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Prohibition Issue

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In 1919, the United States Legislation ratified the 18th amendment stating “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 (“18th Amendment,” n.d.). Just a year later in 1920, a historical time period knows as the Prohibition Era started in the United States. This ammendment was put into place to try and rid the United States of alcohol, but quickly proved to be a challenge. After just thirteen years, for the first time in history, the United States ratified the 21st amendment to appeal the …show more content…

The only things illegal during prohibtion was the making, selling or distrubting of alcohol. This ultimatly lead to many participating in bootlegging, or people who manufactued, sold and distruibuted illegal alcohol due to the fact that “prohibition ended the legal sale of liquor and thereby created demand for an illicit supply. The earliest bootleggers began smuggling foreign-made commercial liquor into the United States from across the Canadian and Mexican borders. This type of smuggling became more risky and expensive when the U.S. Coast Guard began halting and searching ships” (“Bootlegging | American history”, n.d.). There were also many loopholes to this law that included medical and religious reasons as to why someone could distruibute alcohol. Due to this, “bootleggers quickly discovered that running a pharmacy was a perfect front for their trade. As a result, the number of registered pharmacist in New York State tripled during the Prohibition Era”, and also “enrollments rose at churches and synagogues, and cities saw a large increase in the number of self-professed rabbis who could obtain wine for their congregations” (Lerner, n.d.). Bootlegging quickly proved to be a problem for the United States as operations became more organized, and gang related. During this time, one of the most notorious gang bosses and bootleggers, Al Capone, thrived during prohibition. Al Capone was able to control a large protion of alcohol production, and was able to use his enormous profits to payoff law enforcments. Al Capone also used his profits to take out his compettion by paying off law enforments again to go after them, or for others to

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