Mexico, MADD, and Comics! Friday Round Up

More Death and Violence in Mexico
DMN reports on the escalating drug war in Mexico. Violence is reaching new levels as drug cartels fight for the right to sell drugs to Americans. The headline to the story is promising- As Juárez violence escalates, debate rages on whether Mexico’s drug war is working

However, DMN never actually questions if Mexico should abandon Prohibition. The emphasis is on whether Mexico is doing enough to stop the cartels. With two mass killings in recent days, more than 1,200 people have been killed statewide in drug-related violence this year, according to tallies kept by Mexican media. From DMN, brought to you by the DEA-

With two mass killings in recent days, more than 1,200 people have been killed statewide in drug-related violence this year, according to tallies kept by Mexican media.

Juárez is leading the country in killings, surpassing even Mexico City. More than 850 have been killed in this city of 1.5 million people right across the border from El Paso, including about 150 in the past three weeks.

The state toll makes up more than 40 percent of the nationwide total of 2,700 people killed in drug-related violence this year.

MADD- Lying with numbers….. again
Few entities lie with statistics like MADD. From “alcohol related fatalities” to the benefits of .08 MADD has few scruples against wholesale statistical manipulation, if not outright fraud.

CATO exposes yet another dogmatic belief of MADD- that criminalizing drinking under 21 saves lives. From CATO-

Unfortunately, the neoprohibitionists at Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and elsewhere have already sprung into action in an attempt to squelch any reform-minded opinions. MADD National President Laura Dean-Mooney said in a press release that any discussion of the minimum drinking age “must honor the science behind the 21 law which unequivocally shows that the 21 law has reduced drunk driving and underage and binge drinking.”
Of course, MADD’s preferred “science” ignores a very interesting working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research that shreds the oft-cited correlation between adoption of the Federal Uniform Drinking Age Act (FUDAA), which forced all states to have a minimum drinking age of 21, and a reduction in alcohol-related traffic fatalities.

How could this study’s findings differ so greatly from the research that MADD touts?

The paper, penned by Jeffery A. Miron and Elina Tetelbaum, points out that prior research consistently errs by including states that were unaffected by the law — the 12 states that had adopted a minimum drinking age of 21 long before FUDAA was passed and forced states to do so. Those states — for reasons unrelated to the federal law — experienced a dramatic decrease in alcohol-related traffic fatalities in the 80s and their inclusion in previous studies led many researchers to falsely conclude that the FUDAA was the key factor in the national trend.

That trend, however, began well before the FUDAA was passed in 1984. As the study notes: “[T]he decline began in the year 1969, the year in which several landmark improvements were made in the accident avoidance and crash protection features of passenger cars.” The study also recognizes that medical advances probably deserve a great deal of credit for the reduction.

Just Say No To Music Piracy
A comic strip is being aimed at college students who illegally download music.Here is the story from wired. It’s a sad day when the criminal justice system is used as a protection racket for a dying industry. Rather than innovate the music industry is content to simply arrest their way to profitability.

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