I’m bringing this up because comparisons to Probition are frequently brought up in discussions about how society should deal with drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. It’s been my understanding that manufacturing, transporting, buying, and selling of alcoholic beverages was illegal during Prohibition and could lead to jail time but consumption or possession of a small amount for personal use was dealt with fairly lightly (if at all). Basically, what would usually happen is law enforcement would confiscate your flask or bottle and let you go. If so, that would be a marked difference from how we often deal with, for example, a person who’s caught smoking or merely possessing a joint which still can result in incarceration in some jurisdictions. Of course, I could be wrong which is why I want to know if there were any instances of people being jailed for mere consumption or possession of small amounts of alcohol during Prohibition.
The home consumption of alcohol (or possession) was not made illegal under the Volstead Act, so nobody would have been jailed for drinking liquor at home.
In addition the Volstead Act also allowed the brewing of 200 gallons (Section 29) of “non-intoxicating cider and fruit juice” each year. The legal definition of intoxicating was at the start 0.5% ABV but in 1920 the Bureau of Internal Revenue struck that down essentially legalizing the production of wine in homebrews, however it was still illegal to brew “intoxicating” (0.5% or more) beer until 1933.
As **aldiboronti **mentioned it was not illegal to consume alcohol at home, and to add to that further speakeasies were not only rather easily accessible but often the police turned a blind eye. Additionally there were a few loopholes including the ability for a physician to legally prescribe “medicinal whiskey” which was a good way to secure a drink.
The police were not really enthusiastic about enforcing the law either and the people tasked with going after illicit alcohol were understaffed and underfunded. Hell the Chicago’s chief of police said 60% of his men were involved in the trade themselves.
Medical prescriptions were a huge loophole, and one the revenuers did not even try to control. As mentioned, the ingredients for various kinds of home-brewed hooch were openly sold as kits, and legal.
So far the posts in this thread confirm my understanding of how Prohibition and the Volstead Act treated individuals who were drinking or possessing alcohol. However, because of the frequent use of Prohibition as an analogy to our present government policy against drugs (especially marijuana), I think a misconception has developed that during the 1920s people caught drinking or having a flask on their person were treated like people who get caught smoking or possessing a joint (i.e., instant arrest and likely jail time).
Just because federal law didn’t prohibit individuals from possession doesn’t mean there weren’t states/local laws that didn’t. I imagine like any other law there were places that were hard assed about alcohol and places that weren’t.
My Dad was around during prohibition and he told me there were a couple of taverns in Wisconsin that continued business openly and nobody said boo. One of them even had a slot machine in it that he won $10 in from a 5 cent pull which was a good score in 1930. Where these places got their liquor I know not.
My Dad still had to buy hard liquor from the bootlegger in the 50’s. We would sometimes drive up to this house that was along the highway that we took to & from the lake. You just drove up to a built out window and could sit in your car, just like at a fast food place today. That was the only one I knew about as a kid. My folks were not big drinkers.
This was in Oklahoma.
I’m not an expert, but …
What evidence do you have for this alleged misconception? Prohibition was an issue in my grandparents’ time, not mine, but I’ve never gotten the impression that back then mere drinkers got arrested. Nor have I ever heard or read anyone in modern times espousing the theory that they did.
Speakeasys got raided, the booze got confiscated, and the operators got arrested. Prominent patrons tried to avoid the adverse publicity of being caught there. But patrons typically were under no threat of prosecution themselves. That’s always the thumbnail sketch I’ve read & believed. Now whether that’s a true depiction of the facts then is a question I’m not qualified to answer. But the folks upthread seem to corroborate.
My evidence for the misconception is, unfortunately, rather flimsy. A few years ago I heard a radio interview/documentary about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s rehab stay during the 1920s in Warm Springs, Georgiato treat his polio-caused paralysis. During the program, it was mentioned that FDR used to regularly partake in some of the local moonshine that was offered on the sly to the spa’s guests and it was commented that it would’ve been the equivalent of him smoking a marijuana joint today. I thought the comparison was off since even if anybody had bothered to enforce the law back then, the worst that would’ve happened to FDR would be his drink being confiscated. In contrast, someone caught smoking or possessing a joint would be arrested and prosecuted. That’s how I came to wonder whether this incorrect assumption was becoming common among people who never experienced Prohibition first-hand or grew up with somebody who did. (Much like, for example, the misperception that nobody outside of FDR’s inner circle knew he was disabled.)
“Shtrictly for medishinal purposhes”.
Possession was not illegal. If you owned liquor purchased before prohibition, you were not breaking any law. IIRC, one members-only club (the Yale Club or Harvard club, maybe) bought up huge stocks of liquor before it was illegal and members drank there openly throughout Prohibition.
If you were caught with a flash, the cops would probably make you pour it out (regardless of the legality of the situation).
The issue with raids was the bad publicity – you would be rounded up and your name might make it into the newspapers (even if you were released the next morning). Some of the people caught in the raids couldn’t afford that, either because their bosses would fire them, or because they were there with someone who wasn’t their spouse.
And they were often sold complete with instructions telling you not to follow the steps they outlined, because you’d end up manufacturing alcohol which was illegal.
Some states enacted stricter laws which did outlaw simple possession of intoxicating liquor. In Michigan possession was a felony, and there were a few cases where those convicted of it received life sentences, although those sentences did come about through the workings of habitual felon statutes rather than for the alcohol possession offenses per se. All of these life sentences were overturned or commuted, in some cases even before Repeal.
Somehow I don’t expect a state in the Upper Midwest to treat alcohol like heroin, even during the Prohibition years.
I had assumed possession was an offence, because (1) Babbit was uncomfortable drinking at a private residence, and (2) My Dad was from Michigan.
My Mum was a female relative of Frances Willard: her family did not possess any alcohol.
Throughout the Prohibition era, there was a considerable amount of ambivalence about the law. American politics being what it is, any time a person or policy is voted in it usually means that the side in favor got a few percent more of the total vote than their opponents did. Even in rural areas and the stolid little burgs of the Midwest, where political support was strong for Prohibition, there was still the historical tradition of drinking on certain occasions, like toasts. Despite the efforts of the WCTU and other Dry crusaders, who with considerable justification compared alcohol to morphine and other narcotics, I doubt that the average citizen was ever entirely convinced of that.
Another aspect of ambivalence, then as now, was that many people liked to take a drink, but didn’t want to have the saloon or speakeasy right on their block. Few people really want to have a bar or liquor store on every corner in their neighborhood, obviously. Today one can find similar parallels with cannabis as well. A little ambivalence isn’t a bad thing IMHO, it’s a vital part of how we navigate these difficult issues.
I don’t remember the Babbitt episode too well, but it took place at his house, right? If so, the point Lewis was making was that Babbitt didn’t want his house to become known as the place for drinking in the neighborhood. In the world depicted here, many people disapproved of alcohol. But this disapprobation and moral panic was nothing compared to that with respect to, say, morphine or cocaine addiction.
Myes…she would have been a female, wouldn’t she? 