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Pros And Cons Of The 18th Amendment

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Back In 1920, there is a kind of believe that revolves around the American society during that period - people see alcohol as a bad thing, meanwhile they also think that the consumption of alcohol is bad, as it will lead to other troubles such as the rise of criminal activities. People also believed that by drinking alcohol, it will endanger American’s health, and lower an individual’s productivity. Therefore, the government ended up decided to crackdown on alcohol, and thus, the 18th amendment is created. The 18th amendment will prohibit the manufacture, sale, and distribution of alcohol in the United States. However, the 18th amendment did not work as it intended to be, it did not prohibit the consumption of alcohol, instead, it …show more content…

Firstly, the majority of the American do not think of the consumption of alcohol as a bad thing, instead, they see it as an enjoyable thing to do, therefore, people start breaking the law by drinking alcohol. Also, the consumption of alcohol is legal if you have a prescription, thus, the doctor will prescribe patient who was alcoholic with four liters of alcohol every week so that they could be legally drunk, and as a result, the total sales for medical alcohol went up to 400% during the prohibition. Meanwhile, a portion of Americans even made their own alcohol instead of buying it, which they called it “moonshine”. Secondly, the existence of the 18th amendment led to the growth of crime rate in America, as it helped the secret societies, gangsters, and speakeasies became popular among the public, they became the main supply of alcohol in American which helps them made a tremendous amount of money. Even the formal American President - Warren G. Harding, whom initially voted against the banning of alcoholic beverages and later voted for the 18th amendment, he himself would drink and play poker in the white house. Lastly, America will face the great depression period in the 1930s, it is a period where millions of people in America were jobless. The government realized that more jobs could be created in the alcohol industry if it wasn’t for the 18th amendment, therefore, along with the trouble caused by the prohibition, it eventually led to the passage of the 21st amendment in 1933, which made alcohol legal again in the United States.

In general, once something is illegalized, a massive underground economy will then quickly developed. And this is what happened to the prohibition of alcohol back in the 1920s and the war on drugs which Nixon declared in the year of 1971, which is series of actions tending toward a prohibition of illegal drug trade in America. There are several similarities and difference

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In other words, not only does the local business owners suffer, but also the federal government had faced a dramatic loss of value in terms of the “tax anaviews [being] up to one billion dollars”. Furthermore, according to History.com, three hundred million dollars were placed for the enforcement of the prohibition of alcohol. In the Library of Economics and Liberty “Great Depression”, Gene Smiley discusses about the efforts in which the United States government attempts to make in order to overcome the Great Depression. Some of the effects during the Great Depression included the “25 percent of all workers and 37 percent of all nonfarm workers…

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In 1919, Congress passed the 18th Amendment which banned the sale and consumption of alcohol in America (Doc B). Prohibitionists overlooked the tenacious American tradition of strong drink and of weak control by the central government. Thus, there was tension between the modernists and the traditionalists. Although the amendment was passed, alcohol was still distributed illegally. Actually, prohibition spawned many crimes, such as illegal sale of alcohol and gang wars.

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Alcohol is horrible for the body, but it might be good for the country. The 18th Amendment was approved on December 18, 1917 by Congress to take away alcohol in the United States. This was followed by the Volstead Act that defined a drink as intoxicating if it contained more than 1% alcohol. This eliminated beer, wine, and other soft liquors. America later repealed the Amendment.

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Amendments protect our rights, some Amendments are added to fix other amendments that were unclear or not proposed correctly they are minor changes or adjustment to a document. Some amendments in the constitution repeal others that they had to change for a variety of reasons it was causing to many problems, misunderstandings etc. The 18th and the 21st amendment in this case do. The 18th amendment was a national prohibition it prohibited the production, sale, and transport of "intoxicating liquors", the 21st amendment repealed the 18th amendment but changed transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws and was prohibited.

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For example, there were about 15,000 legal drinking establishments in New York before the 18th Amendment and 32,000 illegal ones after. Thus, the 18th Amendment increased the opportunities for drinking, when it’s purpose was to stop drinking entirely. Liquor was also often made inside people’s homes from ingredients that were commonly sold. It is estimated that Americans made 700 million gallons of liquor in makeshift stills sold by hardware stores.

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Many people also saw drinking as a huge drag on the economy and wasting money on alcohol was unpatriotic. Prohibition lasted for about 13 years, it was the banning of alcohol manufacturing, transporting, and selling in the United States. America repealed the 18th amendment which ended prohibition because of crime, weak enforcement with lack of respect for the law and economic reasons. One of the reasons the federal government repealed prohibition was because of the increase of crimes.

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What did the 18th Amendment prohibit? Intoxicating Alcohol, Manufactured sale, Transport of alcohol. The progression movement supported many social reforms. Created by a feeling of change made it easier to pass prohibition. If the workers were to come to work drunk they would not get as much work done or it could cause

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As shown by the political cartoon made by Winsor McCoy, acts of organized crime made by gangsters, racketeers, bootleggers, and dope sellers (with the help of the Prohibition) led to the Great Depression. With all of these factors eventually leading to the largest economic downfall in United States history, it’s easy to see why American citizens wanted to remove the ban on alcohol. Also, the FBI Uniform Crime Reports show the number of homicides increased during Prohibition and decreased after Prohibition. In the crime report, the homicide rate increased from 7 homicides per 100,000 people to 10 homicides per 100,000 people during the Prohibition, and decreasing to 6 homicides per 100,000 people. This evidence points to the fact that crime and criminal activity played a huge part in the removal of the 18th

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Prohibition, the 18th Amendment, was the outlawing of the production and consumption of alcohol from 1920-1933. Advocates of Prohibition insisted that many issues and crimes often linked to alcohol would be eliminated if alcohol were to be illegal. However, this wasn't the case. Instead, crime increased. So many people protested the 18th Amendment, that it eventually was discontinued in 1933.

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The ERA Must Be In Our Constitution “Aunt Alexandra’s vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born,” (Lee 92-93). In this quote from To Kill A Mockingbird, Aunt Alexandra is telling Scout that she must grow up and act like a proper lady. She believes that girls are supposed to play with tea sets and jewelry and not wear overalls, and she believes that women are supposed to be sophisticated and proper, and not do things men do. The ideas have been ingrained in her because it is the built-in misogyny that many people were raised around. It was always believed that women did not deserve the rights that men do and that they did not deserve to work or make

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The 18th Amendment is the only constitutional amendment to be recalled, which accentuates the disaster it caused. The immigration of Europeans to the States not only increased the population, but integrated European customs/history into the US, making for prejudice groups who became mobsters developing the criminal syndicate, and forced the US to act when alcoholism became an obstacle in their vision of a new era. Behr, Edward. Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America. New York: Arcade Pub, 1996.

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The passing of the 18th amendment resulted in a whole new era of crime. Since there were no legal places to purchase alcohol, bootlegging and speakeasies became much more common. Then, of course, there was violent crime. Alcohol became its own industry for the mafia that made gangsters like Al Capone millionaires and led to over “a thousand gangland murders” (Kyvig 196). There were gangs in major cities all over the country.

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Prohibition led to the rise of organized crime and failed as a policy due to many loopholes and large numbers of corrupt officials. Though started with good intentions it was not a good policy because it destroyed jobs and attempted to destroy an industry. These reasons lead to Prohibition’s failure and the repealing of the 18th Amendment in

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In the 1920’s the 18th Amendment caused the prohibition of manufacturing, selling and transporting intoxicating-liquors. Alcohol in the United States was not longer legal. However, this did not stop most people from not consuming any alcohol.

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