>>1616418
Prohibition was an example of a good thing executed in a bad way. Ask contemporaries of the era, even Henry Ford, and you'd notice that alcoholism was breaking up a lot of families and relationships. Bread and circuses for the masses. Now, the ban on alcohol certainly was profited off of by organized crime, but that's exactly the same thing that's happening with drugs today, and in the past few years, we've finally been allowed to see what happens when drugs get decriminalized, at least on a state/local level - mass addiction, many deaths, homeless epidemic, innocents caught in the crossfire (I say innocent as a general term, because imo if you willingly take drugs, you're at fault for whatever happens after, even overdose on fent that your innocuous weed joint was laced with). Basically, drugs being legalized is proving to be a very bad thing. That's only taking into account what we can directly prove is a result of drugs. There might be some social factors at play here which are indirectly caused by drugs, such as the attitude of Western citizens towards political causes or the consumption of rap music or the dumbing down of our language. There are even studies out there which suggest drug use is a cause for illnesses like cancer. We might never know the full extent, but the hidden horrors may be just as bad if not worse than the visible savagery. My point is that, crime follows anything that gets outlawed, this does NOT mean that the thing being outlawed should be decriminalized to prevent other forms of crime. Never decide between two evils - erase them both if at all possible. Alcohol is also destructive to modern society. Maybe not at the same degree as drugs since one can bounce back from alcohol addiction with less consequences than the addiction to certain drugs, but the damage is felt. It probably was a bad idea to implement back then, since the retaliation and consequences were such that the American law enforcement could not keep a cap on it. Would it be a better idea now? Possibly, but not before the bigger ills in society are dealt with, in my opinion.
tl;dr Alcohol prohibition was a good idea but implemented too soon, the hierarchy of needs in a well-functioning perfect society were not being followed in proper order. First you must excise several other bad elements of society before you should consider cutting out alcohol for the people
Fun fact: The jews profited from prohibition exceedingly well. Most jews didn't care whether prohibition was put in place or not since they probably had money on either side, but when it did pass, jews would have entire barrels of wine shipped to their synagogues (they were allowed this since it was "religious exemption") That religious exemption was, in fact, Purim, which is allegedly some day where jews are allowed to drink to excess. So not only did jews have their fun, but they also skimmed some profits off the top. They would ship in a container of what they claimed was wine, only for it to be some other alcoholic substance, which they would then sell in black markets. Many police busts were reported where synagogues were caught trying to sell the vodka or whiskey or whatever it is they could get past the initial customs officers for "religious reasons".
Another fun fact, you know who else profited big time from prohibition? Oil oligarchs
but I repeat myself.
They lobbied intensely during prohibition and got it into law so that any 'legal' applications of pure or grain alcohol, such as for Ethanol, had to be 'toxified' with a certain amount of crude oil, per gallon. In other words, the people who were trying very hard to make ethanol a possible, safer, more renewable alternative to gasoline, had to pay for a certain amount of oil just to make their Ethanol "street-legal" during prohibition. Cutting into the profits of Ethanol while also perpetuating the use of oil. This was a major factor in the downfall of ethanol as a reasonable alternative.