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Without prohibition, there would not be anywhere near as much organized crime issues as we have now. The people who were involved with the illegal booze did it mainly because of the extreme profits you could make from it and the smaller risk of getting caught, if you were a little smart about it. It was all about the money. When prohibition ended, organized crime was obviously not going to continue dealing with booze when it was now cheaper, legal, and available anywhere. To continue the flow of money that kept it all going, there was alot more focused attention placed on the unions, gambling, drugs, and other things...
As far as people being better off without liquor back then, I think it really had no effect or an extremely small effect. People who drank knew where to get it. The other proof is that when booze became legal again, there was not a mad rush of people to become alcoholics just because they now could...
The number of people drinking went down and that was a good thing. It did eliminate a lot of jobs in the beer business and wiped out a lot of companies which was wrong from an economic stand point.
With the amount of alcohol related crimes and alcohol related "poor choices," I wish alcohol was never invented. Society would be a better place.
Alcohol has been brewed since antiquity going back to at leat 7000 BCE. Alcohol has played a very important role in the growth of civilization and mankind. Until water purification and treatment systems became widespread and effective; drinking water was a good way to kill yourself and countless disease outbreaks were tied to the drinking of contaminated water. People knew that and brewed/fermented drinks became a staple commodity, even for the young. The brewing process eliminated contaminants and gave the product a reasonable stability and shelf-life. In times of famine, beer was one of the main sources of calories for people. Some even go so far as to argue that in the absence of alcohol, there might not even be civilization.
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Originally Posted by MrRational
Good on what basis?
As is the case now the majority of people then had NO PROBLEM with drinking.
The people who *did* have a problem drinking then had deeper problems... and everyone else who wanted a beer or shot were made into criminals.
How is ANY of that "a good thing"?
That's one of the biggest misconceptions of prohibition. It was not illegal to drink alcohol or even own it for personal consumption. The only thing that was illegal was the manufacture, distribution and sale for non-medicinal and religious purposes.
Prohibition had no effect on my family. The got licenses to manufacture their own wine and drank just as much as they did before and after prohibition.
Considering prohibition back in the 1920s: All we hear about is the gansters and speakeasy's and the drinking inspite of the laws against alcohol use. But what about all the people who couldn't get booze and therefore stayed home with their families and maybe bought some food with that booze money to feed their kids. There may have been millions of people like that. In fact I read somewhere a long time ago something to that effect. Of course it wouldn't make news to report that Mr. So and So stayed home and read a book because he couldn't get any booze and didn't want to take the chance at doing something illegal. Bigger news would be Al Capone knocking of rivals in Chicago. In the book 'Only Yesterday' by Frederick Lewis Allen he states that public opinion turned against the prohibitionists but it was because they resented the government telling them what to do when that same government couldn't provide jobs. So it sounded like public opinion against prohibition was because of a government attitude rather than the booze issue itself.
No. It did not work on any level.
It was an attempt to prohibit poor people from partaking in alcohol. The rich continued to consume mass quantities of the stuff at private clubs - "Country Clubs". They still do this today.
It was an attempt to prohibit poor people from partaking in alcohol. The rich continued to consume mass quantities of the stuff at private clubs - "Country Clubs". They still do this today.
I recently read a book about Chicago in 1919. It noted that at the end of prohibition Robert McCormick's alcohol stash that he built up prior to prohibition was estimated to last another 10 years.
It was an attempt to prohibit poor people from partaking in alcohol. The rich continued to consume mass quantities of the stuff at private clubs - "Country Clubs". They still do this today.
I don't know about the distribution of drinking habits today, but you are correct about alcohol consumption shifting during Prohibition. I did a paper on the repeal of Prohibition in college and I recall that my research turned up the fact that during Prohibition total alcohol consumed was nearly the same as it was before Prohibition, but the bootleg prices meant that affordability became a major factor. Rich people actually drank more during Prohibition than they had before, the poor drank less because the cost had become beyond their reach.
With the amount of alcohol related crimes and alcohol related "poor choices," I wish alcohol was never invented. Society would be a better place.
Not really. There are non drinking uses of alcohol. Beer making and bread making go together because the yeast in beer is what is used in bread. While you can make bread without yeast and obtain yeast without beer, the production of beer yields yeast that is then used to make bread and just making yeast will yield alcohol.
Vinegar is what happens when wine or other alcoholic beverages goes bad. Vinegar has lots of uses.
This also created problems because ethanol(the stuff that makes you drunk) has lots of uses and no country could totally stop producing it but that production was ripe to fall into the "wrong hands".
Last edited by chirack; 05-15-2013 at 12:46 AM..
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