How "Fast" did Alcohol prohibition fall?

[Hydro-Soil]

Hey All,

Does anyone have any research time into the fall of alcohol prohibition? I'm curious how different the series of events are between that and the falling cannabis prohibition.

I'm sure everyone has been noticing the increase in the positive-cannabis happenings and it's looking like prohibition is taking a hit worldwide. Indeed, things are heating up across the states medicinally and at least a few states are almost ready to accept reality and step into the legalization pool.

Could this all be a bad dream by next year? Should I start building a large cloner for all the cuts I'm going to be giving out?

Looking for input from folks that have done papers and such on the subject or whatnot.

Thanks and.... Stay Safe!

 

[THC123]

keep on dreaming , when i was 18 it was also "gonna be legal real soon" now , 10 years later still the same shit

don't get me wrong i really want it legalised but i am not getting my hopes up anymore.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

when i was 18 it was also "gonna be legal real soon" now

That was nothing compared to what's going on now and personally I thought anyone believing that weak stuff at the time was dreaming. We also didn't have the internet facilitating the current level of communication. Things are changing quite quickly and in many important areas that weren't touched previously.

And here I thought I lived in a cave.

 

[Pythagllio]

I've been watching for 32 1/2 years now, and there is no comparable period in those decades to what is going on now. It's irrelevant if a few people were overly optimistic in the past.

Alcohol prohibition fell very quickly, but then again it didn't really last long either.

There's as much chance of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment as there is for a hummingbird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its tail. -- Prohibitionist visionary Senator Morris Shepard of Texas, 1930

 

[zymos]

The 18th Amendment lasted from 1919 to 1933...

 

[DarkLance]

The 18th Amendment lasted from 1919 to 1933...

14 years compared to 40 years. well, in fact its more like 73...

 

[boroboro]

Hydro-Soil, I think this is a great question, thanks for posting it.

I'm not a real big student of history, but I have read enough to know not to trust one source for a historical narrative story.

I have the impression that there was a big groundswell of public support for repealing prohibition for years and years, more public support than cannabis legalization has. I might be wrong, though, maybe prohibition was supported in the Bible Belt as much as it was opposed in the cities.

Also, was there really widespread violence and anarchy under Prohibition, or has that been played up by historians? I have a hard time trusting historians' stories, after reading "Lies My Teacher Told Me". If it really was Al Capone on every streetcorner, there may have been more opposition to Prohibition of Alcohol than we now have opposition to a few stoned hippies sitting on a couch eating Cheetos or wandering through the woods planting weeds.

OK, may have overplayed my hand there...

Anyway, Wikipedia says the repeal movement was active for at least 8 years before succeeding:

In 1919, the requisite number of legislatures of the States ratified The 18th Amendment to the Federal Constitution, enabling national Prohibition within one year of ratification. Many women, notably the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, had been pivotal in bringing about national Prohibition in the United States of America, believing it would protect families, women and children from the effects of abuse of alcohol.

The proponents of Prohibition had believed that banning alcoholic beverages would reduce or even eliminate many social problems, particularly drunkenness, crime, mental illness, and poverty, and would eventually lead to reductions in taxes. However, during Prohibition, people continued to produce and drink alcohol, and bootlegging helped foster a massive industry completely under the control of organized crime. Prohibitionists argued that Prohibition would be more effective if enforcement were increased. However, increased efforts to enforce Prohibition simply resulted in the government spending more money, rather than less. Journalist H.L. Mencken asserted in 1925 that respect for law diminished rather than increased during Prohibition, and drunkenness, crime, insanity, and resentment towards the federal government had all increased.[citation needed]

During this period, support for Prohibition diminished among voters and politicians. John D. Rockefeller Jr., a lifelong nondrinker who had contributed much money to the Prohibitionist Anti-Saloon League, eventually announced his support for repeal because of the widespread problems he believed Prohibition had caused. Influential leaders, such as the du Pont brothers, led the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, whose name clearly asserted its intentions.

Women as a bloc of voters and activists became pivotal in the effort to repeal, as many concluded that the effects of Prohibition were morally corrupting families, women, and children. (By then, women had become even more politically powerful due to ratification of the Constitutional amendment for women's suffrage.) Activist Pauline Sabin argued that repeal would protect families from the corruption, violent crime, and underground drinking that resulted from Prohibition. In 1929 Sabin founded the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR), which came to be partly composed of and supported by former Prohibitionists; its membership was estimated at 1.5 million by 1931.

The number of repeal organizations and demand for repeal both increased. In 1932, the Democratic Party's platform included a plank for the repeal of Prohibition, and Democrat Franklin Roosevelt ran for President of the United States promising repeal of federal laws of Prohibition. By then, an estimated three fourths of American voters, and an estimated forty-six states, favored repeal.

In 1933, the state conventions ratified the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed Amendment XVIII and prohibited only the violations of laws that individual states had in regard to "intoxicating liquors". Federal Prohibitionary laws were then repealed. The amendment was fully ratified on December 5, 1933. Some States, however, continued Prohibition within their jurisdictions. Almost two-thirds of all states adopted some form of local option which enabled residents in political subdivisions to vote for or against local Prohibition; therefore, for a time, 38% of Americans lived in areas with Prohibition. By 1966, however, all states had fully repealed their state-level Prohibition laws, with Mississippi the last state to do so.[1]

 

[MrBomDiggitty]

Prohibition didn't fail fast enough. Lasted good amount of time for gangsters to take control of the whole industry, legalize gambling, and own the world

 

[centralcoastbud]

The *main* reason prohibition was repealed was due to the great depression... there was no longer a good enough reason to spend money on enforcing the prohibition of something people could do within the privacy of their own homes while the economy was in shambles.

 

[Pythagllio]

14 years compared to 40 years. well, in fact its more like 73...

The first state law against cannabis was passed in 1913 IIRC, so more like 97 years.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

The *main* reason prohibition was repealed was due to the great depression... there was no longer a good enough reason to spend money on enforcing the prohibition of something people could do within the privacy of their own homes while the economy was in shambles.

Seems to me this would be the main reason to do it now.

The fact that it's a crime against humanity to deprive them of cannabis is another subject altogether.



I believe the biggest difference is going to be because more people were aware of alcohol before prohibition where cannabis was really just becoming known when it was outlawed.

Interesting on one level.


Stay Safe!

 

[Hash Zeppelin]

keep on dreaming , when i was 18 it was also "gonna be legal real soon" now , 10 years later still the same shit

don't get me wrong i really want it legalised but i am not getting my hopes up anymore.

The Closing of the border forced all most pot production to be done here in the usa. Our production sky rocketed, and became such a money producer that legalization is now wanted for the purpose of taxation.

 

[armedoldhippy]

repeal was popular among many national politicians at the time, many of whom never stopped drinking. then, like now, the laws were mainly enforced against those segments of society that had no influential friends to turn to, nor funds to hire lawyers or bribe judges/district attys. drinking was winked at if not tacitly encouraged in "upper echelons of society" as they liked to think of themselves. too big of a disconnect between "marijuana" & "hemp". have talked to lots of old folks, that of hearing marijuana & hemp were virtually the same thing, told me that "heck, we smoked that stuff when we were kids before/during/after the war ". what comes around goes around, albeit more slowly than we would sometimes like to see it move... AOH