Prohibition

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Prohibition

Excerpt from the Eighteenth Amendment—Prohibition of Intoxicating Liquors

Adopted on January 29, 1919

Reprinted from the Findlaw Web site at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendments18/

Alcohol is the most frequently used drug in the United States. Rum was often present in community gatherings in the early colonial settlements. Concern began to rise over those who drank too much. Laws were passed focusing on alcohol abuse and its disruptive effects on small communities. A call for a ban on alcohol grew throughout the nineteenth century among social workers, clergy, and others part of what were called temperance movements.

By the 1870s organizations such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union crusaded around the nation promoting the prohibition of alcohol. Another key national group, the Anti-Saloon League, joined the fight for prohibition in the 1890s.

Passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution banning the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages came in January 1919. To put the amendment into effect, Congress passed the Volstead Act in October 1919. The act expanded the prohibition to include beer and wine as well as hard liquor and criminalized its possession.

"The manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors . . . for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited."

Things to remember while reading excerpts from the Eighteenth Amendment—Prohibition of Intoxicating Liquors:

Prohibition officially went into effect on January 16, 1920.
Prohibitionists believed enforcement would be easy and inexpensive.
Crime syndicates had previously been organized around gambling, prostitution, and other vices. It readily adapted to the new financial bonanza of bootlegging illegal liquor.
Since the United States did not have a personal income tax until 1915, money from liquor taxes became a primary source of funding for the federal government from 1870 to 1915.

Excerpt from the Eighteenth Amendment—Prohibition of Intoxicating Liquors

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislature of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

What happened next . . .

Prohibition did not curb America's desire to drink alcoholic beverages, but it did create a crime wave including dramatic growth in organized crime. Gangs operated their own alcohol distilleries and paid off local police and politicians to look the other way. In addition, gangsters smuggled (bootlegged) liquor into the United States from Canada and Mexico. With so much bribery and corruption, there was a significant decrease in the respect for law enforcement.

By the late 1920s gangsters had become well established and wealthy. Some gang leaders became millionaires as the cost of drinks rose significantly. The number of saloons increased from some 16,000 before Prohibition to 33,000 speakeasies (illegal drinking places) following the passage of Prohibition.

Overall, Prohibition was a disaster causing many unexpected problems. Besides leading to widespread disrespect for the criminal justice system and creating extremely wealthy criminals, Prohibition cost the lives of many police officers in shootouts with criminals, the deaths of citizens drinking bootlegged alcohol containing poisonous chemicals, thousands of lost jobs in breweries and the wine industry, and massive law enforcement expenses.

By 1930 various organizations opposed to Prohibition joined together to form the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment. Their common goal was to repeal Prohibition. They drafted the Twenty-first Amendment and submitted it to Congress in February 1933 to begin the ratification process.

With the arrival of the Democratic Party to the White House in March 1933 led by Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945; served 1933–45), the failed experiment in Prohibition officially ended. Roosevelt immediately cut government funds for Prohibition enforcement and pressed Congress to pass a bill raising the permissible alcohol content for beverages to begin beer production. The beer act was passed on April 7, 1933. Some two hundred breweries began operation.

The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified on December 5, 1933, and added to the Constitution repealing the Eighteenth Amendment. Caught in the grips of the Great Depression (1929–41), the government desperately needed the tax revenues it could earn from alcohol production and sales, the creation of jobs, and the decreased costs of law enforcement.

Organized crime leaders had to find a new means of making money. They turned to loan-sharking (charging very high interest rates on loans), labor racketeering, and drug trafficking. By the end of the twentieth century drug trafficking, a natural extension of Prohibition, was organized crime's biggest business.

Did you know . . .

Only about one-third of the adult population was willing to abstain from alcohol during Prohibition; instead, drinking became a symbol of independence and sophistication.
In the first few years of Prohibition most illegal alcohol came from private home stills (distilleries, to distill and produce alcohol), while all necessary supplies were easily available at most stores. Organized crime groups, however, eventually took over most production.
Public intoxication remains a crime as well as having an open container of alcohol while in public. Drinking and driving laws have steadily become more severe in enforcement and punishment.
Intoxication cannot be used as a defense in a criminal trial for committing some other crime.

Consider the following . . .

Given the high costs of drug enforcement and the lack of success, some want to end the prohibition on illegal drugs and regulate drugs like alcohol. What would the effects be of such an effort? How would the rate of drug use change? Would organized crime decrease? Would government taxes on drugs be helpful in funding drug treatment programs?
What were the problems law officials faced in enforcing Prohibition? Would there be more effective ways of enforcing it today?
What led the promoters of Prohibition to believe the nation would readily accept the ban? Research the history of your local community in the 1920s. How did it respond to Prohibition?

Concurrent: Jurisdiction by two authorities at the same time.

Ratified: Approved by a required number of states.