Alcohol And Addiction By Hamish Todd - 1640 Words

Alcohol and Addiction By Hamish Todd Alcohol has a colorful history in the United States, in the 1920s and early 30s, the sale, manufacture and distribution of alcohol was illegal. The result of a widespread temperance movement during the first decade of the 20th century, Prohibition was difficult to enforce, despite the passage of companion legislation known as the Volstead Act. The increase of the illegal production and sale of liquor (known as â€Å"bootlegging†), the proliferation of speakeasies (illegal drinking spots) and the accompanying rise in gang violence and other crimes led to waning support for Prohibition by the end of the 1920s. In early 1933, Congress adopted a resolution proposing a 21st Amendment to the Constitution that would repeal the 18th. Home-made or bootleg liquor was of an inferior quality and sometimes dangerous. Crime rates soared rather than fell. Prohibition turned out to be bad for the economy. Restaurants couldn’t make enough money without liquor sales. Taverns and bre wpubs and bottling plants went out of business costing the government an estimated $ billion in excise tax. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt ran on, among other things, a platform to abolish prohibition. In 1933 the United States passed the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment. A few states in the south, remained â€Å"dry† until 1966, when the last vestiges of the 18th Amendment. www.history.com/topics/prohibition Alcohol has become ubiquitous in our society, advertised on