I recently read Bill Bryson’s One Summer – America 1927, which includes among many other things, reflections on Prohibition and its idiocies. This prompted me to wonder something, which I hope learned SDMB folk can answer. During the era of Prohibition in the USA: did that law also apply to US territories which were not US states as such – Alaska, Hawaii (not yet states), Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and various smaller places? – or were the inhabitants of those territories allowed to go on legally imbibing? I’m hoping that this is not an utterly foolish question – there were after all, I believe, in the days of the British Empire, assorted variations regarding laws, between the mother country and her sundry overseas dependencies.
In the US, territories were usually subject to US law. Prohibition would have been law in the territories.
It’s possible that the local authorities didn’t work particularly hard in enforcing it, though.
Puerto Rico was subjected to Prohibition, and had to pass territorial statutes to be in compliance. Being a rum producer, and of a Latin/Catholic culture, that was not something enthusiastically embraced. Having at the time large sugarcane plantations, and being surrounded by other rum producing islands a day’s sail away, you may imagine how effective was the enforcement.
Hawaii was originally excluded(1918), having been left to the local government, but was later specifically included(1921). Hawaii had voted against it 3 to 1. Hawaii was also late in adopted its repeal in 1934. Although a prohibition of sorts was reenacted after Pearl Harbor for a couple of years.
Thanks, JRDelirious – and RealityChuck and ouryL. I see how hopeless enforcement attempts would have been in PR; and from the impressions I have of the Philippines, and Filipinos, the feeling is got that attempts to successfully forbid alcoholic intake there, would also have been a lost cause.
The 18th Amendment by its own terms applied to the United States “and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof”. Thus, the Volstead Act could have been enforced in any US territory.
Prohibition was at least nominally enforced in every American territory except the Philippines. You can read discussion of Prohibition in the territories from a 1921 Congressional hearing here:
The Volstead Act was never amended to specifically include the Philippines.
How come Puerto Rico gets to have an 18 drinking age?
An 18 year old drinking age isn’t a specific federal law because the feds do not have the right to set a national drinking age. Instead, they resorted to extortion to get it done. It is only based on federal highway funding which may not apply to Puerto Rico as much as the states. Any state can set an 18 year old drinking age today if they are willing to forgo federal highway funds. Louisiana did it all the way up through the late 1990’s. Even then, it didn’t have to forgo any highway funds because the law was carefully crafted around it (it was perfectly legal to sell to 18 - 20 years olds but technically illegal for them to buy but there was also no penalty for buying either).
None of that was theoretical. I lived in New Orleans well after the supposed 21 year old drinking age was established up until 1995 and it was 100% legal to walk into any bar, restaurant or convenience store and buy as many drinks as you wanted. Louisiana eventually tightened up the drinking age laws in 1997, not because of the feds, but from internal pressure from groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Presumably, other states could do that today if they wanted to badly enough.
Louisiana and I believe Wisconsin still have some forms of legal 18 - 20 year old drinking. Most of it involves private events or having a parent present to order it for them in public places.
In Wisconsin a person under 21 can drink IF they are accompanied by a parent or legal guardian who is over 21, or a spouse who is over 21. In can be in public or private.
And the “legal guardian” must be just that. Being with a family friend or other relative is not enough. You wouldn’t believe how many furnishing cites I’ve written over the years to aunts and uncles.
Texas allows that as well- it’s fine for minors to drink as long as they’re in the ‘visible presence’ of an adult parent, guardian or spouse.
(section 106.04 (b) )
Did Prohibition ban all alcoholic beverages or just hard alcohol such as whiskey, rum, gin, vodka, etc.? Was beer and wine legal? I’ve seen conflicting info on this so am wondering…also, if beer and wine were banned too, were they legal if you made your own at home? I’ve heard that, but you couldn’t make spirits at home, just wine/beer…And is it true Jews and other religious groups were allowed to have, for example, wine because it was used in religious services such as bar mitzvahs, etc…
The Eighteenth Amendment referred only to “intoxicating beverages”. While it was being debated, many assumed that the eventual implementing legislation would ban only hard liquor. As it turned out, however, the Volstead Act banned all beverages of >0.5% alcohol, which of course included beer.
Congress amended the Volstead Act in March 1933 to allow light beer, so light beer was legal under federal law (not necessarily under every state’s laws) during the last eight months of Prohibition. (The 21st Amendment was ratified in December 1933.)
Yes, the Volstead Act exempted sacramental wine. Needless to say, this exemption was widely abused.
The act banned the sale of the product. As noted, you could produce your own at home, so it’s inaccurate to say alcohol was “banned”.
I know sacremental wines were exempted. Gold Seal winery along with some other NY state wineries produced roughly a gazillion gallons of the stuff. Storage was a problem while waiting for the repeal.
Missouri was also a large wine producer [#1 in the 1880s], didn’t go for the sacremental exemption except one location, and faded from significance as a wine producer. Missouri wine - Wikipedia
Given that the Volstead Act was subtitled “An Act to prohibit intoxicating beverages”, I’m quite comfortable in calling it a “ban”.
You could not produce alcohol in your own home for recreational consumption.
To manufacture “as authorized in this Act” you could be manufacturing only for the narrowly drawn sacramental and medicinal exemptions.
and while booze was illegal at this time, marijuana was legal?
Not really. Around the same time as prohibition, Congress passed laws imposing taxes on Marijuana that effectively prohibited its use. Of course, marijuana use wasn’t quite as ubiquitous in American society as it would later become, so its prohibition wasn’t nearly as noticed as the restrictions on alcohol.
Again, not really.
Apparently you mean the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, which was enacted several years after the repeal of Prohibition. I believe there were places in the United States where marijuana remained completely legal until 1937. However, in every state west of the Mississippi, it had long been illegal. Curiously, just as California led the way in legalizing MMJ in 1995, so was it the first to enact the statewide prohibition of MJ, back in 1914 or 1915. So the 1937 federal law was pretty much a moot point in the western half of the country.
Thank you for the correction. I still maintain, however, that marijuana was completely legal in many places in the USA before 1937 because it wasn’t there. Where it did appear, it was previously outlawed. Its use was provincial back then.