# Prohibition exemption?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prohibition-exemption/56797>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 5, 2001, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prohibition-exemption/56797 "2001-03-05T05:46:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2001, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prohibition-exemption/56797/1 "2001-03-05T05:46:01Z")

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Back in the first quarter of the 20th century, Prohibition banned alcohol. The Catholics, Jews, and presumably other faiths, have wine in their religeous services. Did church/state separation protect them from being raided every Sabbath, or did the Government just look the other way?

Also

All these beer and liquor companies, established in the 1800s, how did they keep afloat during Prohibition?

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**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2001, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prohibition-exemption/56797/2 "2001-03-05T06:01:16Z")

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Prohibition was targeted primarily at hard liquor, rather than wine.

Moreover, Title II, Sec. 3 of the Volstead Act, passed by Congress under the authority to the Eighteenth Amendment to enforce Prohibition, specifically exempted religious wine:

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> Liquor for non beverage purposes and wine for sacramental purposes may be manufactured, purchased, sold, bartered transported, imported, exported, delivered, furnished and possessed.

- Rick

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**Author:** ![Eo\_Echo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ebca7d/32.png) [@Eo\_Echo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eo_Echo)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2001, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prohibition-exemption/56797/3 "2001-03-05T07:00:36Z")

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Certain breweries switched to other products. IBC, for instance, began making root beer at that time, and it sold so well they never went back to brewing beer.

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**Author:** ![starfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@starfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starfish)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2001, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prohibition-exemption/56797/4 "2001-03-05T14:21:31Z")

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I has a prohibition era liquor prescription form so you could get some from a doctor. I don’t know how it worked in practice as far quantity or type of liquor goes.