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Why Was Prohibition A Failure?

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Prohibition was an icon of the Roaring Twenties. Proponents of temperance had, for centuries prior, advocated for a federal law against alcohol, and, with the passing of the 18th amendment in 1920, they reached their goal. What advocates saw as a foolproof way to clean up society ended up backfiring and turning the nation towards more than a decade of illegal and immoral behavior that should have been foreseeable. Prohibition was an immense failure because of the unpredicted disobedience that arose and the detrimental effects of this disobedience on society. In order to evaluate the extent to which Prohibition was a failure, it much first be understood for what reasons the ban on alcohol happened. Alcohol had always been a prevalent aspect of American society. An English captain, in a visit to America in 1839, noted that Americans seemed to react to everything with a drink. He talked about how Americans drink to celebrate anything from a meeting to a birth. They drink for seemingly pointless reasons, like if the weather is especially hot or cold. They drink after favorable elections or not favorable ones. His essential point is that they drink no matter what happens and that alcohol was an extremely major part of the American culture.
Consumption of alcohol on such large of a scale evidently led to many societal issues. Domestic violence …show more content…

Prohibition on the state level existed, at least in theory, much before the federal law was passed. The repeal of the 18th amendment in 1933 did not legalize alcohol in The United States. Rather, it simply illegalized the federal law that banned alcohol and left the decision up to the states. Today, marijuana is mirroring Prohibition in the sense of how it is becoming a separate issue by state, with Washington and Colorado legalizing it. The states are the primary decision makers in both

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