MADD

Today I am going to be educating you a little bit about the drinking age in California and an organization called MADD, which stands for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, that has a valued opinion on the drinking age. Their mission statement is to stop drunk driving, support the victims of violent crimes and prevent underage drinking.

MADD started in 1980 by a lady by the name of Candice Lighter. Candace Lighter's daughter was killed by a drunk driver and it wasn't until she found out that he was under the influence, that she decided to take action. She got together with another mother whose child had been killed by a drunk driver as well, and they decided to let the world know how they felt about this problem. They had big hopes and dreams to stop drunk driving all around the United States and to ensure that more people were not killed.

MADD has made big impacts on this world including making sure the drinking age was 21 and not 18. On July 17, 1984 the law that stated that the drinking age had to be 21 was being put into effect. MADD supports this law and advocates that everyone should wait until the age of 21 before they drink alcohol.

Another important thing that MADD did, was that they helped establish sobriety checkpoints, which is what most of you are familiar with today. If you do not know already, sobriety checkpoints are set in certain places during the middle of the night or very late at night by police or law enforcement making sure no one who is driving is under the influence. These checkpoints helped to keep more drunk drivers off of the streets and not on the streets where they can be dangerous to themselves and others.

MADD has a motivation for everything that they do, and are just trying to prevent more families from going through the same thing that they went through.