Arguments Against Prohibition

Thomas Jordan Jarvis once said, “ We have seen the evil of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors in our midst; let's try prohibition and see what this will do for us”. Prohibition is the prevention by law of the manufacture and sale of alcohol. “In 1917, after the United States entered World War I, President Woodrow Wilson instituted a temporary wartime prohibition in order to save grain for producing food. That same year, Congress submitted the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacture, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors, for state endorsement” (History.com Staff, 2009)( 18th Amendent). When the law was first enacted there was some success, less people were arrested for being drunk and the percent of people that

consumed alcohol decreased. Later, both federal and local government struggled to enforce Prohibition over the course of the 1920s. There were people who still wanted to keep drinking and they found ways to do so. The illegal manufacturing and sale of liquor, known as bootlegging, went on throughout the decade, along with the operation of speakeasies, which were stores or nightclubs that sold alcohol. “Then there was the smuggling of alcohol across state lines and the informal production of liquor moonshine or bathtub gin in private homes” (History.com Staff, 2009).
In addition, even the liquor was banned, there were still ways of getting it legally. Whiskey could be acquired by medicine from therapeutic specialists. The names unmistakably cautioned that it was entirely for therapeutic purposes and whatever other uses were unlawful, yet even so specialists uninhibitedly composed remedies and medication stores filled them without inquiry, so the quantity of "patients" expanded significantly. No endeavor was done to stop this practice, such a variety of individuals got their alcohol along these lines. Over a million gallons were expended every year through uninhibited given medicines. Since Prohibition banned just the assembling, deal, and transport, not ownership or devouring of liquor, a few individuals and foundations who had purchased or made alcohol preceding the section of the eighteenth Amendment had the capacity to keep on serving it all through the prohibition era legally.
Furthermore, the Prohibition era empowered the ascent of criminal movement connected with bootlegging and raised the rate of criminal activity.

“On the one side was a rising tide of professional criminals, made richer and bolder by Prohibition, which had turned the nation “dry” in 1920. In one big city alone— Chicago—an estimated 1,300 gangs had spread like a deadly virus by the mid-1920s” (“The FBI and the American Gangster, 1924-1938”, n.d.). This quote shows that the prohibition era made criminals richer by the illegal sell of alcohol. Since criminals, such as gangs, were getting money for the illegal selling of alcohol, many gangs started to join the business of bootlegging. Competition became a big thing among the gangs, which was one of the causes to why the crime rates went up. In the following quote, it address the crime activity that occurred during the prohibition

era:

There was no easy cure.

With wallets bursting from bootlegging profits, gangs outfitted themselves with “Tommy” guns and operated with impunity by paying off politicians and police alike. Rival gangs led by the powerful Al “Scarface” Capone and the hot-headed George “Bugs” Moran turned the city streets into a virtual war zone with their gangland clashes. By 1926, more than 12,000 murders were taking place every year across America (“The FBI and the American Gangster, 1924-1938”,

n.d.).

Moreover, many citizens did obtain alcohol illegally, but many just wanted to end the law. Every passing year the number of repeal organizations and demand for repeal increased. “In 1932, the Democratic Party's platform included a promise to repeal Prohibition, and Franklin Roosevelt ran for President promising to repeal of federal Prohibition laws. By then, an estimated three quarters of American voters, and an estimated forty-six states, favored repeal” (History.com Staff, 2009). In 1933, the legislatures of the states ratified the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed Amendment XVIII and prohibited only the violations of laws that individual states had in regard to "intoxicating liquors". Federal Prohibitionary laws were then repealed. Some States, however, continued Prohibition within their own jurisdictions. Almost two-thirds of the states adopted some form of local option which enabled residents to vote for or against local Prohibition; therefore, for a time, 38% of Americans still lived in areas with Prohibition. By 1966, however, all states had fully repealed their state-level Prohibition laws.