Prohibition Through The Keyhole

A lot of people born long after the Prohibition Era in the United States probably found it hard to believe that the USA has once ventured so far toward becoming a totalitarian state that it passed a law declaring that no one in "America" could thereafter "take a drink". The very idea was just so preposterous to most Americans. And yet it actually happened.

Why it happened was really no mystery. After World War I ended, Americans just couldn’t seem to stop celebrating. In fact, by the end of 1918, so many Americans were drunk and fornicating and committing alcohol-fueled crimes that it stood to reason that somebody just had to do something about it. And, boy, did they ever.

Bolstered by the American Temperance Movement which began in the 1860s and which was on quite a roll ever since then (especially throughout the Bible Belt and in Washington, DC), Congress passed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution on January 16, 1919, virtually outlawing the consumption of alcohol in the United States and penciling Prohibition into the national archives. The 18th Amendment paved the way for the passage of The Volstead Act in October 28, 1919 which was the federal government’s official act of declaring a national Prohibition of alcohol.

Despite a standing federal law against the consumption of alcohol between January 16, 1920 and December 5, 1933, drinkable alcohol was still legally available during that period by certain means and methods. It could be obtained with a medical prescription and many doctors during this era wrote many such prescriptions with reckless abandon. In fact, they wrote so many phony prescriptions that a lot of drug stores that filled these prescriptions for “medicinal alcohol” were shut down by the feds. After all, it was considered one thing to put a crooked druggist out of business and quite another to jail a delinquent sawbones.

During the years of Prohibition, which lasted from 1920 to 1933, it was also permissible to make hard cider and wine at home, in limited quantities, of course. All commercial wineries were forced to sell their wine through government warehouses and then only for use in religious ceremonies. Unh hunh. Right.

During Prohibition more Americans were incarcerated than before the moral right and left took away their beer and whiskey. Gangsters had a lot more to peddle now than games of chance and human flesh. Without Prohibition, bootlegging on a large scale would have never existed in America. In fact, without Prohibition, Al Capone would probably have been only a minor crime figure of that period.

Prohibition in the U.S. was repealed by the 21st Amendment, which turned over the control of alcohol to the states. It is interesting to note that Pennsylvania and Ohio only dared to ratify the 21st Amendment after Utah had done so. Hmmm.

The fact that Prohibition was a monstrous failure in the United States should have come as no surprise to anyone. After all, it was strongly supported by the Ku Klux Klan. What more can be said?