Prohibition
 | |
| Date | January 17, 1920 - Dec 5, 1933 |
|---|---|
| Location | USA |
| Interest of | Association Against the Prohibition Amendment |
| Description | The banning of drinkable alcohol (ethanol). This served multiple hypocritical purposes, much like the later "war on drugs". High on the list, as usual, were the private interests of the small clique who arranged it. |
Contents
Official narrative
Boosting public sobriety.
Legislation
The 18th amendment, which banned the sale and production of alcohol, was ratified in 1919, spurred by the temperance movement and some claim by pressure from the big oil, who sought by supressing the more readily producable, cleaner burning ethanol to establish petroleum as the standard fuel for internal combustion engines.
The Volstead Act was passed shortly after as an “enforcement” act to ensure Congress could actually implement the amendment. The bill included provisions to poison alcohol so as to discourage people from drinking. The Anti-Saloon League (ASL) lobbied against any mandatory ‘poison’ labels on denatured alcohol.[1]
Mass poisoning
The Volstead Act encouraged producers to 'denature' (i.e. poison) alcohol in the 1920s. As Deborah Blum, professor of science journalism at the University of Wisconsin noted, by mid-1927 “[t]he Treasury Department also demanded more methyl alcohol be added—up to 10 percent of total product. It was the last that proved most deadly.” A 1927 study of confiscated liquor in New York City found that 98% contained some sort of poison, so the government was aware that these measures were poisoning people, but in its enthusiasm to punish those who were illegally drinking alcohol, it continued to mandate increased poison levels.<ref name=am>
New York City Chief Medical Examiner Charles Norris said, “The government knows it is not stopping drinking by putting poison in alcohol… Yet it continues its poisoning processes, heedless of the fact that people determined to drink are daily absorbing that poison. Knowing this to be true, the United States government must be charged with the moral responsibility for the deaths that poisoned liquor causes, although it cannot be held legally responsible.”<ref name=am>
Denial
Wayne Wheeler, head of the ASL, initially claimed only one person had died because of denatured alcohol since 1920 and was widely ridiculed. Hastily, he modified his argument, stating that "... the government is under no obligation to furnish people with alcohol that is drinkable when the Constitution prohibits it. The person who drinks this industrial alcohol is a deliberate suicide.”
Repeal
It was repealed on Dec 5, 1933.
Consequences
Organised bootlegging was a boon to organised crime in general and the mafia in particular. The consequent fatalities have been estimated to lie somewhere from from 10,000 to 50,000 people.<ref name=am> The point was proved that laws against consumption of intoxicating substances do not necessarily reduce consumption rates, but can be relied upon to increase prices, profits and trade related violence and corruption. This lesson was not lost on those who started the "War on Drugs" under Richard Nixon.
