Positive Effects Of Prohibition Essay

Improved Essays
The 18th Amendment, otherwise known as prohibition, was a period of time in United States history, which prohibited the manufacture, distribution, sale, and transportation of alcoholic liquors. Throughout the turn of the 20th century, people were concerned about the negative effects of alcohol. Companies felt that sobriety would increase the production of its workers, while progressives suggested social reform through prohibition since people viewed alcohol as the root of all issues. This political move by leaders of the Temperance Movement suggested that by making alcohol illegal, they expected to see a decline in the death rate of alcoholism, domestic violent crimes, and other alcohol related crimes. Also, they expected people to purchase healthier food instead of alcohol, which in turn, people would become lead healthier lives, and they would start depositing their money into savings accounts. ---- Despite the early expectations from the …show more content…
The qausi-success of prohibition, can be simply dismissed on the premise of basic economics. Any time a “product [is intentionally] made more difficult to supply it will [naturally] increase in price, and the quantity consumed will be less than it would be otherwise” (Thornton). As a result, people will be forced to reduce their consumption of alcohol due to the lack of availability. Furthermore, by restricting the supply of the prohibited substance caused a secondary effect that increased the demand for the illegal substance. The Iron Law of Prohibition indicates that “when drugs or alcoholic beverages are prohibited, they will become more potent [and vary in purity],” (Thornton) due to the in-doctoring of unknown or dangerous substances not regulated by normal market constraint. This shift towards

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In 1920, the United State Congress ratified the 18th Amendment prohibiting the production, distribution, and sale of alcohol. The American people widely supported this amendment when it first went into action. The belief back then was that alcohol contributed to most of the personal and social problems such as the nation’s poverty, violence,…

    • 1250 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Prohibition did not work because it did not achieve any of the intended goals. One of them was to improve the health of citizens. This failed because since citizens didn’t have access to alcohol, they resorted to cigarettes and other drugs instead. Another goal of Prohibition was to decrease crime. However, since people weren’t able to get alcohol legally, “organized crime..received a major boost” in the 1920s (Vile).…

    • 1893 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The 18th amendment was to ban all alcohol in the United States. Why did America repeal the prohibition in the 1900’s-1920’s? The crime rate went up, laws weren’t followed and taxes were being lost from the prohibition. The first reason why America repealed the law was because the crime rate went up.…

    • 478 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Prohibition of alcohol only persuade more people to try it. Many people, who have never taken a drink, broke the law and saloons were replaced with the Speakeasies. Since hard liquor was profitable to smuggle, more people were suffering from serious health problems, so prohibitin not only couldn’t stop the social problems, but it increased it as well. Moreover, organized crime and corruption raised.…

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “By the mid 1920’s only 19% of Americans supported prohibition” (The Americans Reconstruction to the 21st Century, 437). Their idea had changed since they saw that many bloody gangs were coming alive and more crime was presented. Now citizens wanted to repeal against the 18th amendment. To conclude, prohibition was a bad choice for America which lead to a very roaring 1920’s with all the crazy movements and changes that were made. However, prohibition continued until it was repealed by the 21st amendment, which was in…

    • 510 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There were many short-term effects of prohibition. During prohibition it was not illegal to drink alcohol or have alcohol in someone’s possession but it was illegal to manufacture, sale, export, import and transport alcoholic beverages. This lead to the increase of organized crime during prohibition because bootleggers could buy and sell alcohol. [1] These bootleggers were able to make a large profit from selling alcohol.…

    • 372 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    1919 Prohibition Dbq

    • 1377 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The 1919 Experiment known as the Prohibition “When the Mayor of Berlin, Gustav Boess, visited New York City in the fall of 1929, one of the questions he had for his host, Mayor James J. Walker, was when Prohibition was to go into effect. The problem was that Prohibition has already been the law of the United States for nearly a decade. That Boess had to ask tells you plenty about how well it was working” (PBS). Ironically in 1919 the eighteenth amendment was put into place for the benefit of society that make illegal “manufacture, sale, or transportation intoxicating liquors”. This ratification brought on many changes to American society.…

    • 1377 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    On December 17, 1917, the prohibition law was created to make alcohol illegal in America. The government thought they were helping America with all their problems that were caused by alcohol like child/spouse abuse, corruption, crime, etc. The only thing prohibition did was make everything worse. America went into debt, some people were not supportive of it, and even the government officials were not following their own law.…

    • 526 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The consumption of alcohol was believed to be reckless and destructive, prohibition would reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, decrease the need for prisons and welfare, and improve health for all Americans. Congress assumed that by putting the 18th Amendment into effect it would solve all problems, and they were also being pushed heavily by temperance groups. They thought by appeasing these non-drinking advocates and bettering our country it would be a win win situation. The reaction to the amendment did not live up to the expectations thought of by Congressmen. It caused law enforcement to get their hands dirty with local gangs, drug smuggling, and more drinking then before.…

    • 847 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    18th Amendment Failure

    • 1035 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Prohibition devastated the national brewing industry, closing large alcohol manufacturers and causing thousands of Americans to be jobless. The unemployed could either try to find a low-pay job or participate in illegal bootlegging to support their families, and many turned to illegal as finding a job proved to be more difficult. Without the sell of alcohol, the government lost a substantial amount of revenue due to the absence of a federal tax on alcohol. The underground sale of alcohol resulted in the government losing money that they could have gained from a federal tax on alcohol. Prohibition also proved to be too expensive and hard to enforce, so the government could not accomplish the goals set out with the initial ratification of the 18th amendment.…

    • 1035 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Causes And Effects Of Prohibition In The 1920s

    • 979 Words
    • 4 Pages
    • 4 Works Cited

    Prohibition was supposed to end many social problems in our country, but instead increased organized crime and never really ended the social problems. Alcohol was available because bootleggers would smuggle alcohol into the United States from Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas. The illegal alcohol would be taken to speakeasies which were illegal saloons. They were called speakeasies because you were not supposed to talk about them. Many police officers did not enforce the laws because they were bribed to keep quiet about speakeasies, and many officers were regular customers (Freshet).…

    • 979 Words
    • 4 Pages
    • 4 Works Cited
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    During this time period Republicans preferred the prohibiting of alcohols because they felt people would gain more from life without it (Gale 1064). This time period caused many underground industries and illegal sale of alcohol (Novels). “it (Prohibition) had many negative economic effects, fostering a large black market of illicit alcohol producers and distributors, destroying the brewing and distilling industries, and reducing government revenue from taxation on alcohol” (Gale 1064). Prohibition itself caused illegal selling and manufacturing of alcohol, caused people to lose their jobs in the brewing and distilling industry, and made an impact in the government’s income concerning taxes. The Great Depression and other things led to the…

    • 1588 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Roaring 20's Essay

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Prohibition was a 13 year period of time in the United States, spanning from 1920 to 1933, in which the manufacture, transportation and sale of alcohol was illegal. It was the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, designed in an effort to reduce drinking. It didn’t work. Instead of people drinking less, they began to drink more and in more unhealthy ways. They had to make their own alcohol, which usually tasted disgusting and was of an extremely high proof and could be dangerous to consume too much of.…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Introduction of Prohibition Prohibition was introduced to all American states apart from Maryland in 1920. Prohibition was the banning of alcohol; you could be arrested for sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol. There were many factors that influenced the introduction of prohibition, One of the main factors was the temperance movements two examples of this were the anti-saloon league and Women’s Christian temperance movement. The temperance movements were at the strongest in rural areas, they put pressure on state governments to introduce prohibition. They put pressure on them by claiming the Damage to drinkers health they also protested that the sale in alcohol produced crime and…

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This paper will discuss the negative effects of the national constitutional ban of the production, importation and sale of alcoholic beverages. Think about how prohibition created a spark of gang violence and organized crime, or how it created much disrespect for the law and religion, how it caused physical harm, or how it made cigarette smoking a national habit and was very expensive. Prohibition created organized violence such as petty crimes like murder or theft and transporting alcoholic beverages to places like speakeasies where people would drink illegally. A man named al Capone played a big role in bootlegging and was actually a very notorious gangster who had half of the chicago police force working for him and over 1,000 gunmen on his payroll. In today’s society, we have a similar version of organized crime everywhere like prostitution, drugs and…

    • 1216 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays