I think the problem with the prohibition was that alcohol was widely used already and regarded as ok by most of the general public. Governments always meet a lot of resistance when they try to take away some given right.
As a counter example there are plenty of countries where alcohol has been prohibited for a much longer time and they certainly have a lot less people with alcohol problems than the US.
Cocaine is extremely widely-used in the US despite being illegal. And obviously widely-produced in Columbia despite being illegal. Coca leaves are widely used in Columbia without too much ill effects, but cocaine not as much both for cultural reasons and because many are too poor to afford it.
Used to work with a guy who was a big coke and heroin dealer in NYC during the 80's. Biggest coke customers? Wall street traders pulling all nighters. Said he knew lower Manhattan better than any cab driver. Second biggest customers? Bored house wives, many of which regularly slept with him for free coke. Heroin was supposedly big among surgeons he claimed.
> I think the problem with the prohibition was that alcohol was widely used already and regarded as ok by most of the general public
Cocaine and marijuana are widely used. Whether they're okay depends a lot on your circles, but generally marijuana use is tracking towards "deemed okay" as well.
> As a counter example there are plenty of countries where alcohol has been prohibited for a much longer time and they certainly have a lot less people with alcohol problems than the US.
Add to that the number of Muslims living in countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sudan without total prohibition but with prohibition for Muslims, and you’ll easily exceed the population of the US.
I hope you're seeing the irony when discussing the difficulty of managing a very large country, by referencing 10 much smaller countries with their own systems of government.
Laws and the adherence to those laws generally fall into managing a country, no? So saying "But other countries did it!" with respect to something like prohibition doesn't really work, apples to apples.
My point is simply that managing the enforcement of a law like prohibition is very different between 800m and 8m people.
Where did 800m come from? There are ~330m people in the USA. There are around 160m people in Bangladesh, 90% of whom are legally prohibited from purchasing or consuming alcohol without a prescription. The scale difference for this country alone is around 2x, not 10x like you're claiming. I'd argue 2x doesn't make much difference to enforcement.
At the time when cannabis prohibition was pursued, it was already in wide use in many societies (not necessarily Europe, but its colonies). Furthermore, its social effects were already investigated; this is from a 1894 report:
"Viewing the subject generally, it may be added that the moderate use of these drugs is the rule, and that the excessive use is comparatively exceptional. The moderate use practically produces no ill effects. In all but the most exceptional cases, the injury from habitual moderate use is not appreciable. The excessive use may certainly be accepted as very injurious, though it must be admitted that in many excessive consumers the injury is not clearly marked. The injury done by the excessive use is, however, confined almost exclusively to the consumer himself; the effect on society is rarely appreciable. It has been the most striking feature in this inquiry to find how little the effects of hemp drugs have obtruded themselves on observation. The large number of witnesses of all classes who professed never to have seen these effects, the vague statements made by many who professed to have observed them, the very few witnesses who could so recall a case as to give any definite account of it, and the manner in which a large proportion of these cases broke down on the first attempt to examine them, are facts which combine to show most clearly how little injury society has hitherto sustained from hemp drugs."
Cocaine was in widespread use before it was banned as well. Cocaine literally gave us anesthesia! It was also in products such as Coca-Cola etc. Colombia legalizing it shouldn't be that weird when comparing to alcohol.
> As a counter example there are plenty of countries where alcohol has been prohibited for a much longer time and they certainly have a lot less people with alcohol problems than the US.
If you are referring to the Muslim world, countries like Mauritania or Saudi Arabia with draconian alcohol prohibition nevertheless see a lot of men excessively drinking in private. Alcohol is available clandestinely, though the prohibition on openly importing or distilling it means that sometimes drinkers have to resort to homemade liquor. The sad thing is that the total prohibition on alcohol makes it hard for alcoholics to seek treatment, lest they be subject to criminal punishment.
It is kind of complicated. Alcohol was also causing massive social issues (hence calls for prohibition). More social issues then drugs cause now basically.
So it was more of big fight of two parts of public.
> I think the problem with the prohibition was that alcohol was widely used already and regarded as ok by most of the general public.
Prohibition was enacted via constitutional amendment, a process which requires supermajorities. The 18th Amendment was ratified via state legislatures rather than constitutional convention, but most states had already instituted prohibition by popular mandate.
The real issue AFAIU is that as originally understood the language of the 18th Amendment would only permit national prohibition of hard alcohol--"intoxicating liquors"--much like most existing state laws. But the enabling legislation ended up prohibiting wine and beer and the Supreme Court upheld that interpretation. Ironically, the court took a much stricter stance on what "manufacture" meant, protecting even distillation for private use, but that allowance hardly mitigated the effect of their earlier interpretation of "intoxicating liquors".
TL;DR: most Americans at least nominally supported prohibition of liquor, but not beer and wine. Alcoholism had been a major public health and social issue for generations, far greater than today, but it mostly regarded the obscene quantities of hard liquor Americans consumed. What they got was something much more strict than they bargained for.
As a counter example there are plenty of countries where alcohol has been prohibited for a much longer time and they certainly have a lot less people with alcohol problems than the US.
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