> I was clearly talking about whether or not any of the present
> prevention and deterrence efforts are likely to work well,
> much less likely to work in a way that fits any of our politics.
To the extent that this is not an 'experiment' per se, there has been a dramatic decrease in crashes (and thus injury/death) due to DUI in the past 20 years; in many places DUI has been replaced by driving-while-drowsy as the number one cause of accidents. Is that due to the efforts -- enforcement, education, awareness -- or something else? Who can say, authoritatively?
> The parallel is clearly the war on drugs, radically misconceived,
> massively expensive and quite a failure.
There's a pretty big "but" on that parallel: sales of alcohol are legal-and-regulated in ways that can help the above efforts, while illegal drugs continue to only benefit black markets and criminals. There are huge portions of the so-called war on drugs that simply aren't present in the let's-call-it war on DUI.
A parallel? Maybe not so much.
/jordan