who had slightly more to drink in a restaurant than is legal, and backed into a parked car in a shopping lot at 6: 30 in the evening.
Both are stand to lose their jobs. Both may go to jail. MADD has fuzzied the line.
MADD shows again why it's considered probably the most influential interest group in the country as ideological neo-prohibitionists.
In crazed movements, extremists and fanatics often lead the way.
The breath test estimator gave police a relatively non-invasive test purportedly providing results to determine one's BAC.
A BAC or blood-alcohol content of .10% means that 0.10 (one 10th of one per cent) of a person's blood, by volume, is alcohol. In both the US and Canada, the legal limit is 0.08.
Contrary to what MADD suggests, though, this is not the equivalent of fingerprints or DNA. It is controvertible evidence as there are many scientific, physiological and other test issues not always mentioned by MADD
MADD was founded in 1980 in California by Candice Lighter after her 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver.
In Canada, local activities are carried out by MADD chapters in approximately 100 communities across the country.
MADD has now become neo-prohibitionist. This refers to the belief that the influence of alcohol should be reduced through laws and policies that further restrict the sale and possession of alcohol to reduce consumption.
In other words, they have become the modern version of an old Protestant-based organization, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Founded in Cleveland in 1874, the purpose of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was to create a "sober and pure world" by abstinence, purity and evangelical Christianity. The group was instrumental in bringing about prohibition in the United States in 1919.
The law resulted in the criminalization of producers, suppliers, transporters and consumers of alcohol and allowed gangsters like Al Capone to flourish. It was repealed in 1933.
In 1885, Letitia Youmans founded the Canadian arm of the organization. In 1898, a federal referendum on prohibition was held, receiving 51.3 per cent for and 48.7 per cent against prohibition.
Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier chose not to move forward. As a result, Canadian prohibition was instead enacted through laws passed by individual provinces during the first 20 years of the 20th century. However, between 1920 and 1925, five provinces voted to repeal prohibition - though Prince Edward Is-land stayed dry until 1948.
But we now have a wave of neo-prohibitionism. While the Criminal Code sets the legal limit of alcohol in the blood at .08, most provinces have created a le-gal grey area, where drivers with a blood-alcohol level above .05 can be fined or lose their licence.
In Ontario, for example, drivers with a level between .05 and .08 face a three-day roadside suspension the first time they're caught, which increases to one month for people who break the rules a third time. Alberta has recently passed a similar bill.
Such laws, which allow police to make roadside DUI stops and test people at random - even those who do not appear drunk - will make it almost impossible to have more than a glass of wine at a party or restaurant. If you do not carry breath-alyzers around with you, why risk losing your license?
In light of the prism of previous crusades. McCarthyism, like MADD, identified a real evil, in the one case, communism, in the other, excessive use of alcohol. But both eventually went too far.
It was one thing during the Cold War to expose a Soviet agent or spy, another to fire from a job some movie actor or teacher who had long ago belonged to a communist front group. There were no degrees of culpability. Informing on people was encouraged. And many a target com-mitted suicide or ended up working as a janitor or clerk for the rest of his or her life.
Today, Canada & the US attempt no longer distinguish between a reckless drunk barrelling down a major thoroughfare at two o'clock in the morning and crashing into a tree, and someone who had slightly more to drink in a restaurant than is legal, and backed into a parked car in a shopping lot at 6: 30 in the evening.
Both are stand to lose their jobs. Both may go to jail. MADD has fuzzied the line.
# posted by SanDiegoDUI @ 11:33 AM 
| This website & linked blog is made available by this law firm for general information purposes only and to provide a general understanding of the law, not to provide legal advice. Readers of this website/blog are cautioned that reading the website/blog does not create a lawyer-client relationship between the reader and this law firm. |
