The mistakes of Prohibition still haunt us
On December 5, 1933, exactly ninety years ago, the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed, formally lifting the ban on alcoholic beverages that defined the Roaring Twenties. Of course, that wasn’t the first time someone tried to outlaw the world’s most popular drug, but it’s probably the best-known case study where the contrast between intended results and reality reached absurd extremes. And yet, the best part of a century later, the same mistakes haunt us. Saloons had a reputation as pretty rowdy places, filled with whores, card playing and drunken cowboys. The Anti-Saloon League formed to shutter these dens of sin. The League’s leader, Wayne Wheeler, who spearheaded the movement towards Prohibition, told different parties what they wanted to hear.
