Debate+Notes

AGAINST P R O H I B I T I O N

National prohibition of alcohol (1920-1923) was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses and improve living standards within America. The reformers felt that there needs to an order within America since they wanted to concentrate on external conflicts—such as war. However, the evidence affirms soundly that prohibition of alcohol doomed to failure. Prohibition doesn’t work—it should work, but it doesn’t.

In October 1919, the Congress passed the Volstead Act to enforce the amendment. However, in spite of the strict enforcement in some regions, many parts of the country ignored the prohibition. In fact the gangs started to control the liquor sales and illegal acts increased. Al Capone rule Chicago’s underworld with his mobsters and waged violent wars with rival gangs. Therefore the crime rate increase significantly like it shows in the chart below.



Along with the illegal sales of alcohol—controlled by the gangs—the use of other drugs increased, too. It was true that the supply of alcohol decreased, but prohibition led many drinkers to switch to opium, marijuana, patent medicines, cocaine, and other dangerous substances that they would have been unlikely to encounter in the absence of Prohibition.