Alcohol Prohibition Was a Failure
By
Mark Thornton
JPolicy Analysis No. 157
Alcohol Prohibition Was a Failure
By
Mark Thornton
July 17, 1991
Executive
Summary
National
prohibition of alcohol (1920-33)—the “noble experiment”—was undertaken to
reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden
created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America.
The results of that experiment clearly indicate that it was a miserable failure
on all counts. The evidence affirms sound economic theory, which predicts that
prohibition of mutually beneficial exchanges is doomed to failure.
The lessons of
Prohibition remain important today. They apply not only to the debate over the
war on drugs but also to the mounting efforts to drastically reduce access to
alcohol and tobacco and to such issues as censorship and bans on insider
trading, abortion, and gambling.[1]
Although
consumption of alcohol fell at the beginning of Prohibition, it subsequently
increased. Alcohol became more dangerous to consume; crime increased and became
“organized”; the court and prison systems were stretched to the breaking point;
and corruption of public officials was rampant. No measurable gains were made
in productivity or reduced absenteeism. Prohibition removed a significant
source of tax revenue and greatly increased government spending. It led many
drinkers to switch to opium, marijuana, patent medicines, cocaine, and other
dangerous substances that they would have been unlikely to encounter in the
absence of Prohibition.
Those results are documented from a variety of
sources, most of which, ironically, are the work of supporters of
Prohibition—most economists and social scientists supported it. Their findings
make the case against Prohibition that much stronger.[2]
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