Reasons for the Repeal of Prohibition

[Phidippides]

I caught some of the Prohibition documentary on PBS (I think this is the Ken Burns version).  From what they were saying, it sounded like one of the driving forces behind its repeal had more to do with the lack of respect for the law in general than the issue of whether or not people had the right to consume alcohol.  Anyone know if the former issue was more important in the repeal than the latter? 

It seems interesting to me because "lack of respect for the law" isn't really something people seemed concerned about today.  I think in the 1920s, the idea was that if people so blatantly disregard one major law, people will stop disregarding other laws as well, leading to chaos.  Not to stir the pot or to say it's analagous, but I think the issue of illegal immigration today has some of the same underlying issues.

[skiguy]

Question about prohibition and how it relates to today's debate on marijuana.   Was alcohol (and I'm talking whiskey, rum, etc.) ever considered a medicine befor it was legalized?  What I'm trying to get at, will marijuana become legal because of that same reason?

Although I see the point you're trying to make when it comes to lawfulness I don't really see the analogy in the situation with all illegals.  IMO, it's not the same because some illegals have no choice but to resort to lawlessness if they want to make a living. The degree of lawlessness is the question.  Yes, it's chaos now, but that's because the Federal gov't isn't doing anything about it. (which is perhaps why it should be a state issue?)

[Phidippides]

I don't know for sure but I imagine that some alcohol was permitted during Prohibition, at least for religious ritual use.  Not sure if it was permitted to alleviate pain and suffering of the sick.


The immigration issue I raised wasn't really an analogy but I raised it because some of the same issues are present.  With Prohibition, many people ignored the law and eventually the law was repealed, in part because so many people ignored it.  With immigration, many people ignore the law, but these are not citizens to begin with, and it's not as if entirely "open borders" is an option. 


I don't think I agree with the idea that illegals "have no choice but to resort to lawlessness to make a living" unless someone has held their families hostage and tells them to enter into the U.S.  I think for the most part, it's simply a desire to better themselves economically.  While there is nothing wrong with wanting to get ahead in life, there are multiple ways of doing this which do not involve illegal action; entering the U.S. is only one such option, and doing so is a choice.


Back to the alcohol issue - no one was forcing people to drink it during Prohibition, but people were doing it anyway.  So was repealing the law an accommodation to criminals?  Indirectly perhaps, but I think the larger issue must have been that there was some recognition that the underlying reason for the law was not entirely solid to begin with.  In other words, most people recognized that alcohol was not the enemy it was portrayed to be by the people in the Temperance movement.

[OzGirl1985]

So was repealing the law an accommodation to criminals?

I don't believe that it was. Our nation has a history of nonsensical laws that were passed and repealed. I think it's all part of the process of moving into democracy. All to often, when we look at our history as a nation (especially our more recent history), we tend to forget how young our country is. A lot of laws were passed very early on in our nation for one reason or another (prohibition was likely a form of 'controlling' the masses from becoming belligerently drunk and causing problems) and were repealed when they were no longer necessary.

Along the same lines as prohibition- playing pinball machines was illegal in most major cities from their inception in the 1930s until the mid 1970s. In some places, Pinball is still (on the books) against the law. Our nation's legislators believed them to be a form of gambling and ran by the mafia. What I'm getting at here is that there are plenty of laws that have been passed that are ridiculous and I don't think that they're repealed because of the number of people breaking the law but rather the realization that perhaps the law was never necessary in the first place.

If laws were going to be changed because people were breaking them, we wouldn't have speed limits.