Essay on The Backlash of Prohibition - 801 Words

Although the temperance movement was concerned with the habitual drunk, its primary goal was total abstinence and the elimination of liquor. With the ratification of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, the well-organized and powerful political organizations, utilizing no holds barred political tactics, successfully accomplished their goal. Prohibition became the law of the land on January 16, 1920; the manufacturing, importation, and sale of alcohol was no longer legal in the United States. Through prohibition, America embarked on what became labeled â€Å"the Nobel Experiment.† However, instead of having social redeeming values as ordained, prohibition had the opposite effect of its intended purpose, becoming a catastrophic failure.†¦show more content†¦Unlike salons, the speakeasies welcomed women and the women came, thus creating additional customers for alcohol. The speakeasies needed a steady supply of alcoholic beverages, and with no breweries or distillers to supply them, organized crime stepped in to fill the void. Hence, by alcohol becoming illegal, a free market no longer existed, which lead to a restraint of trade. As most, black-market offerings. Illegal liquor offered huge profits as well as heated competition. As with almost all black market offerings, illegal liquor generated huge profits and heated competition. As example, gangsters such as Al Capon gunned down their competition, thus enabling them to have a monopoly on liquor sales. (three changes are needed). In actuality, many gangsters died while defending free enterprise. Capone, once his competition was eliminated, could set the prices as high as he wished since there was no competition in Chicago. In one year, Al Capon made Sixty million dollars in liquor sales alone due to outrageously inflated alcohol prices. With capacious amounts of money earned through the sale of illegal liquor. Capone managed to bribe judges, police, and the important politicians of Chicago. Re portedly, eighty to ninety percent of the city’s police force was on his payroll. Corruption of public officials ran rampant. For example, with the profits Capone earned he was able to insure the electionShow MoreRelatedProhibition in the United States764 Words   |  3 PagesProhibition in the United States was a built up reaction to alcohol and illicit drugs from the Temperance and other religious organizations beginning in the 1840s and intensifying during the Reconstruction Period. By using increasing pressure on legislators, lobbying through Churches and, of course, embarrassing public officials into a stance, these organizations forced the ratification of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in January 1919. This law prohibited the manufacture, sale, orRead More The War on Drugs is Failing Essay1228 Words   |  5 PagesThe War on Drugs is Failing â€Å"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance†¦ for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and make a crime out of things that are not a crime. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principle upon which our government was founded† Abraham Lincoln On January 16, 1920 the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified by thirty-six states and became part of the Constitution. The intentionRead MoreThe Bureau Of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, And Explosives1330 Words   |  6 Pagesalcoholic beverages (1). The prohibition did little to stop people from drinking, instead the masses took to bootlegged alcohol and underground saloons and distilleries (1). The chaos caused by these underground places and the criminals vying for control of the alcohol supply business motivated the government to bolster it s efforts in enforcing the amendment. From 1920 to 1926 dry agents were brought in to enforce the Prohibition Act (1). Eventually this prohibition units of agents was turned intoRead MoreProhibition Of Drugs And Alcohol1492 Words   |  6 PagesPopular belief holds that consumption of drugs and alcohol encourages violence and that the appropriate response is prohibition of these goods. However, a different viewpoint is that prohibition creates illegal underground markets, which require violence and crime to remedy in-house disputes. This paper examines the relationship between prohibition and violence using the historical data and behavior following previous U.S. drug and alcohol laws, regulations, and enforcement on indicators of violenceRead MoreThe Nightmare of Prohibition Essay1690 Words   |  7 Pagesalso known as the National Prohibition Act, determined intoxicating liquor as anything having an alcoholic content of more than 0.5 percent, excluding alcohol used for medicinal and sacramental purposes. The act also set up guidelines for enforcement. Prohibition was meant to reduce the consumption of alcohol, therefore reducing the rates of crime, death rates and poverty (Poholek, 2). However, some of the United States communities had already prepared for Prohibition. In the three months beforeRead MoreA Sociological And Humanistic Perspective1714 Words   |  7 Pageslaw, that is to say, the social environment prece ding the law as as well as societal circumstances and events that culminated to create the right environment for the law to pass. It is also necessary to understand the social reaction and potential backlash to the establishment or proposal of the law in order to explain how it was passed. Additionally, the evolution and current status of the law is to be explained by social factors that may have led to the repeal, replacement, or acceptance of the lawRead MoreProhibition Essay1739 Words   |  7 Pagesalso known as the National Prohibition Act, determined intoxicating liquor as anything having an alcoholic content of more than 0.5 percent, excluding alcohol used for medicinal and sacramental purposes. The act also set up guidelines for enforcement. Prohibition was meant to reduce the consumption of alcohol, therefore reducing the rates of crime, death rates and poverty (Poholek, 2). However, some of the United States communities had already prepared for Prohibition. In the three m onths beforeRead MoreHistory of Drug Laws and Law Enforcement1637 Words   |  7 Pages(Cocaine). These fabrications concerning cocaine steadily became more and more extreme. In fact, many Southern police forces began carrying more powerful weapons because smaller guns were rumored to be unable to kill a black man high on cocaine (Prohibition (drugs)). This widespread moral panic eventually led to the adoption of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Harrison Act of 1914. The Pure Food and Drug Act required that manufacturers must list the amounts of all habit-forming substancesRead MoreThe Repeal Of The National Minimum Drinking Age927 Words   |  4 PagesThe repeal of prohibition by the twenty-first Amendment in December of 1933 allowed for each state to set its own alcohol consumption age. After the passage of the twenty-sixth Amendment, which lowered the national drinking age to eighteen, thirty states had lowered the minimum drinking age to eighteen, nineteen, or twenty (â€Å"Prohibition†). In 1984, the enactment of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act prompted states to raise the legal age for purchase of public possession of alcohol to twenty-oneRead MoreThe War On Drugs And Its Effects On Society1564 Words   |  7 Pages The War on Drugs is a deep-rooted controversial campaign of prohibition and military a id that has been disputed for many years. There are constant debates as to whether there will ever be a viable solution to the problem. However, as we continue to pursue the â€Å"war on drugs,† it has become increasingly evident that â€Å"winning† the war seems to be an impossible task. Drug prohibition and the undertaking of the war on drugs have stirred much controversy over its moral and logical implications. While