How "popular" is moonshine compared to legal alcohol? Or compared to during Prohibition?
>Me: I think the right analogy is to ending prohibition, but finding that moonshine production was popular.
>>You: How “popular” is moonshine compared to legal alcohol? Or compared to during Prohibition?
Now—probably not so much. Back in the day, moonshine was pretty popular. If it weren’t, there wouldn’t have been objections in the South about the “revenooers”, or romanticized movies about moonshine running like “Thunder Road” (starring Robert Mitchum).
But that’s not really the point. The point is that what is now called legalization for pot is more “legalization under heavy government control and costs.”
If you compare the alcohol situation, you have to take motivation into account. In comparison to pot, even regulated alcohol with all its taxes is affordable (any poor bum can afford to be an alky). It’s also rather bulky.
In comparison, pot isn’t all that bulky (a pound of pot is worth a lot more than a 16 ounce can of beer), and the taxes appear to be higher relative to the cost of production. As is usually the case, the motive is profit. There isn’t all that much profit by comparison in moonshine today.
So, it’s the operating parameters—relative legal versus illegal product cost—and value per unit bulk—that determine popularity of contraband. That’s just black market economic incentive. The analogy between the two products, though, is IMHO pretty good, even if the details are different.