Led by the Protestants, Anti-Saloon League, and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, alcohol prohibition began in the United States in 1920. The alcohol prohibition was a required nationwide ban on the sale, importation, transportation, and production of alcohol within the United States. This nationwide ban was directed by the Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, while guidelines of enforcement were set up in the Volstead Act.
For the past 200 years, it was common for scientific and medical professions to view alcohol as a social problem, along with the cause of many diseases. (Levine 109) The view of alcohol being the major cause of social problems “continued throughout the 19th century and into the 20th century.” (Levine
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Following the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment, it would now be illegal to produce, sale, or transport alcohol within the United States. However, the consumption and private ownership of alcohol was not part of the Eighteenth Amendment and therefore still legal to have in your own home. Within the Eighteenth Amendment there were three sections which defined the control of alcoholic beverages. Two of the three sections were important to how alcohol will be controlled as well as who has jurisdiction. Section one states that the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.” (Mount) Section two states that “the Congress and several states shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” …show more content…
The Volstead Act stated that “no person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, or furnish any intoxicating liquor except as authorized by this act.” (Watkins) With a push to ban alcoholic beverages by enacting the Eighteenth Amendment and Volstead Act, alcohol was protected for its “use in scientific research and in the development of fuel, dye, and other lawful industries.” (Jenkot) Although the Eighteenth Amendment and Volstead Act laid out the laws and regulation of manufacturing, transporting, and selling alcohol, it was still legal for consumption of intoxicating