Prohibition's Past and Present

Jacob Sullum from the July 1997 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

So far this sounds like business as usual in the war on drugs. But in 1924, people took the sanctity of the home seriously, even in a town as committed to Prohibition as Portland. Wets and drys alike were outraged. The local newspapers, which had long supported Prohibition, unanimously condemned Pierce and the agents who conducted the raid. The city's chief of police and the local district attorney also repudiated Pierce's comments, as did federal Prohibition director J.A. Linville, who said, "A man's home is his castle and we don't deviate from the constitution in that regard in any manner." Sadly, as Baum's account suggests, such a scenario is unlikely today.

Just as they adopted the rhetoric of home protection favored by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the wets also claimed the banner of "true temperance." They argued that the concept--which, after all, refers to moderation, not abstinence--had been perverted by the prohibitionists.

There is a lesson here for today's reformers. Baum argues that conservatives confronted by crime, poverty, and social disorder used the war on drugs to switch the focus from "root causes" to individual misbehavior. But what they actually did was switch the focus from people to inanimate objects. They literally demonized psychoactive substances, depicting them as evil spirits that take possession of people and compel them to act in depraved and anti-social ways. This is the very opposite of personal responsibility.

Rose concludes that libertarian appeals asserting a right to drink were far less
effective in winning repeal of the 18th Amendment than the language of temperance, duty, and home protection. The trick was to explain how these values would be served better in a country where the government did not try to eliminate temptation. As wives and mothers, Sabin and her allies were especially effective proponents of this view, and one wonders how a similar organization--Mothers Against Prohibition, say--would fare today.

The wets also had an advantage in that their audience was familiar with the drug they proposed to legalize, so the concept of "true temperance" resonated. Today, by contrast, it is difficult for most Americans to picture a society that tolerates opium dens, marijuana bars, or even real Coca-Cola. They cannot imagine the customs, institutions, and social forces that would help tame these exotic substances.

Then again, they can see the sort of corruption, disorder, and violence that so troubled the opponents of Prohibition. They can, perhaps, be made to recognize the misuse of law enforcement resources, the infringement of civil liberties, the unnecessary hazards of black-market drugs. And they certainly should know by now that the hucksters touting a drug-free America, like the millenarians who championed a liquor-free world, have made promises they can't keep.