You must log in or register to comment.
Prohibition was definitely the wrong way to go about it. It introduced all kinds of problems. I think the aim of ending alcohol consumption is a noble one, but the only way for it to work is for people to want to not drink.
I think restricting the advertisement of alcohol (as stringently as we currently restrict the advertisement of tobacco) would be a huge step in the right direction.
Many places could also use higher alcohol taxes, but there’s a balance to it - if you set it too high, a lot of people will just start making it themselves, which is extremely easy (though making it well is more difficult).
It won’t be the last time either. I mean, look at the War on Drugs.
Explanation: In 1920, the USA passed a Constitutional Amendment - one of the most severe and difficult processes possible in our government, which establishes the highest law of the land, above all other court and legislative processes - to ban alcohol.
… it was such a disaster that, in 1933, we passed another Amendment to repeal the aforementioned Amendment.
… one wonders what the fuck that was all about.
Why did they put prohibition on such a high legal level? It feels like an ordinary law would have been enough for this
-
The temperance movement wanted prohibition to be extremely difficult to repeal. They wanted abstinence from alcohol to be permanently enshrined in the legal and moral fabric of the nation.
-
At the time, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of federal powers was more narrow than today. Any such act of Congress was likely to face an uphill battle because it would be seen as regulating commerce, and such powers were supposed to be left up to the individual states.
-
Read somewhere that America really did have an alcohol problem pre-Prohibtion. Kinda like how we now view Russians. I got the impression that Prohibition somehow changed our drinking culture, dialed it in even after it was lifted. Know anything about that?
Going to give this a read right now:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1f2rdxh/was_alcoholism_that_bad_in_the_us_before/
EDIT: Only one solid response.
America still has an alcohol problem. It may have been worse back then, and it may not be as bad as some other countries today, but still. You can’t convince me there’s anything healthy about the drinking culture surrounding sports, college life, and all manner of special events.
I can only confirm that alcohol abuse was widespread in the early 20th century US. Not sure about the long-term effects of Prohibition.
Severe drinking was huge in many countries with a majority-christian european population at the time. The nordics had to spent considerable effort (state monopoly on alcohol and severe taxes, mostly) to dial it down.
