Positive And Negative Effects Of Prohibition

Any type of movement in a country has supporters and opposers. There will always be the people who are completely supporting the movement because of all of the possible positive outcomes, and there are those who are completely against the movement because of all of the possible negative outcomes. What these extremists fail to realize is that there are both positive and negative effects of almost everything. This includes a movement that has been in many countries over time: Prohibition. Prohibition seems to work in some places for some time, but it also can be a hindrance to some places and cause other issues. Prohibition isn’t only good or only bad, but should be determined a success or failure on a case by case basis because no two cultures

A reason that Prohibition has various effects on different places is due to the respective cultures. This can be seen across the world and even within different locations within one country or culture. One example is of the Native Americans. Before Europeans came to North America, the Native Americans were never exposed to alcohol’s serious effects. They had no role models for appropriate drinking besides the foreigners who drank with “few cultural guidelines” (Frank et al, 136). Frank, Moore, and Ames argue that Native Americans learned to drink from Europeans when they came to North America (135). The authors note that not long after exposure to the drink, the majority of Native Americans “developed significant risks for socially and physically harmful alcohol use” (137). One could point out that before contact with Europeans, Native Americans “achieved altered mind states” through different means, like fasting or sleep deprivation, but these situations occurred during controlled religious and social gatherings. There were many “traumatic deaths” among the Natives and Whites because of

One may argue that bootleggers committed illegal acts (to be discussed later), but it can also be argued that prohibition helped shape these young men into businessmen for the betterment of society later on. During Prohibition, people began smuggling in alcohol and dispersed it throughout their area for profit. These people are known as “bootleggers.” These people were typically poor, young men who have nothing to lose. The bootleggers would team up with other bootleggers to create partnerships. Eventually, they “learned to pool their resources because this minimized risks and maximized their ability to mobilize capital, influence, and managerial skills” (Haller, 81). After Prohibition ended, these bootleggers went into the business industry because of the skills they learned during Prohibition and became successful. This also led to the creation of Las Vegas and the gambling scene. Haller includes on page 80, “Without ex-bootleggers to found and staff the first generation of hotel casinos, Las Vegas might not have been possible.” People fled to this area and “reached a population of 464,000 by the census of 1980” (80). With more people concentrated into one area, this requires jobs to be filled. This being said, Prohibition can be considered to be positive by training men to become business men later on, and also led to the creation of jobs and a city that is