Prohibition Was Not an Awful Flop

Jacob Sullum | September 7, 2005

Over at Grits for Breakfast, Scott Henson notes that the DEA defends alcohol prohibition on its new Web site aimed at teenagers:

A word about prohibition: lots of you hear the argument that alcohol prohibition failed--so why are drugs still illegal? Prohibition did work. Alcohol consumption was reduced by almost 60% and incidents of liver cirrhosis and deaths from this disease dropped dramatically...Today, alcohol consumption is over three times greater than during the Prohibition years. Alcohol use is legal, except for kids under 21, and it causes major problems, especially in drunk driving accidents.

It's true that alcohol consumption fell during Prohibition, at least initially. In a 1991 paper, economists Jeffrey Miron and Jeffrey Zwiebel estimated, based on four measures (cirrhosis, alcoholism deaths, arrests for drunkenness, and alcoholic psychoses), that consumption dropped 60 to 80 percent immediately after Prohibition was enacted, then rebounded sharply beginning in 1921. By the end of the decade, consumption was 50 to 70 percent of the pre-Prohibition level according to three measures and slightly higher according to one. Drinking did not rise precipitously after repeal. Alcohol consumption in the late 1930s was about the same as in the final years of Prohibition; it returned to the pre-Prohibition level during the next decade.

There remains the question of how important a role Prohibition itself played in these trends. In a subsequent analysis that took additional factors into account, including World War I, changes in the age structure of the population, and the lag between drinking and the development of cirrhosis, Miron concluded that "Prohibition exerted a modest and possibly even a positive effect on the consumption of alcohol."

But to decide whether banning booze was a good policy, which is what the DEA seems to be arguing, it's not enough to know whether it reduced drinking. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that paternalism can be justified on a utilitarian basis, you need to know whether the benefit from fewer alcohol-related problems outweighed the costs associated with prohibition, including the loss of privacy and freedom, black-market violence, official corruption, disrespect for the law, injuries and deaths from illicit alcohol, and the strengthening of organized crime. A consensus developed during Prohibition that, whatever its benefits might be, they were not worth these costs. By that measure, alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and early '30s, like drug prohibition today, was a failure, even if it "worked" in the sense that it discouraged drinking.

It's hard to take prohibitionists seriously when they act as if the policy they favor carries no costs. But by pining for the days of Al Capone and methanol-tainted rotgut, at least the DEA is being consistent.

Comments

|9.7.05 @ 1:20PM|#

I'm going to skip right over what are no doubt intelligent, well supported points underming the DEA's comments about prohibition's effectiveness, and commence with shouting:

"The DEA wants to ban alcohol!"

"The DEA is defending prohibition!"

"The DEA wants to put you in jail for having a beer!"

|9.7.05 @ 1:23PM|#

I'll say it again, these fuckers must be evil. How they can continually lie to everyone while looking them dead in the eye is just not right. It's like a mental defect or something.

I would like to ask them why, if prohibition worked, was the amendment repealed with another amendment. But I'm sure they've got another lie saved up for the answer to that query.

|9.7.05 @ 1:24PM|#

I sometimes wonder if our whole American culture is some big put-on.. like the most complex Beckett production ever performed.

"Years of hindsight, coupled with objective scrutiny, has revealed how severly flawed the prohibition effort was. But it wasn't.. because we say so."

That has to be a joke. Please God, tell me that they're not serious.

|9.7.05 @ 1:27PM|#

Hardly a week goes by that the DEA doesn't put up something idiotic or just plain wrong on their website. The real question is why? Either they're stupid, desperate to keep the DEA running and their jobs intact, or they really beleive that marijuana must be stopped.

|9.7.05 @ 1:30PM|#

Hardly a week goes by that the DEA doesn't put up something idiotic or just plain wrong on their website. The real question is why? Either they're stupid, desperate to keep the DEA running and their jobs intact, or they really beleive that marijuana must be stopped no matter what.

|9.7.05 @ 1:42PM|#

Prohibition was undoubtedly a bad idea but its role in spawning organized crime in the US may have been exaggerated. In any event, the historian Robert H. Ferrell made an argument to this effect in his *The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge* (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas 1998)--on pp. 102-3 he even claims that Al Capone "may not have made much money on liquor, for he had to pay enormous bribes. His basic industries were probably those he had taken over before the era of Prohibition--gambling and prostitution." Ferrell cites Norman H. Clark, *Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition* (New York: Norton 1976), a book I have not yet read.

The fact that organized crime survived repeal so well does make one skeptical of the claim that it would not have flourished had the 18th Amendment never been passed. OTOH, it's hard to see why Capone resorted to (literally) cut-throat competition for the market in booze if he wasn't making money on it...

Prohibition btw is another example of "war being the health of the state." I doubt very much it would have happened on a national scale if not for World War I--with its "sacrifice" mentality and the resentment of brewers because they were largely German-American.

|9.7.05 @ 1:42PM|#

But gangstas are so cool to teenagers. And what better era for gangstas!

Jeff P.|9.7.05 @ 1:49PM|#

I've said this before: If we follow DEA logic, we must conclude that the assassination of Kennedy "worked," as the goal was to remove a sitting president from office as well as this mortal coil. The amount of Kennedy in the oval office was reduced by 100%. If anything, the assassination must be considered MORE successful as we have not had a recurrance.

|9.7.05 @ 1:59PM|#

I've said it once, I'll say it again: I predict, that by the end of my lifetime (I'm 30 now.) there will be a serious political attempt to bring back alcohol prohibition. It will be demanded not by Protestant nut-job seeking to save us from their temptation, but by the public health and safety fantics to save us from the spectors of "binge drinking" and "drunken driving." "Big Alcohol" will become as villified as the tobacco industry, and the nightly news will be clogged with images of weeping soccer moms brandishing 8x10 glossy of deceased children in front of Congressional commitees and claming that their little Avery/Candice "would be alive today if this legislation were in place."

Mike Kole|9.7.05 @ 2:05PM|#

It's not easy continually having to make stuff up so as to ensure the longevity of your department and a full budget. Give a little credit where credit is due.

|9.7.05 @ 2:10PM|#

That's it.

We're fucked.

|9.7.05 @ 2:13PM|#

mediageek - I say that almost every day.

Akira - I don't know about that, but if you would've predicted the anti-smoking campaign and it's successes when I was younger, I probably wouldn't have believed that, either.

|9.7.05 @ 2:14PM|#

Akira is 100% correct, we must conclude that Akiras are successfull prognosticators and listen very carefully to what they say.


I've heard this comming for a while, I once took a sociology class. First the dude railed against illicit drugs for what they've done to the poor communities. Then he cheered and applauded the attacks against the tobaco industry and declaired that now it would only be a matter of time before we could finally out-law it. Then he proceeded to talk up that alchahol was the most evil of all and must go next. The students were cheering the jack-ass on! Next he declared caffiene should be illegalized after those and he lost half the class. Guess you gotta draw the line somewhere, right?

|9.7.05 @ 2:22PM|#

I've always said that I admired the Temperance movement because they recognized the federal government didn't have the authority to ban alcohol and so they passed an amendment to do so.

Now with Scheduling, a drug can be made illegal without a single elected official voting on it. It just happens -- extra-constitutionally, if that means anything anymore.

The second reason to admire the proponents of prohibition is that they were 'man enough' to recognize the problems with it and fought for the repeal. This wasn't a politically expedient flip-flop, it was a deeply held position, followed by action, followed by unintended consequences, followed by an epiphany, followed by action.

|9.7.05 @ 2:23PM|#

Next he declared caffiene should be illegalized after those and he lost half the class.

Finals must have been coming up.

R C Dean|9.7.05 @ 2:40PM|#

Guess you gotta draw the line somewhere, right?

Funny how it always gets drawn so the other guy takes the beating, idnit?

ed|9.7.05 @ 2:50PM|#

Akira, naming your kid "Avery" doesn't help either.

Timothy|9.7.05 @ 2:50PM|#

I never would've gotten through college without caffine, ephedrine, and booze. Here's to the Jaegerblaster and its many wonders, especially when taken with other stimulants!

The Wine Commonsewer|9.7.05 @ 2:52PM|#

Alcohol use is legal, except for kids under 21

Kids under 21? Kids? Kids?

Kids who can get married, sign contracts, buy homes, vote....big sigh, you guys have all heard this already. Sorry.

nmg|9.7.05 @ 2:57PM|#

I have absolutely no hope for the future. Honestly. None.

nmg

The Wine Commonsewer|9.7.05 @ 3:01PM|#

Without Prohibition JFK wouldn't have had daddy's wealth to parlay into a successful bid for the White House.

And without Prohibition my grandmother's fiance wouldn't have been shot to death at the Canadian border by J Edgar Hoover's boys.

We Report, You Decipher

drf|9.7.05 @ 3:02PM|#

Who was it a few months ago defended prohibition? it was a semi regular... real law-and-order pro bush type.... dammit. can't remember.

TWC: except they can't rent a car or run for senate :)

*chuckle.

p.s,. Davis Bynum is a great guy :)

|9.7.05 @ 3:29PM|#

I was trying to come up with most nauseating name that yuppie parents can inflict upon a child.

|9.7.05 @ 3:29PM|#

Wow I was impressed that the DEA was actually telling the truth this time. Not only that but the argument was plausible. Granted a more thorough analysis would almost assuredly indicate that prohibition was a net negative (strongly supproted by its quick repeal). When I saw a post about the DEA I was ready for some comment that wouldn't even pass the laugh test as usual. It's probably just a fluke though time to get back to fighting the latest epedemic, the last I heard I think this was meth mouth.

|9.7.05 @ 3:29PM|#

drf:

joe?

|9.7.05 @ 3:38PM|#

One of the saddest points that needs to be brought in here that applies to the WoD too, is that Prohibiton wasn't repealed because of Al Capone, nor cost-benefit analysis, nor fear of rot-gut. Nay, it was repealed in hopes repeal could provide some jobs in the brewing and distilling industries. Here's the kicker: It took the Great Depression to cause the hoi polloi to be THAT concerned about jobs.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION!
Do we have some fun to look forward to, or what!

|9.7.05 @ 4:38PM|#

Akira, I can't remember a single one of them right now, but there's a giant list ( a couple of them, actually) in Freakonomics that are enough to make ya puke.

I can't really be critical, though...some would say the same about my kids' names.

|9.7.05 @ 4:57PM|#

Current events seem to keep reminding me of this quote, for some reason:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
-- Upton Sinclair, novelist and reformer (1878 - 1968)

And the DEA has a hell of an incentive to not understand history.

|9.7.05 @ 5:01PM|#

This is the same DEA that has made it impossible for any doctor in the U.S. to prescribe truly effective pain relief for patients suffering from severe pain. The head of the DEA made the statement that he could see no legitimate use for opiate drugs except for people in the end stages of certain kinds of cancer and they would pursue and prosecute any doctor who didn't toe the DEA line. Having gone through three spinal column surgeries I would like to state that he is a nut-job fanatic.

Also, maybe Al Capone didn't make much from bootlegging, don't know for sure, but ol' Joe Kennedy sure made out well.

|9.7.05 @ 6:23PM|#

drf:

joe?

Nah. Joe wants his pet vices to be legal, but other fun stuff to be illegal, which makes him philosphically inconsistent, but at least he's not insane nor as idiotic as a box full of snot-covered Garbanzo beans, like these prohibitionist motherfuckers are.

Christ, I read stuff like this, and really, I need a drink.

|9.7.05 @ 6:29PM|#

Joe:

What, planning to switch jobs to the DEA?

Uncle Sam|9.7.05 @ 7:23PM|#

I was in prison long time ago on mj charges. Got high there a number of times. Got knocked down once by a guy who'd been drinking smuggled grain alcohol.

|9.7.05 @ 7:35PM|#

Prohibition was a smashing success, and it achieved all of its intended purposes.

Notice that I didn't say anything about it's stated purposes, I said its intended purposes.

|9.7.05 @ 9:52PM|#

I haven't read Professor Farrell's book, but I have to wonder how he concluded that Capone may not have made that much money off of booze. Sure, Capone paid huge bribes, but he had to do that anyway to get the police, local government and courts to tolerate or even promote his gambling and prostitution rackets - bribery was a "fixed cost," regardless of the nature of the business. Also, if booze wasn't that lucrative, why were Capone, Moran, the Gennas and O'Bannion busy cutting each other's throats over it, not to mention Luciano and the New York mob?

It seems to me that the beauty of the booze racket was that it opened up a whole new market to the gangsters, one that had not been tapped by the older gambling and prostitution lines. People who didn't play the numbers or frequent whorehouses were perfectly willing to sup illicit beer or booze, and it gave organized crime entry into a lot of areas that they hadn't been able to penetrate previously.

chris joseph|9.8.05 @ 12:04AM|#

I suppose relocating 1984 to the non-fiction shelves really is a good idea.

Andrew Ian Dodge|9.8.05 @ 1:34PM|#

Obviously the DEA thinks the creation of the organised crime during the 20s was a good thing. They are a miserable bunch of sods aren't they?