# Was prohibition stupid? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 8, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023 "2010-07-08T22:39:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/21 "2010-07-09T14:08:49Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Sure it was stupid, in that it couldn’t possibly work in the real world. Not only that, but it pretty much destroyed the power of the temperance movement - the WCTU, if it even still exists, is a joke today, where once it used to be powerful. > **[Christian Action | Woman's Christian Temperance Union](https://www.wctu.org/)** > > Woman's Christian Temperance Union is organized Mother's Love. We "Do Everything" - educate, legislate, and advocate - to make the world a better place. It apparently still exists mainly to give frat boys in the Chicago area a neat sign to steal. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/22 "2010-07-09T14:36:01Z")
Making laws that restrict destructive behavior: Not stupid by themselves if they are passed carefully and with good intent. Liqueur and drug laws abound and some of them , the percentage depends upon who you are arguing with, help reduce some of those bad behaviors. I like some restrictions on booze, pot and tobacco should be similar, hard drugs are about right; so I’m fairly satisfied with the current balance of laws. Amending the constitution to outlaw booze: Stupidly heavy handed. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/23 "2010-07-09T14:40:03Z")
> [@Stoneburg](#): > > But my question is, was it really ‘stupid’? Infinitely. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/24 "2010-07-09T14:49:08Z")
> [@Stoneburg](#): > > The goal of making people drink less is not a stupid goal. I disagree. I don’t care what other people put into their bodies as long as it doesn’t affect me. I am single, but if I was married and my husband was an alcoholic, I would leave him (after several attempts to help him get sober). I simply don’t want any government entity – local, state or federal – legislating anything to do with morality or my personal “pursuit of happiness.” You don’t get to make the choice for me if I want to kill myself via alcohol. I feel the same way about a lot of other personal lifestyle choices that are dictated (and thus, the choice of behavior removed from the individual) by legislation. Completely uncool. That said, to respond to the OP, yes, I think Prohibition was like Communism: a good idea on paper but executed so horribly that it turned out to be really stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Smitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Smitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smitty)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/25 "2010-07-09T15:50:27Z")
Prohibition gave us NASCAR which was born from rednecks trying to outrun Prohibition agents. So, yeah. It was stupid. :D:D:D ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/26 "2010-07-09T16:02:38Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > I’d like to see the cites, if anyone can come up with them. > > It was my understanding that per capita drinking rates were indeed much higher in the _early_ 19th century (I believe Okrent in the _Daily Show_ bit mentioned the 1830s as the peak), but had already declined substantially before the Prohibition movement began. Here’s a chart, which starts in 1850: [http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/Resources/DatabaseResources/QuickFacts/AlcoholSales/consum01.htm](http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/Resources/DatabaseResources/QuickFacts/AlcoholSales/consum01.htm) And the Prohibition movement started in the 1840s, as a response to the heavy drinking. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/27 "2010-07-09T17:43:32Z")
Traditional economics says that there are public goods which have positive externalities and tend to be underproduced and goods which have negative externalities and tend to be overproduced. A role of government is to subsidize things with positive externalities and regulate things with negative externalities. Alcohol consumption has large negative externalities, so it was a natural for government regulation. Prohibition seems to have gone too far, but I don’t think it was stupid as it appears in hindsight. Many of the benefits of prohibition are hidden by the passage of time, whereas the drawbacks were much more memorable and so tend to be focused on by current opinion. One of the largest effects of Prohibition which few people comment on was the passage of the 17th amendment. It has permanently changed our society in ways that continue long after Prohibition was repealed. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/28 "2010-07-09T17:52:09Z")
By “Prohibition movement” I meant the drive to ban alcohol by means of Constitutional amendment, not just the general temperance movement. Okrent identified the Prohibition drive as having a duration of six years prior to the amendment. It is interesting that America’s alcoholic peak, according to the chart, was 1980-81. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/29 "2010-07-09T17:58:52Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > I disagree. I don’t care what other people put into their bodies as long as it doesn’t affect me. I am single, but if I was married and my husband was an alcoholic, I would leave him (after several attempts to help him get sober). At the time, this plan was virtually impossible to put into practice. Women had almost no recourse to leave their husbands. What would you do to help him get sober? No AA, rehab clinics etc. So, the question as posed by the OP was at the time was this a stupid idea- so for many reasons yes, but for many women this may be the only recourse they felt they had to control this situation. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/30 "2010-07-09T17:58:52Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Many of the benefits of prohibition are hidden by the passage of time, whereas the drawbacks were much more memorable and so tend to be focused on by current opinion. > One of the largest effects of Prohibition which few people comment on was the passage of the 17th amendment. It has permanently changed our society in ways that continue long after Prohibition was repealed. So, direct election of Senators versus the entrenchment of organized crime… hmm. Got anything else on the “benefits of Prohibition” ledger? ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/31 "2010-07-09T18:05:01Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > At the time, this plan was virtually impossible to put into practice. Women had almost no recourse to leave their husbands. What would you do to help him get sober? No AA, rehab clinics etc. So, the question as posed by the OP was at the time was this a stupid idea- so for many reasons yes, but for many women this may be the only recourse they felt they had to control this situation. Therein lies the flaw in this questioning. I have no choice but to view this through the filter of my own personal experience. I was born in 1969; I have no way of understanding or relating to the powerlessness that women experienced at that time. Now, I have choices, thanks to thousands of tireless strong women who fought and suffered so that I could have the right to those choices. I wouldn’t get involved with an alcoholic in the first place and I’ve had enough pscyho-babble touchy-feely therapy learnin’ to be able to recognize one when I see one. Back in the days of Prohibition, a single 40-year-old female still lived with her parents until some man saw fit to take her on. From where I sit, Prohibition looks ridiculously stupid. Had I been locked in a horrible marriage with an alcoholic, no skills, no way to take care of my ten babies, and stuck in ajbect poverty, and no way out of that… I probably would be singing a completely different song. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/32 "2010-07-09T18:05:33Z")
Before the drive to ban it by means of a Constitutional amendment, though, there were bans at the state level. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/33 "2010-07-09T18:10:36Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > One of the largest effects of Prohibition which few people comment on was the passage of the 17th amendment. It has permanently changed our society in ways that continue long after Prohibition was repealed. This should say 16th. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/34 "2010-07-09T21:20:03Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > This should say 16th. Ah, income tax. But my understanding was that the income tax _enabled_ Prohibition (and the loss of liquor excise taxes from the federal revenue)–not that it was a consequence of it. The income taxes weren’t abandoned after Prohibition was. I am still interested in hearing more about the benefits of Prohibition, though. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@Captain\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/35 "2010-07-11T07:03:57Z")
Alcohol prohibition was stupid. It was fueled by the religious right of the times. The Prohibitionist movement had been working on illegalizing alcohol for 50 years when they finally gained enough power to make this law and Amendment. We know what happened after that. Everyone from the President (Harding, especially) on down broke the law. In a broader sense, American alcohol laws are stupid. Prohibition was just one chapter of that stupidity. The USA is only one of (about) 4 nations where alcohol is legal where the purchaser must be over 21 years of age. In the United States, one can be arrested as an adult for buying alcohol underage. I had a neighbor in college who was popped by an undercover cop buying a bottle of champagne at 20 years old. Was a misdeamnor, had to get a lawyer, go to court. Because of this, more teenagers want to drink alcohol because of the “forbidden fruit” effect. In societies where there is no or a low drinking age, there is very little juvenile alcoholism. Alcohol can be drank in the home or at special occasions like a wedding, a family dinner, or even a party. Kids might drink, they get sick and many say “funk that” and wait until their older. If the drinking age was dropped entirely, the number of juvenile deaths from alcohol would drop. The only concern would be drinking and driving. The USA has patchwork of laws in every state and jurisdiction concerning the sale of alcohol. These are some laws from my state of Tennessee: 1.) No wine or liquor may be sold on Sundays in a liquor store. (asinine.) 2.) Wine and liquor must be sold in a liquor store. Wine nor liquor can be sold in a supermarket. 3.) The liquor store is only allowed to sell spirits and wines. That’s it. They cannot sell any other products but spirits and wines. Not even beer. (asinine.) 4.) Even though you cannot buy a bottle of liquor/wine in a store on Sunday, one can drink spirits or wine in a bar/restaurant after noon. (asinine.) 5.) Liquor store must close at 11 PM (there is a sanctioned opening time by I do not know what it is.) 6.) Bars may open between the hours of 7 AM and 3 AM. Between 3 AM and 7 AM, they are not allowed to sell alcohol to customers, unless it is Sunday, where the drunk will have to again, wait til noon. Some counties are still, in 2010, “dry”. That’s fine by me, but it causes the people who do like alcohol to make longer drives to neighboring counties to get what they want. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/36 "2010-07-11T16:51:13Z")
> [@Captain\_Midnight](#): > > Alcohol prohibition was stupid. It was fueled by the religious right of the times. Ah yes, organizations like the Industrial Workers of the World constitute the far right of the time. I don’t think so. Generally speaking, the folks who wanted to enact child labor laws, minimum wages, and women’s suffrage were on the dry side while those who were against all of the above were wet. Not even the Women’s Christian Temperance Union was what we’d think of as the religious right though that certainly changed after the 1930s. Odesio ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/37 "2010-07-11T17:23:00Z")
Another connection between the prohibition movement and the suffarage movement is that they were both supported by anti-immigrant elements. The former because saloons and beer halls were the social and political foci of many immigrant communities; and the latter because many immigrant communities were disproportionately male due to work immigration, and granting women the right to vote would reduce their relative strength. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/38 "2010-07-11T19:59:50Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Ah yes, organizations like the Industrial Workers of the World constitute the far right of the time. I don’t think so. Generally speaking, the folks who wanted to enact child labor laws, minimum wages, and women’s suffrage were on the dry side while those who were against all of the above were wet. Not even the Women’s Christian Temperance Union was what we’d think of as the religious right though that certainly changed after the 1930s. > > Odesio It would be a mistake though, to assume that Progressive and left wing interests were coextensive with the Drys, nor were the Wets primarily conservative or reactionary. The Wet-Dry divide cut across pretty much all other political spectra. I speculate that the urge to reform society by dictating personal behavior _was_ one of the hallmarks of early 20th century Progressivism, a particularly American phenomenon which explains why, even today, we have less personal freedom here than in some European countries. Hitler was a near-teetotaler and non-smoker, but he probably never once considered dictating that the whole country should follow his example. Even dictators wouldn’t have done that, in Europe. As far as marijuana prohibition goes (and for most purposes, other drugs), I agree with whoever said it’s stupid, and a failure. On the other hand, in one ironic sense, drug prohibition has been an absolute success. By drumming in the notion, for nearly 100 years, that their unauthorized consumption is a major crime on a par with large-scale thefts, armed robbery, and mayhem, it has succeeded in diluting the notion of what crime is, and in strengthening the power of the state to define criminal offenses on the “because we say so” model as opposed to direct assaults or attacks on other people and property. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/39 "2010-07-11T22:42:06Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > It should never have passed the senate. There was no way to enforce it, and the profits in supplying illegal booze were so huge, that it launched a whole generation of criminals. > What I don’t understand: by 1920, the USA was mostly a country of immigrants-people like the Italians, Jews, Germans, Irish, viewed drinking as a natural part of life-they saw nothing wrong or sinful in having a drink. > How a bunch of (mainly scandinavian and english non-drinkers) thought they could force other people to stop drinking is a great mystery to me-it certainly wasn’t smart ofr practicable. Anti-Immigrant bigotry, especially anti-Catholic bigotry, played a big role in getting it passed. The Klan were big supporters of Prohibition. And they had real political clout, in the 20s. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023/40 "2010-07-12T14:44:54Z")
Contrary to the temperament of this thread, there’s a good case to be made that Prohibition _did not fail_. Sure, it was repealed politically, [but](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_18/b4176133550759.htm): > [@](#): > > At the same time as temperance was flowering, so were crusades for clean water and sanitation, which saved millions of lives. Alcohol, seen as a major scourge of civil society, looked ripe for a once-and-for-all ban that would put mankind on a new course. “Figuring per capita,” Okrent writes, “multiply the amount Americans drink today by three and you’ll have an idea what much of the nineteenth century was like.” > > Prohibition did work largely as intended. Alcohol consumption quickly fell to 30% of its previous level; by the time of repeal it was still no more than 70% of its pre-Prohibition level. Most notably, alcohol consumption remained low for decades; the U.S. didn’t return to pre-Prohibition levels of per capita consumption until 1973. Alcohol-related diseases fell. It remains the case that high alcohol taxes reduce the incidence of cirrhosis, as reported in the 2007 book Paying the Tab, by Philip J. Cook of Duke University. > > We still have prohibition for 87 million Americans under the age of 21, and these restrictions work to some degree. Plenty of studies have demonstrated that lowering the drinking age raises the number of alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents, not to mention assaults and other crimes. For all of the fake IDs and 22-year-old beer-distributing friends, the penalties do matter… > > The lesson to be found amid the scofflaws and scoundrels and anecdotes is that, even if they were ultimately on the wrong side of history, temperance forces were far more sensible than we have come to believe. My takeaway from this is not to make the Progressives look better, but to demonstrate how seductive their ideology could actually be. We can better understand the rise of Communism not by looking at the tyranny of the Soviet Union but the seductive promises of the left-wing agitators of the early 1900s. Analogously, we can better understand the appeal of blank-slatist “for their own good” Progressivism by understanding how effective central control really was, rather than caricaturing them as buffoons. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-prohibition-stupid/546023.md?page=3)