The Negative Consequences Of Prohibition

Superior Essays
Although there were some good effects of prohibition it mostly hindered rather than helped the advancement of society in the United States of America ranging from the encouragement of organized crime to the nation’s use of large amounts of government spending in a vain ungainly battle against drugs the few benefits of prohibition are far outweighed by the vast and negative consequences that it produces.
The topic of prohibition is a very important one to the American populous because there is an incredibly large amount of people who are users of drugs and alcohol in America, “The national survey on drug use and health indicates nearly seven million american 's exhibit the diagnostic criteria for illicit drug abuse or dependence” it affects
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It is important for our nation to find a way to control drug and alcohol abuse before it gets even more out of hand than it already is and although prohibition was considered a noble experiment created with nothing but the best and most sincere intentions for our country in mind it was not the way we needed and it ultimately had no beneficial long lasting effects. Although Prohibition was ultimately a failure in the end it did succeed if only temporarily in some of the ways it was intended to.
Because alcohol was made illegal by prohibition a majority of the money that was being spent towards it was funneled towards other products in the American market and it resulted in the purchasing power of the entire nation being increased as a whole at least until the great depression’s effects hit the
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Prohibition took away people’s right to sell and buy alcohol but it didn’t take away their desire to have it to relieve their stress and depression the great depression caused, so when it went into effect instead of alcohol businesses completely disappearing like they should have criminals like Al Capone saw it as an opportunity to gain money and power and took over the business of thousands of breweries and distilleries that could no longer legally produce and sell alcohol. Al Capone’s actions were very illegal and he shouldn’t have been able to get away with them but he got away with them for a really long time with no consequences because he was able to exploit the corruption of politicians and policemen of the time by administering large bribes to them and he was able to continue spending such large amounts of money because of prohibition, by making people unable to legally produce and sell alcohol criminals and mobsters like Capone were able to completely monopolize the alcohol

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