American History

Many countries of the world have long battled with the problem of drug abuse. While there are many drugs that are abused the world over, there are those that are classified as narcotics. These drugs, when used usually in most cases cause health problems like seizures. In many countries, narcotics are illegal and if caught with a narcotic one can face serious legal implications. Alcohol does not fall under the category of narcotics. However, it is also a drug which if used in excess can have serious health implications. The focus of this paper is a period in time when America prohibited consumption of alcohol. The discussion seeks to find out if there were any effects that the legislation had and if so, were the effects positive or negative

The Americas Alcohol Prohibition commonly referred to as the Noble Experiment was the period when the manufacture, sale, consumption and transportation of alcohol in America were banned. This was done in accordance with the provision of the Eighteenth Amendment of the constitution. This was between the years 1920 and 1933.

What Triggered the Prohibition
Prior to the enactment of the Alcohol Prohibition Act, popularly known as the Volstead Act, crime was very rampant in America. Corruption was also on the rise and the people of America were experiencing massive social problems. They had to contend with the overwhelming taxes that they had to pay to maintain prisons which were now overcrowded by the many people who found guilty of various crimes. In addition, basic social amenities like hygiene and health care system were in a total mess. The ban of alcohol in America was thus aimed at reducing all the problems that America was going through. Unfortunately, as we shall see later in the discussion, the prohibition did not achieve the purpose for which it was intended.

Many books were written on the dangers of alcohol as a way of convincing people to refrain from drinking alcohol. Students in schools at the time would be shown demonstrations of a sample brain that would be immersed in a jar full of alcohol, and they would watch the sample brain change color. This was meant to scare the young people not to indulge in alcohol drinking. Most of the books that were written at the time regarding alcohol had exaggerated messages which did not seem to go down well with those who were opposed to passing of this legislation.

Initially when the Act came to force, consumption of alcohol reduced drastically and there was significant drop in the number of crimes that were committed. However, within a short period of time, the consumption rates went up yet again and the rate of crime was very high. It was now more organized and the society became more dangerous a place to live in. Officials in public offices became very corrupt. The judiciary and the other law enforcement agencies could no longer be able to contain the situation that was now getting out of hand. The law enforcement agencies felt overburdened in attempting to enforce a law that was opposed by the majority of citizens in the country. It now became a cat and mouse kind of game between the law enforcers and the citizens who were determined to consume alcohol at all costs.

The Prohibition Act did not achieve the purpose for which it was enacted to the disappointment of those who proposed and supported the law. There are many reasons as to why this piece of legislation did not have much positive effect as initially intended. The first thing that proponents of this law did not give much consideration is that by banning the manufacture, sale, consumption and transportation of alcohol, they were in essence reducing the amount of revenue that the federal government was due to receive from the sale of alcohol. In essence therefore, during this period when alcohol was banned in the country, the federal government suffered great losses as there was a drastic drop in the amount of revenue that was received. This is just but one of the many failures that was witnessed as a result of enactment of this Act.

Effects of Prohibition
As already mentioned, there were quite a number of effects that came with the enactment of this legislation. It is unfortunate however, to note that virtually all of the effects were negative. It thus portrays this piece of legislation as a failed law. During prohibition, the number of places that sold alcohol increased. Since many of the businesses were being conducted in secrecy, the number of places increased and thus the initial purpose of Act was defeated. In addition, those who supported the prohibition of alcohol consumption did not have proper mechanisms to control the prohibition. It thus reached a point where they felt overwhelmed in terms of ensuring that the law was fully enforced. Perhaps the only positive effect of this law was that more people began drinking legitimate and authorized alcohol. This is because getting alcohol was difficult at the time. People therefore preferred to buy medicinal alcohol, or medicines that contained high percentages of alcohol. As a result, there was less consumption of substandard alcohols.

The main aim of the prohibiting Act was to make people to switch from consuming alcoholic products into dairy products and other basic essentials in life. It came as a rude shock for the prohibitionists to note that this did not happen. Instead, the consumption of alcohol went up as people seemed willing to take alcohol despite the increase in prices that were meant to discourage people from consuming.

Health Impacts
One of the winning proves as advanced by prohibitionists is that during the era of prohibition, the number of deaths that occurred as a result of alcohol went down. However, the health care system of Americans and the hygiene standards still deteriorated with not a sign of improvement as earlier anticipated. In essence, the Act did not contribute much in terms of preserving health of Americans. This legislation created disrespect for the law in that since it failed in achieving the very purpose for which it was enacted people felt that perhaps all others laws were equally going to fail. It thus brought lack of respect for the laws.

In terms of crime reduction, this legislation equally failed. There were high expectations especially from the proponents of this law that the enactment would help reduce the rate of crime.  To the disappointment of many, the rate of crime went up by up to ten percent. The hope of many prohibitionists was that by making it illegal to consume alcohol, less people would commit crimes, thus less people would be arrested and less people will be put in prisons. Consequently, the burden of the taxpayers would be reduced drastically. This however remained just that. Hope for better things to come which never came to be.

In terms of corruption, the rate of impunity among public officials went up. Unknown to the proponents of this law, prohibition of alcohol consumption became a great source of corruption. Bribes exchanged hands as high ranking people in the government gave money in exchange of getting alcohol. Recently conducted research indicates that corruption in America had never been rife as it was during the enforcement of the legislation. Organized crime during this period became rampant among public officials. What would happen is that when alcohol was being transported to government hospitals to be used as medicine, some corrupt officials would collaborate with some gangs of people and have the alcohol smuggled and people would end up having it.

It was only after the failures of the legislation outweighed the benefits that it was repealed making it legal to manufacture, sell, consume and, transport and distributed alcohol in America. The repeal of this law saw many improvements in the lives of Americans. The crime went down and in particular organized crime reduced at a significant rate. While prohibition was meant to boost to greater heights the economy of the country, it did the exact opposite. The economy was ailing during the era of prohibition. As already mentioned, the government lost huge revenues as the consumption of alcohol was low at the time. It is also evident that prohibition forced people to go into alternative form of drugs which were more dangerous and harmful.

In conclusion, the Prohibition Act failed miserably in achieving its intended purpose. In addition, it led to a chain of other uncalled for problems which the Americans did not have to put up with. The very problems that the Act was supposed to solve doubled while making the life of Americans worse. There are a couple of lessons that America as a state and the world at large has learnt from the experiences of the Prohibition Act. It is not a good show for any government to enact law which ends up failing. The reason for this is that the people will no longer have faith in the government and will also disrespect the other laws.

It is rather obvious that some prohibitionists were aware that imposing the ban would bring more harm than good to the people of America. For example, it was only natural that the government would lose out big time if the sale of alcohol was banned as quite a high amount of revenue would be lost. However, most abolitionists gave a blind eye to such thoughts and opinions. The movement of bootleggers that was illegal only came to be only after this Act was enacted. This goes to show that much damage can be associated with this particular legislation. Some of the organized crime groups that mushroomed would not have if the Act never came into being.