Why was prohibition introduced? Watch the episode about the introduction of the 18th Amendment at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZzF9_sfKNg
Prohibition was introduced in 1920 as a result of the Eighteenth Amendment. This ban on the sale, production, importation, and transportation of alcoholic beverages was greeted with delight by members of the temperance movement. Meanwhile many law-abiding Americans who had previously been drinkers were angry at the government for criminalising what they saw as a harmless activity.
Some members of the public were consequently willing to break the law, and this ushered in a period of criminal activity focused around the production of illegal bootlegged alcohol. Al Capone, one of prohibition’s most famous gangster bosses, made around $60 million a year from bootlegging alcohol and selling it in so-called ‘speakeasies’.
Izzy Einstein, one of the government’s best-known prohibition agents, demonstrated the scale of the problem facing the authorities who were trying to enforce the ban on alcohol. When visiting New Orleans it took him just thirty-five seconds to obtain liquor after his taxi driver offered him a bottle of whisky.
Combined with the problem of police officers being paid by the criminals to turn a blind eye to illegal activity, prohibition brought lawlessness and corruption to America. In the wake of the Wall Street Crash, repealing prohibition also made sound economic sense as alcohol taxes created a new revenue stream for the government. However, the introduction of the Twenty-first Amendment ensured that individual states were still able to enforce their alcohol laws.
