The Iron Law Of Prohibition

522 Words3 Pages
Prohibition Gangsters such as Bugsy Siegel and Al Capone became national icons for their roles during prohibition. The transportation, manufacture, and sale of alcohol were banned with the enactment of the 18th amendment in January 1920. The reasons to ban alcohol were simple and strait forward. The United States wanted to eliminate the negative affects of alcohol that came from consuming it. The anti-saloon league warned people against alcohol consumption and how it destroyed families. “Men would often spend their money on alcohol, leaving women with no money to provide for their children.”(archives.gov) Prohibition failed to do what it was designed for and created corruption while organized crime spread throughout the United States. Raising taxes on alcohol would have been a more affective means of reducing alcohol consumption. Whenever you try to control a market of goods that is in such high demand you are setting yourself up for a black market and crime. This is what happened and is known as the Iron Law of Prohibition. “That law states that the more intense the law enforcement, the more potent the prohibited substance becomes. When drugs or alcoholic beverages are prohibited, they will become more potent, will have greater variability in potency, will be adulterated with…show more content…
This led to more people drinking and more access to alcohol. Schools and churches were unable to prevent speakeasies from being opened. The government lost control over the market when they banned alcohol. They should have kept drinking legal but taxed it so they could effectively regulate the market. The same argument is often made for illegal drugs. Some say that if certain illegal drugs such as marijuana were legalized but heavily regulated that the demand for it would go down. It would not be seen as such a rebel thing to and lose its
Open Document