Eighteenth Amendment

-Proposed by Congress December 18, 1917; Declared ratified on January 29, 1919)

Section 1

[National Liquor Prohibition]

"After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited."

Section 2

[Power to Enforce This Article]

"The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

Section 3

[Ratification Within Seven Years]

"This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress."

This amendment was one of the most notorious failures of attempted social engineering in American history. Many Progressive reformers believed that alcohol was the root of much, if not all, evil in American society, and sought to end that evil by simply banning the production and sale of liquor. Prohibition against alcohol led, instead, to a huge black market in bootleg liquor, with the profits of illegal booze-selling flowing to infamous gangsters like Al Capone.

This amendment is crazy! I cannot believe that it actually passed...even if it was eventually repealed. I definitely understand where people were coming from when they wanted alcohol to be illegal, but it just blows my mind that there was a time when the people would actually be calling for the government to take it away.

Speakeasies and gangs appear to be the only result of prohibition. Even though alcohol is legal again, I think that there can some parallels drawn between the 1920's and today's war on drugs. Maybe one day the laws prohibiting drugs will become a think of the past, and a new amendment will be passed, allowing them?