Prohibition

[Nitrus]

Do you think prohibition was effective?? Did it improve life for the American people??

Prohibition caused a massive increase on crime in America, gangs and mobs made millions from bootlegging alcohol.

Was it a good idea??

Would it work today??

Some ideas to discuss.

-N

[Athena]

Well let's see, no addiction is worse than niccotine, and yet where I live it has been almost completely out lawed.Â*Â*Property managers can forbid smoking in apartments and near them.Â*Â*There is no smoking in public buildings, and outside smoking is restricted.Â*Â*The cost of cigarettes prevents a lot of smoking.Â*Â*The cost got me to quit and I know I can not afford smoking 2 packs a day, so I won't start up again.Â*Â*

I think the approach to prohibition was ineffective.Â*Â*Allowing people to do what they want to do, but restricting where they can do it, and raising the cost, seems pretty effective to me.Â*Â*And raising the cost of alcohol is justified by the social cost of alcohol.Â*Â*I think the cost of all products should coverÂ*Â*all the cost of the product, and police and jail space resulting from alcohol, detox and medical treatment of alcohol users, and children left without a parent and in need of counseling and financial support, are all cost to the public, that should be covered by the product causing these problems.

One more thing, in Muslim countries where drinking is prohibited, I think Americans should respect and obey the laws. It is a matter of good manners, when in someone else's home or country, the home owner or the country rules, not the guest. What is good manners is good politics.Â*Â*

[Nitrus]

no addiction is worse than niccotine

You couldnt be more wrong, heroin is by FAR the worst thing to get addicted to.

And how was prohibition effective?? MORE alcohol was drank during prohibition then when it was legal.

-N

[Labrocca]

I have to agree that H addiction is terrible. You can actually die from withdrawal.

[sbannon]

Personally, and I could be wrong, but I don't think the same approach with alcohol that's been taken with cigarettes would have the same results. There's simply a difference in how the majority of people view the dangers of smoking verses the dangers of drinking.

People make a direct connection in their mind between the product and the danger with smoking. When it comes to drinking there's more of a tendency to associate the poor behavior and dangerous activities with the person over the product.

There's also the continued medical opinions and reports that get published every so often which encourage moderate alcohol consumption and link it to health benefits.

There's just isn't the overwhelming consensus against alcohol as there is with tobacco.

[PittsburghAfterDark]

Prohibition or declaring substances illegal that people desire will never result in good behavior.

If there's a market and money to be made no one needs to be told the results.

1. Prices go through the roof.
2. People will flock to supplying that product with the lure of a quick buck.
3. People will do anything to maintain their market position. Resulting in wars.
4. Law enforcement becomes overwhelmed trying to contain said product organizations.
5. End users become petty criminals to be used in crime statistics citing we're "winning" the war on ***INSERT SUBSTANCE HERE***.

Prohibition is an absolute joke.

I'm all in favor of legalizing street drugs and taxing the hell out of them. Supply is then safe, legal and taxed. Crime rates go down and law enforcement can be aimed elsewhere.

I figure the dumb addicts will off themselves on binges early on and even usage rates will drop as a result.

[Athena]

I may be wrong, but when I am doing art with addicts at a drug detox center, they all agree it is harder to quit smoking than anything else, perhaps because the effects of smoking are not that bad until it is too late.Â*Â*Whatever, the restrictions on smoking and the cost is, reducing the number of people who smoke, and I thought we were talking about what works and what does not work?Â*Â*Restrictions and cost do work.
This is not 100%.Â*Â*People do drink and drive, but not as many as in the past when we didn't make a big deal out of drinking and driving.Â*Â*

Meth appears to be a worse drug to get off of than Heroine.Â*Â*Meth is cheap and easily available.Â*Â* More people are doing meth, making it more accessable.Â*Â*Meth is so bad, Oregon is taking the children of meth users, without proving anything beyond the parents use meth.Â*Â*Meth seems to lead to more violent criminal behavior is behind the majority of our crimes.Â*Â*It took awhile for meth to spead east, so in some areas it may not appear as a serious problem.Â*Â*But the seriousness of meth is so bad, it should never be legalized.

Back to the subject, alcohol is even easier to make than meth.Â*Â*With meth we have a chance of controlling essential ingredients, but not with alcohol.Â*Â*Also the great depression pushed people into this criminal behavior who would not normally violate laws.Â*Â*I knew a respectable gentleman and retired business owner, who got through the depression by making booze.Â*Â*It is something anyone with a modest ability to cook can do, just about anywhere.Â*Â*This is also a problem with meth, if ingredients can not be controlled.

Also, people may smoke when with friends, but they do not deliberate gather to smoke tobbacco.Â*Â*However, drinking alcohol is definitely associated with socializing, so prohibition went not only against the behavior of drinking but also against the behavior of socializing and I believe this is why prohibition didn't work.Â*Â*Also, with pot and meth, I have noticed strong social ties.Â*Â*Getting off these drugs, requires a complete change of friends, and this is one reason people can not stay off the drug that is also their social connection.Â*Â*

Another reason, is unlike cigarettes, people who have used alcohol or street drugs for a long time do not have normal emotions for a good year after getting off the drug.Â*Â*If they started very young, they never learned how to have a normal life without a drug.Â*Â*Getting off a substance is much more than just not getting high.Â*Â*In some ways it is like going through a bad puberty all over again, because of the emotional and social problems.Â*Â* We are much better prepared to deal with all this today, than we were during prohibition.Â*Â*

[Deacon]

Prohibition was both good and bad for America.

Ban in alcohol actually did not decrease drinking bu increased it and inprinted in history the Jazz Age of America known as the roaring 20's.

Many good things came out of prohibtion:
-"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
-NASCAR began to develop as bootleggers would race their souped up autos
-Industrial Boom
-New Inventions
-The Cinema
-Suffrage for Women (Finally)
-Charles Lindbergh
-New Art Forms

But with good there comes bad:
-Al Capone
-Mafia
-Bootlegging
-Rise in Crime
-Black Tuesday
-Valentines Day Massacre

[A. Radek]

Do you think prohibition was effective?? Did it improve life for the American people??

Prohibition caused a massive increase on crime in America, gangs and mobs made millions from bootlegging alcohol.
Was it a good idea??

Would it work today??

Some ideas to discuss.

It all depends on your viewpoint. There are studies that show it did exactly what it was supposed to do: Greatly reduced domestic violence and increased savings among the working class, and decreased worker absenteeism on the job.

The gangs were there before Prohibition; they got their starts a long time ago, under political parties and Tammany Hall under Aaron Burr in NYC, and after that gambling syndicates and especially newpapers fighting circulation wars, other businessmen also hiring thugs to beat and kill union organizers and bust strikes, intimidate and fire bomb competitors, etc. Prostitution was also a major source of funds; Al Capone probably made more off whorehouses than booze.

And how was prohibition effective?? MORE alcohol was drank during prohibition then when it was legal.

There is no evidence for this; it priced large segments of the population out of their ability to get drunk every day. A lot of booze was also poison, and horror stories abound of people going blind and worse, which scared a lot of people off from drinking. Most of the money came from selling to the middle class and wealthy, not peddling rotgut to street bums and factory workers. Many of the same employers who favored Prohibition because of it's effects on their factory workers had no problem hobnobbing at aprties with their favorite bootlegger.

Political corruption was long established in Northern cities, the primary reason Prohibition was considered a 'failure' there; it has nothing to do with whether the law itself was bad or worthwhile.

In any case, Prohibition was in effect before 1920; it was a national policy during WW I, and many states still outlawed it both before and after Prohibition. It's main problems came in states with large European immigrant populations and large Catholic demographics, which also had the most political corruption and gang influence already.

There used to be some websites with statistics on all this, but I'm afraid I long ago put the links where I can't find them, and it's likely they don't exist any more. I can find some books at the library for cites if anybody is interested. Watching reruns of the Untouchables and the Godfather give a very distorted view of the whole decade.

It did increase some types of crime in some cities, but this is not true in the country as a whole. In those days beating up your wife and kids in a drunken stupor wasn't a crime, or not a serious one, as it is today, unless you did it at night and woke up the neighbors, in which case it's disturbing the peace, so it's not an apples and apples comparison in that sense.

So, all things considered, it was a success in what it tried to achieve for the two main groups of activists who wanted it.It must be noted that all kinds of vices were much more available in those days than now. Police were even more thinly spread and underpaid then than they are today, and bribery and buying your badge more prevalent. One effect of Prohibition was to greatly increase pot hash smoking; 'tea pads' proliferated more than speakeasys, and was much cheaper than booze. Pot smokers just didn't have the panash and excitement of Thompson-toting bootleggers and gangsters; it was strictly 'lower class' stuff.

[Athena]

A. Radek, I appreciate the information you offered, and admire your courage for speaking against popular opinion.Â*Â*

You got my curiousity going and this google site is very informative.

Temperance movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The moderation movements, which had been plagued by drinking scandals, ... Financial burdens caused by Prohibition were increased by the fact that bootleg, ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperance_movement - 44k - Cached - Similar pages

A temperance movement in India came originally from the political leadership, most of whom had been educated in the United Kingdom at a time when prohibition was being promoted. This served to link prohibition with the independence movement and give it a broad base of popular support. This base included women and a major activity of women’s groups became picketing alcohol beverage retailers. Because temperance became so interwoven with independence, it was included in the Indian constitution.

I am impressed by the global effort to restrict drinking. Evidently temperance efforts have been more successful than prohibition efforts. Also the success of the effort depends on what it is associated with. And, I think Americans are more prone enjoying the excitement of breaking of the law, than Muslims. It is in their tradition to be rebelleous and resist authority.

[Nathan Brazil]

Prohibition was both good and bad for America.

Ban in alcohol actually did not decrease drinking bu increased it and inprinted in history the Jazz Age of America known as the roaring 20's.

Many good things came out of prohibtion:
-"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
-NASCAR began to develop as bootleggers would race their souped up autos
-Industrial Boom
-New Inventions
-The Cinema
-Suffrage for Women (Finally)
-Charles Lindbergh
-New Art Forms

But with good there comes bad:
-Al Capone
-Mafia
-Bootlegging
-Rise in Crime
-Black Tuesday
-Valentines Day Massacre


Oh, come on! Charles Lingbergh flew across the Atlantic because of Prohibition?

Movies were invented years before Prohibition.

The Suffrage Movement, which lead to the death of thought in politics, was started in the 1800's.

An "industrial boom"? Huh?

Hint: Two things that happen at the same time are not necessarily connected.

[Nathan Brazil]

Prostitution was also a major source of funds; Al Capone probably made more off whorehouses than booze.

And how did Scarface manage to make money off whores? Because whoring was illegal and thus the criminal element could use criminal tactics to control supply.

And how was prohibition effective?? MORE alcohol was drank during prohibition then when it was legal.

There is no evidence for this; it priced large segments of the population out of their ability to get drunk every day.

Alcohol consumption rose steadily through the Probition Era. Google up some charts showing annual consumption figures.

A lot of booze was also poison, and horror stories abound of people going blind and worse, which scared a lot of people off from drinking.

Right. Why were people drinking methanol? Because the government prohibited the manufacture and sale of the good stuff. Conclusion? Prohibition was bad for true addicts.

And....bottom line? Americans didn't want the busybody do-gooders telling them what they could and could not drink. Prohibition introduced a still extant resentment towards government. That's really the only success it had.

[Athena]

Whoo, Nathan Brazil, I want to see you justify this statement.
"The Suffrage Movement, which lead to the death of thought in politics, was started in the 1800's."

Right now you are looking like a woman hating alcohoic. Can you change this impression?

[Nathan Brazil]

Whoo,Â*Â*Nathan Brazil, I want to see you justify this statement.
"The Suffrage Movement, which lead to the death of thought in politics, was started in the 1800's."

Right now you are looking like a woman hating alcohoic.Â*Â*Can you change this impression?Â*Â*


Sounds like you're bigoted against misogynist drunks. Can you change this impression?

[Athena]

Whoo,Â*Â*Nathan Brazil, I want to see you justify this statement.
"The Suffrage Movement, which lead to the death of thought in politics, was started in the 1800's."

Right now you are looking like a woman hating alcohoic.Â*Â*Can you change this impression?Â*Â*


Sounds like you're bigoted against misogynist drunks.Â*Â*Can you change this impression?


Interesting. What does it mean to be bigoted against misogynist drunks?
Do you mean you preceive me to be blindly opinionate against the hatred of women drunks? :D

Are you going to support your statement. "The Suffrage Movement, which lead to the death of thought in politics, was started in the 1800's"?:shy: