Prohibition

[HadleyH]

Not a soul

nobody ever drank alcohol then ...........nah ..... not a drop

how can any government be so stupid? just asking

 

[splintercellsz]

Cops Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith, who shuttered many a NYC speakeasy during Prohibition, enjoy a drink in 1935.

 

[HadleyH]

It's beautiful how many people started to drink in Prohibition!

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

It's beautiful how many people started to drink in Prohibition!

Something about the lure of the forbidden I suspect.

 

[HadleyH]

Something about the lure of the forbidden I suspect.

I guess so ... LOL hahhaa

 

[Stearmen]

Wow, what a Cat's Particulars of Snake-charmers! They sure have some nice stilts. I'm sure that ain't Noodle Juice. Sure hope they aren't going out with any Snugglepups! Well, I've got some Sugar so lets blouse and listen to some Whangdoodle, and if their Half cut Happily after words maybe a little Barneymugging!

 

[Giftmacher]

Not a soul

nobody ever drank alcohol then ...........nah ..... not a drop

how can any government be so stupid? just asking

It's quite simply, methanol in the the legit-looking bottles.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/metha...-172849755.html;_ylt=A2KJ3CfWLlxQwxcA71LQtDMD
(Actually 23 victims at the moment)

 

[Stanley Doble]

"how can any government be so stupid? just asking"
The government didn't want prohibition. It was forced on them by the public after 50 years of hard work, public protests, organization and lobbying mostly by women. Look up the history of the temperance movement and prepare to be surprised.

Prohibition mostly did work. You get a false impression from the media focus on the bootlegging and drinking. That is how the media works, they focus on the sensational exceptions.

Just like, if you believed what you see on the news, you would believe people are being killed in car crashes all over the place when in fact deaths in car crashes have been declining steadily since the 1920s and are now at an all time low.

 

[1961MJS]

"how can any government be so stupid? just asking"
The government didn't want prohibition. It was forced on them by the public after 50 years of hard work, public protests, organization and lobbying mostly by women. Look up the history of the temperance movement and prepare to be surprised.

Hi

According to several sources I've read from (but of course don't remember now) people used to drink whiskey and especially beer like we do Pop and bottled water. According to one source, most courtroom Jury boxes, prosecutor's desk, and defendant's desk had a bottle of whiskey setting on them instead of water. Remember hearing about the 3 martini lunch? Naturally, everyone went overboard.

Later

 

[LizzieMaine]

Which is exactly why Prohibition was enacted in the first place -- ending the "menace of the saloon" was right up alongside women's suffrage as a primary goal of the women's movement during the early years of the century. The prohibitionist is stereotyped today as a pinch-faced killjoy in a black suit, or Carrie Nation busting up saloons with a hatchet, but the real temperance leaders were serious, committed militants -- it was seen as a noble cause, in the same way that the Civil Rights movement would be viewed in its prime, and in fact Prohibition drew a lot of its momentum from the same forces that had backed the abolitionist movement.

Maine was a major center of the Temperance movement -- we got Prohibition here in the 1850s, and kept it until 1933, and it was considered a model for the rest of the country by movement supporters. And there's still a strain of that here -- we still have many dry towns.

 

[kiwilrdg]

In a lot of ways prohibition is like the "war on drugs" of today. There was a problem when it was legal. Laws made it illegal. It is still a problem.

 

[Undertow]

In a lot of ways prohibition is like the "war on drugs" of today. There was a problem when it was legal. Laws made it illegal. It is still a problem.

Yes.

And the Capones of today are reaping billions while governments spend millions so they can stand around a crop of ditch weed with stupid grins and a can of gasoline.

If one of these Capones is collared, there's another 20 willing to take his/her place. Almost seems futile...

 

[LizzieMaine]

The problem is a culture that encourages people to drown their sorrows in consumption -- of booze, of drugs, of whatever it takes -- rather than dealing with the root of whatever it is that's bugging them. Not to say that having a casual drink or smoking a cigarette is a sign of a pathological personality, but use of those substances, or any substance, as a way of avoiding reality certainly is. And we live in a world where the solution to anything is just a sip, a pill, or an injection away.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Which is exactly why Prohibition was enacted in the first place -- ending the "menace of the saloon" was right up alongside women's suffrage as a primary goal of the women's movement during the early years of the century. The prohibitionist is stereotyped today as a pinch-faced killjoy in a black suit, or Carrie Nation busting up saloons with a hatchet, but the real temperance leaders were serious, committed militants -- it was seen as a noble cause, in the same way that the Civil Rights movement would be viewed in its prime, and in fact Prohibition drew a lot of its momentum from the same forces that had backed the abolitionist movement.

Maine was a major center of the Temperance movement -- we got Prohibition here in the 1850s, and kept it until 1933, and it was considered a model for the rest of the country by movement supporters. And there's still a strain of that here -- we still have many dry towns.

When Maine was the only dry state many men moved there because of it. They knew they had a problem with alcohol, they knew they could quit, but they also knew by bitter experience that they couldn't stay away from it for long if they had to walk past a dozen saloons on their way home every night.

It used to be a common joke that the town's biggest drunk would lead the Temperance parade and yell the loudest for Prohibition but it wasn't funny to those who had a drinking problem, knew they had a problem, and knew they were powerless to control their addiction as long as there were bars and liquor stores in every block.

As for the drug problem. As for that. Dig in a little and you will find the CIA has been profiting from the drug trade since the fifties. Dig a little deeper and you will find there is no power in America that can control them. The drug trade will remain a part of American life, and it will remain illegal, as long as the intelligence establishment controls the government.

 

[Gregg Axley]

The drug trade will remain a part of American life, and it will remain illegal, as long as the intelligence establishment controls the government.

I'll agree with that partially.
Some of the drugs are made by huge companies, and sadly distributed freely...too freely.
As far as Illegal ones not going away, I'll agree with you on that.
It's a never ending cycle....

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's basically free enterprise and entrepreneurship gone mad. "Find a need, and fill it -- even if it kills your customers."

 

[Connery]

Prohibition and it's proponents such as the Anti-Saloon League created a great deal of dissension among various religions like Protestant and Catholic who had been at odds over alcohol for years before the 18th Amendment was passed. Alcohol was used in many cultures and was a way of life rather and brought that with them as immigrants. The
criminalization of alcohol was no more than a means of control which of course in the long run will fail.

 

[Stanley Doble]

It's basically free enterprise and entrepreneurship gone mad. "Find a need, and fill it -- even if it kills your customers."

If you think free enterprise and entrepreneurship are behind the drug trade you need to learn more about what certain CIA backed groups were doing around Mena Arkansas when Clinton was governor, and east LA in the nineties.

You could trace the whole mess all the way back to the OSS and the Mafia in WW2.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

In a lot of ways prohibition is like the "war on drugs" of today. There was a problem when it was legal. Laws made it illegal. It is still a problem.

I've said this a million times to various people during conversation. I personally believe that drugs were "pumped" into inner city neighborhoods beginning in the 1960s and now what you have today is cities from Detroit to Baltimore to DC to Philadelphia in shambles because of the violence and hopelessness of the people that has resulted from it.

 

[Stanley Doble]

I've said this a million times to various people during conversation. I personally believe that drugs were "pumped" into inner city neighborhoods beginning in the 1960s and now what you have today is cities from Detroit to Baltimore to DC to Philadelphia in shambles because of the violence and hopelessness of the people that has resulted from it.

Sadly the whole mess is even more pointless than that. The intelligence community is always short of money and one way to get big money fast is by selling drugs - especially if you have the power to stop the law in its tracks.

I don't believe they ever targeted any market. They would have peddled the stuff on the White House lawn if it would have gotten them what they wanted. They sold to big dealers and backed them up with protection from the law. After that, where the stuff went, they didn't know or care as long as they got the money.

The drugs were a means to an end, the end being long forgotten secret wars in far away places. Unfortunately the secret wars may now be pointless and forgotten but the damage done by the drug trade affects all levels of society in every part of America and the world.

WW2 - Mafiosi released from US prisons and deported to Italy to act as liason between the Sicilian Mafia and US Army intelligence => the French connection in the fifties which financed anti Communist activities in Europe

1960s and 70s - Opium and heroin from the Golden Triangle => Air America (CIA front) => heroin in the US and around the world financed the CIA's Vietnam war.

1980s - Cocaine from South American => Los Angeles financed anti Communist rebels and pro American governments in South American

1990s- Taliban's ban on opium growing in Afghanistan reversed by CIA after US invasion

Don't take my word for it. But don't take the mass media's word either. Do your own research. You might be surprised what you find out.