A distilled history

Posted by admin on Oct 20, 2009 in Academy | 0 comments

The social impact of the illegalization of alcohol in the US can only be described as exceeding the government’s expectations. In January of 1920, a common habit and pastime for many Americans was prohibited, causing uproar among the masses.

Alcohol, both imported and exported, was a vital part of the American economy. As a result of prohibition, characters like William S. McCoy, Al Capone and Owney Madden made their riches. They achieved this through massive bootlegging operations across the US-Canada border and creating underground smuggling businesses to supply a large demand.

Prohibition was meant to reduce the consumption of alcohol (seen by some as ‘the devil’s advocate’) thereby reducing crime, poverty and death rates, while improving the economy and quality of life. Instead, the prohibition law created an explosion of crime and actually increased alcohol consumption. By 1925, there were thousands of illegal underground pubs known as ‘speakeasies.’

Nonetheless, supporters of prohibition looked no further than petty crimes like cursing or mischief and argued that crime was decreasing. In fact, crime was taking a revolutionary step into organized street crime. This was helped by a lack of enforcement of the prohibition law; only five per cent of smuggled alcohol was being stopped.

With above-board domestic production of alcohol halted, many people turned to gangsters to supply their booze. Organized crime was proving to be a lucrative industry. With the huge inflow of money and the growing number of gangsters, the amount of gang rivalries and violence only increased.

Prohibition proved ineffective and also damaging to the people and society it was meant to help. It lasted 13 years, and should not have gone on for as long as it did. Instead of birthing a moral society, the government’s lofty goal only spawned an empire of organized crime. Could alcohol have kept this beast below the surface? We will never know.