The Eighteenth Amendment, also known as the Prohibition Act, took effect as of January 16, 1920, outlawing the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcoholic beverages in the United States from January 1920 till December 6, 1933. Prohibition was established to reduce the effects that alcohol had on families and on society. When primarily men consumed too much alcohol, their actions often resulted in domestic violence,often interfering with men's work performance, and money wasted that the family needed to support families. The prohibition period was very unsuccessful due to people wanting and doing whatever it took to get alcohol now that it was illegal, no matter how enforced prohibition was, leading to many Americans smuggling illegal alcohol …show more content…
Crime rates went up and increased in numbers rapidly soon after the prohibition laws were put in place. The population continued to grow throughout the war with about forty- five million people that lived in the states, countries, or cities that forbade both the manufacture and selling of alcohol(Slavicek). With such a high population, much money was put into enforcing prohibition. The annual budget of the Bureau of Prohibition went from approximately $4,000,000 to $13,500,000 during the 1920s (Thornton). Prohibition just kept failing no matter how much money or law enforcement the government put into it. Journalist Richard Cowan invented The Iron Law of Prohibition stating that the more intense law enforcement was on a prohibited substance, the more popular the prohibited substances became(Thornton). When anything becomes prohibited, the product will become more popular, be adulterated with unknown or dangerous substances, and will not be produced and consumed under normal market constraints . Due to alcohol having such a high popularity imports began to take place through many ports. Bootleggers began smuggling liquor into the United States not just from Canada and Mexico but from other seacoasts and ships under foreign registry such as the Bahamas, Cuba, and the French islands and off the southern coast of Newfoundland(Prohibition). Prohibition made it more difficult to supply weaker, products, such as beer, than stronger, compact products, such as whiskey, because(Thornton). As prohibition laws were suspected to be broken more, and more law enforcement began to get involved. Law enforcement agencies began to use sting operations. Elliot Ness, a prohibition agent, that went undercover trying to catch people selling consuming, and producing alcohol, used the method of wiretapping to reveal the secret locations of breweries, while