Prohibition: The Ignoble Experiment The 18 th Amendment, considered to be one of the biggest follies of the nation, was brought about with the intent to sincerely help the U. S. , but more harm came from it than good. Prohibition, also known as the 18 th Amendment, was ratified on January 29 th, 1920 and was repealed on December 5 th, 1933 with the ratification of the 21 st Amendment which nullified prohibition. The 18 th Amendment stated that it was illegal to manufacture, transport, and sell alcoholic beverages in the United States. ‘The national prohibition of alcohol was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America’ (Thornton 70).
This was a very good idea, but America went about it the wrong way. We, instead, created even more problems such as organized crime, increased alcohol consumption, over crowded prison systems, and the uprise of the Mafia. Not only was this a step in the wrong direction, it was an action that increased the problems that America was already facing. People believed that prohibition would fail and that it was a violation of a person’s privacy while other people thought that prohibition would do nothing but improve America.
People who were against prohibition were called wets and people for it were called drys. Wets mainly consisted of democrats who refused to stop drinking and who were usually older men or immigrants who drank all their life. The drys were usually republican Protestants who believed alcohol was evil and that prohibition was the answer to societies problems. Well, the drys were wrong because many problems surfaced as a result of prohibition. One problem was the increase of alcohol consumption. alcohol consumption did go down at the beginning of prohibition, but subsequently went back up.
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Alcohol became more dangerous to consume and crime burgeoned and became ^3 organized’. The courts and prison systems became over crowded resulting in a full blown war on alcohol which costed the government millions of dollars. Political officials began to want a piece of the action and became corrupt. The prohibition of alcohol also resulted in the removal of significant tax revenues and the increase of government spending.
It also led many drinkers to switch to other drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, opium, patent medicines, and other dangerous substances they would have been unlikely to use otherwise. ^3 Speakeasies’ or illegal saloons, and ^3 bootleggers’ (dealers of alcohol) surfaced all over the U. S. This created crime and corruption everywhere. This alcohol gave it a glamorous and forbidden feel to it which tempted non-drinkers to drink so they could ^3 experience the forbiddance of alcohol’. This drastically increased the alcohol consumption rate higher than it was before prohibition was ratified.’ Prohibition did not achieve its goals.
Instead, it added to the problems it was intended to solve and supplanted other ways of addressing them’ (Thornton 73).
The only beneficiaries of prohibition were bootleggers, crime bosses, and the forces of the big government. When prohibition was nullified in 1933, crime dramatically went down, including organized crime, and corruption. Jobs were created, and new voluntary efforts, such as alcoholics anonymous, which was created in 1934, succeeded in helping alcoholics. Prohibition was also used in several other countries such as Finland in 1919 with minimal results. Society needs to open their eyes and not let history repeat itself.
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Prohibition is obviously not the way.
