The weakness of the 18th amendment was that it tried to remedy the problem of rampant alcoholism indirectly instead of crafting a legal frame work that has society directly “facing the bull”.
It’s something akin to how Dem’s pass all sorts of indirect antigun laws to try to nullify the second amendment without repealing it outright.(ie you can only have so many guns of a type, but you can’t conceal them but you can’t carry them openly for that would be considered ‘brandshing’, only certain types of ammunition, and you are limited to how many you can put in a clip....well you get the picture!)
It’s a sneaky dishonest way to legislate that insults the intelligence of reasonably intelligent voters. The 18th amendment was just such legislation and it needed to go away. Ironically, historians did note that there was a marked reduction in alcohol consumption generally as well as crime. Yet, for those who just had to have their drink, and for the criminals who saw an opportunity to make a quick buck, it set the stage for the growth of organized crime with it’s associated vicious gang wars. The Fed’s also realized eventually that they were losing out on all those excise taxes and fees they could charge on legally produced alcohol from those folks who “just had to have their drink!”
Do you support alcohol prohibition?
A simple "Yes" or "No" will suffice.
Sounds like the War on Drugs.
Wrong and wrong:
"consumption of alcohol actually rose steadily after an initial drop. Annual per capita consumption had been declining since 1910, reached an all-time low during the depression of 1921, and then began to increase in 1922. Consumption would probably have surpassed pre-Prohibition levels even if Prohibition had not been repealed in 1933. [6] Illicit production and distribution continued to expand throughout Prohibition despite ever-increasing resources devoted to enforcement. [7]"
"The Volstead Act, passed to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment, had an immediate impact on crime. According to a study of 30 major U.S. cities, the number of crimes increased 24 percent between 1920 and 1921. The study revealed that during that period more money was spent on po- lice (11.4+ percent) and more people were arrested for violating Prohibition laws (102+ percent). But increased law enforcement efforts did not appear to reduce drinking: arrests for drunkenness and disorderly conduct increased 41 percent, and arrests of drunken drivers increased 81 percent. Among crimes with victims, thefts and burglaries increased 9 percent, while homicides and incidents of assault and battery increased 13 percent. [42]"
http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa157.pdf
That's incorrect. The murder rate rose steadily during Prohibition, peaking in 1933. It then declined before shooting up again in the mid-1960s.
Here is data for the US going back to 1900, along with available data from other countries. Note the rise in the murder rate after drug prohibition began in the early years of the 20th centruty =>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate_by_decade