INTRODUCTION
A wave of religious revivalism swept over the United States in the 1820s and 1830s which led to increased calls for temperance and other perfection movements like abolition of slavery. By the turn of the century, women played a huge role in the temperance which occurred in 1920s and 1930s. In the temperament, alcohol was seen as destructive force in families and marriages and the source of all evil (Behr, 46, 1979). A new wave which was led by Anti-Saloon League attacked the sale of liquor. The attack was driven by a reaction to urban growth together with the rise of evangelical Protestantism and its view of saloon culture as corrupt and ungodly. Additionally, there was support from factory owners as they desired to prevent accidents and increase the efficiency of their workers in the period of increased industrial production and extended working hours.
The question that we ask ourselves is should drinking alcohol be illegal? This question is can be well addressed by looking back in the 1920s and 1933 when the government passed a law that banned the manufacture, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquor. The amendment received a nationwide acceptance within the first eleven months despite the seven year period stipulated by the government. The National Prohibition Act was passed in October 1919 by the congress and provided guidelines for the federal enforcement of Prohibition. After the enactment of the act, it was noticed that alcohol consumption fell sharply at the beginning of the prohibition period by approximately thirty percent. The alcohol consumption then increased by about sixty to seventy percent in the next several years and then remained the same till the end of the prohibition era. How did the prohibition affect America?
According to Abraham Lincoln said that prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason and it attempts to control a man’s appetite by law and makes felony out of things that are not illegal. Prohibition caused a high rate of law breakage because many people were engaged in unlawful acts making the large population be on the opposite side of the law which was a sign of disrespect of the American law. The prohibition law made people sees it as unimportant and fanciful instead of a good and protective law. The law did not encourage people to respect and be obedient to its requirement.
It made people lose respect for religion since the law was advocated and pioneered by the evangelists. Religious activists saw alcohol as the devil behind family and marriage breakage and they strongly addressed the issue using their holy book to prove how God demanded total abstinence from alcohol. The Christians believed that if the consumption of alcohol was banned, God would bless America. Contrary to the expectation of the majority, alcohol prohibition increased it consumption, immorality, organized crime and corruption. The failure to realize the promises that the evangelicals had promised saw majority lack faith in the Christian teachings.
The prohibition act encouraged crime. The prohibition era fostered the rise of criminal gangs and criminal activities associated with bootlegging. A good example is the Chicago based gang star called Al Capone who earned around $ 60 million each year from the bootleg operation and speakeasies. These illegal operations encouraged the formation of gang violence. For example the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929 in Chicago criminals dressed as policemen shot and killed men of an enemy gang (Behr, 89, 1996).
The organized gangs had a lot of money and influence. The gangs used these influence to take advantages of the police officers and politician in order to execute the plans. The gangs would use bribe or blackmail to ensure their plans went through. If the group could not afford to bribe or blackmail a politician, they would strategize on how to finish the individual political. Their tactic would include sponsoring a candidate who agreed to their terms and conditions. Consequently, the group would fund the candidate campaigns and ensure they won the seat. This created a class of politicians who were selfish and had no interest of the public at heart but rather sort their individual success. These politicians were open to the gang that offered the highest bid and therefore their actions and political decisions would be influenced by the gangs decisions that jeopardizing the government policies and causing people to distrust the government.
The prohibition was a burden to the police the courts and the penal system. The prohibition of alcohol meant that the police force had an extra work of arresting and investigating alcohol related cases. The judicial system was also over burden with the many cases that were presented that involved the prohibition act (Coffey, 243, 1975). The penal system was stretched to the maximum; the prisons could not accommodate all offenders. The legal system was so occupied with prohibition related cases and it is estimated that in 1923, the U.S district attorney spent 44% of their time dealing with prohibition related cases. This diverted the purpose of the police force in maintaining security and protecting the public rather than spend their time on investigations or in the courts.
Prohibition affected the people emotionally, financially, and morally. The prohibition of alcohol meant that the alcohol producing factories and the whole industry was to be closed. The closure of the industry left thousands of people who were employed in the industry jobless (Behr, 145, 1996). As a result, they had to look for low-paying job or using other unlawful methods of gaining source of livelihood. This caused a financial problem in the families and increased the rate of crime. The lack of income caused emotional harm to the victims and their families. The disruption of the income source was traumatic and to cope with the situation led to some being involved in criminal activities.
In reality prohibition changed the drinking habit of the United States to the worst. When the Act was enacted, there was reported decline in alcohol consumption. However, the trend changed and increased from a declined 30% to a reported 70 % at the end of the prohibition. The drinking habit changed in that instead of people going to the bars to drink, they took the alcohol from home. This led to the establishment of the house bars. The availability of liquor became easy due to the smuggling which made it cheaper and many people could afford; therefore the rate of consumption went up (Engelmann, 136, 1979). The liquor that was easily smuggled was hard liquor. People went to drink away from home to get drunk since they would not be seen with a bottle of alcohol. Additional to alcohol prohibition was cigarette ban by many states, however, by 1930 they were legalized and many people embarked on smoking as it was seen as fashionable and as a sign of rebellion.
The prohibition of alcohol in the United States made it difficult for people with drinking problems are alcohol related ailment to seek medication as it would lead them to being arrested and taken to court. The law was such that you were either always sober or a drunkard which contributed to being a law breaker or a criminal. The evangelists advocated for the Act hoping that the law would reduce social evils such as crime and family breakage and other forms of immorality. On the contrary, the prohibition increased the level of crime and immorality. With the prohibition law men and women started drinking together. Women started sleeping with men for drinks and this only worsened the immorality situation in the states. The whole idea was expensive to the government. First, it used a lot of resources in applying the law such as the judicial system and second it lost a lot of revenue in terms of taxes lost due to the lay off in the alcohol industry.
PROHIBITION
Prohibition led to a policy lessons in National Alcohol Prohibition in United States between the years 1920 to 1933. Act of Congress ban nationwide the sale, importation, production and transportation of alcoholic beverages. The dry movement was led by rural Protestants in the political parties that are Democratic and Republican parties. The program was coordinated by Anti-Saloon League (Friedman & Milton, 53, 1991)
This led to mandating of prohibition under the eighteenth Amendment to the United States constitution. Therefore the legislation was enabled to set down rules that enforces the ban and defined the types of alcoholic beverages that were prohibited. However private ownership and consumption of alcohol was not legalized under the law (Levine, Harry and Craig, 10, 1991). Pietistic churches aimed and set objectives that would help them to end alcohol consumption.
Prohibition represents one in all the foremost dramatic policy experiments in United States history, with implications for a broad vary of economic, historical, and political problems. This outline has targeted narrowly on the foremost basic economic effects of Prohibition. The analysis shows that the proof is in line with the predictions of normal theory regarding the consequences of prohibitions.
EFFECTS OF PROHIBITION
There were positive impacts of alcohol prohibition in early 1920. Positive impacts were enhanced once liquor licenses were revoked. In real sense, prohibition was a success if only for the fact that it took years after revoke before consumption rates reached those of pre-prohibition. Creation of education campaigns facilitated and contributed to the result of positive impacts of alcohol prohibition. It was believed that rise of speakeasy, rum-runner, and bootleggers among other gangsters myths were associated with alcohol consumption therefore the need to fight alcohol resulted to an existence of peace, love and harmony.
Over several decades there has been an important change in the international burden of disease towards choice related diseases such as alcohol addiction and it’s over consumption. Addictive consumption causes hindrance to necessities such as food and shelter therefore creating acute consequences for the welfare of other individual in the household. It creates a burden on limited health resources focused on fighting communicable diseases and under nutrition that finally causes death. Alcoholism was considered as a disease as stated above excessive consumption leads to health problems and becomes a threat to family members. Therefore the prohibition favored family members and lowers death rate in the country hence increasing man power (Friedman & Milton, 59, 1991)
The most direct and effective effects of prohibition was on the supply and demand for alcohol commodities. Prohibition raised the supply costs since the black market suppliers faced legal punishment for manufacturing, selling or distributing of alcoholic beverage. Black market suppliers face low marginal costs of avoiding government regulations and taxes which provides a partial offset to the increased costs due to prohibition (Levine, Harry and Craig, 34, 1991). Legal penalties for possession were used reduce demand of alcoholic beverage therefore increasing uncertainty about product quality. The federal government earns income due to this taxes and penalties from the violated laws and regulations.
The fact that cirrhosis of the liver was well lower on the average throughout Prohibition than before or when would possibly recommend that Prohibition compete a considerable role in reducing cirrhosis of the liver, however any examination suggests this conclusion is premature. First, there are substantial fluctuations in cirrhosis of the liver outside the Prohibition amount, indicating that different factors area unit necessary determinants and should be accounted for in analyzing whether or not Prohibition caused the low level of cirrhosis of the liver throughout Prohibition. Second, there's no obvious jump in cirrhosis of the liver upon repeal. This reality doesn't prove that Prohibition had no result, since the lags between consumption and cirrhosis of the liver mean the result of raised consumption may not have shown up directly. Third, cirrhosis of the liver began declining from its pre-1920 peak by as early as 1908, and it had already earned its lowest level over the sample in 1920, the year within which constitutional prohibition took result.
This last reality is that the most problematic for the claim that Prohibition reduced alcohol consumption. One attainable rationalization for the massive pre-1920 decline in cirrhosis of the liver is that state prohibition laws were turning into more and more widespread throughout the 1910-1920 periods. There was usage of state-level knowledge however, to indicate the declines in cirrhosis of the liver throughout this era were generally as massive or larger in wet states as in states that adopted prohibition laws. A lot of formally, they estimate fixed-effects regression exploitation state-level cirrhosis of the liver knowledge to indicate that, once mixture effects area unit accounted for, there's very little result of state prohibitions on cirrhosis of the liver (Friedman & Milton, 67, 1991).
Most accidents are associated with driving while under influences of excessive consumption of alcohol. The problem has become a threat in the safety of the community it seems to be increasing day by day therefore the prohibition was a way to conquer this animal. Road accidents always leave impacts that become great problem to the family and the government. Accidents increase orphan numbers. High rate charges were set upon violators of the law and prohibition resulted to reduction of accidents. On the other hand Alcohol upturns aggressive behavior in some people and plays a large part in community violence and family violence. However due to prohibition there were no more domestic violence, accidents and community as there before (Levine, Harry and Craig, 43, 1991).
Drinking alcohol during pregnancy condition is not suggested for mother or kid. Though, some ladies say that their doctors allowed them to drink a glass of wine. Abusing alcohol while woman is pregnant additionally may probably cause issues for the baby. In step with the National Center for Biotechnology information, there is no harmless level of alcohol has been resolute for pregnant ladies. Fetal alcohol syndrome may be a condition that affects newborns. This syndrome usually creates long disabilities, as well as learning disabilities, physical problems, and behavior issues. Therefore the prohibition of alcohol beverage minimizes such risk thus enabling safe of unborn and the mother and prolonging their lives (Friedman & Milton, 65, 1991).
Alcohol prohibition reduces poverty among the society for instance alcohol consumption result in poverty. Most families suffer financially from the excessive quantity of cash wont to purchase alcohol and a rise in medical and legal expenses, lower wages and lost employment. The number spent on alcohol and its effects would possibly exceed a family's financial gain, so reducing the number of resources accessible to run and support a family and social unit. The economic result of alcohol on families is severe but prohibition corrects the issue and balance lifestyle in many families.
Works Cited
Behr, Edward. Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America. New York: Arcade Pub, 1996. Print.
Coffey, Thomas M. The Long Thirst: Prohibition in America, 1920-1933. New York: Norton, 1975. Print.
Engelmann, Larry. Intemperance, the Lost War against Liquor. New York: Free Press, 1979. Print.
Friedman, Milton. “The War We Are Losing.” In Searching for Alternatives: Drug-Control Policy in the United States, edited by M. B. Krauss and E. P. Lazear, 53-67. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 1991.
Levine, Harry G. and Craig Reinarman. “From Prohibition to Regulation: Lessons from Alcohol Policy for Drug Policy.” The Milbank Quarterly 69 (1991): 1-43.
Miron, Jeffrey A. “The Effect of Alcohol Prohibition on Alcohol Consumption.” NBER Working Paper No. 7130, 1997.
