PurpleKnight

I think it depends on whether I was already addicted prior to prohibition or not.

If I was already a drinker, the answer would be it wouldn't have stopped me, I'd be one of those guys buying the bootleg stuff to fuel my addiction.

However if I had never had touched a drink up until prohibition was introduced, the outcome may have been different, illegality does go someway to keeping me from trying things out, the only times I've tried something illegal has been when drinking, I never tried anything illegal prior to my drinking days, and when I got Sober the door firmly shut on everything.

bunnezjp

Thank you guys, great comments and insights.

I guess I'd like to think making alcohol illegal would have made a difference in my past, but then, who really knows?

You guys rock

Bunnez

suki44883

I think it's important to remember that the great majority of people do not have a problem with alcohol. Sometimes, being alcoholic and seeking recovery exposes us to a lot of people who DO have problems with alcohol, so it seems like everyone does, but actually, most people don't.

tornrealization

So again--- If I'm already alcoholic, no laws work. If I'm not, perhaps they might get me think about it. Then again if ignoring laws was OK I might be like yea yea who cares.

Let's talk DUIs. Get a DUI and life is hell now. But back in the day with parents I shall not name - having road games and shots on the way was not a big deal.

I guess we can discuss prohibition and whether or not it would've stopped us or not, we can't. Too many variables with times, and attitudes.

PolarBlue

I think this thread is assuming prohibition remained in effect since the 20's. So alcohol would have been illegal before all of us here were born.

Without being introduced to alcohol by my family, being around it daily, and having it readily available at every store in town (if illegal it wouldn't be), I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have gone so far with it. It would be much more difficult. Just like everyone who tries cocaine doesn't run out and find a dealer. But if cocaine was legal and I could buy it at Exxon right around the corner, who knows? I may be addicted to that also. It does make for a fun night.

Hawks

Just a devoted John Lennon fan

Dee74

LOL something less than a working class hero tho

D

TroubledJoe

I've never met one drug addict who was concerned about the legality of their drug of choice. A heroin addict is never going to avoid putting a syringe in their arm because heroin is illegal.

Is alcohol were illegal it wouldn't have made a difference, other than being a pain in the arse to get a hold of.

DoubleDragons

I think it is going to take attitudinal change, like what has happened with smoking. I wish there were more advertisements telling the truth about alcohol, like the fact that it is a drug and the realities of what it does to your body. I hope it goes the way of smoking, where it is no longer a "cool" past time to drink. I hope this for my children's sake. There is just so much more to life . . .

iggy24

just as a little fun fact...during prohibition..the mafia on the east coast sold "elixirs" in great numbers to sell in pharmacy as over the counter remedy for for basically anything. It was mostly 70 proof booze sold in a funny bottles..i've seen the bottles and they are pretty funny looking to say the least....prohibition was about the temperance movement..but became all about money and scams....they didn't cal it the raoring 20s for nothing...so i don't think most people care about ethical or legal issues if they know they can get around it...the issue of legalizing any drug like marijuana in todays society is simply about money...not morality or the so called addiction epedemic..they should have never made these type of substances illegal in the first place..but now there are so many variables that have nothing do to with abusers.

i really think the government cares about how much we are going to cost..thats about it

ESD907

if I never tasted it, I'd never know I needed it. so, I think in my case, I'd be better off. do I think its realistic? no. but we are talking never never land here, no?

MesaMan

There's Cave Drawings having to do with Alcohol. Ancient Romans, and other Cultures, copped major buzzes. Alcohol/Drugs are Rites of Passage in very old Cultures in the Amazon, and in places like China.

We once visited Oban, Scotland, and saw THEE Cave where Illegal Distilling - to beat the 'Rev_en_nure' [Tax Collector] - began there hundreds of years ago. There's a recreated set of Footprints-in-Stone in S.W. Scotland where Irish Priests 'brought' Whiskey over from Ireland; line-of-sight across the Ocean from this Peninsula. Sort of their 'Plymouth Rock' Memorial to the beginnings of Whiskey. Circa year 748 or so, I kinda recall...

Magically extinguish the Demand, and the Supply side Product will have no value. Folks are re-examining Texts like 'Foxfire', and Home Distilling techniques documented therein. In some 'Back To The Land' Forums I follow/contribute to, Home Distilling is definitely on the rise. More for Quality Control, and to avoid Taxes. Side Note: ~70% of the Bottle price in Scotland was Tax. Commercial Small Batch Distilling is definitely on the rise here in W. Colorado using Juniper or Peach or Grape Vine cuttings to flavor their Products.

The path I've traced was Scotland -> Appalachia -> East Coast. John and Robert Kennedy's Father - Joseph P. - made his first Millions smuggling in the 'new' Product of Blended Whiskey [vs. 'harsher' Single Malts] to fill Prohibition Era demand. Indeed, the 'drone' Strings on an Appalachian Dulcimer - created by Homesick Scots - was meant to emulate Bagpipe 'drone' Pipes. Folk Music to drink by.

Personally, I think the illicit 'allure' of Whiskey or Beer got on the QT, and offered by a Friend, will always be around. I met a Fella in Boulder Colorado who dug up old Outhouses to nab very old, unique Glass Bottles tossed down the Pit >125 years ago. Presently, it was just rich, old Soil he was digging through. He had an amazing Bottle Collection, of the types mentioned above. 'Elixers'. Yah, right. To cure Afflictions like 'Neuritis' and 'Neuralgia'.

I don't see Prohibition/Legislation as having changed anything over the Eons. Shoot, there's even You Tube Videos of Elephants getting hammered on fermented Fruit.

'Tis everywhere. I'm nonplussed by it all these days. But, that's because I got through the proverbial Tunnel of Addiction to the other side. I have no idea of how to effectively truncate or blunt that Process to prevent others from taking that same, long Path. Or, never making it through. People are ready when they're ready. And, not before.

JD4010

Many of us would probably be in organized crime if prohibition was in effect. Lots of money to be made on the black market!

EndGameNYC

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- Spanish Philosopher George Santayana.

Santayana's quote is likely the source of the more current and more popular version, "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it."

Yet one can also make a case, particularly among addicts and alcoholics, that both those who do and those who do not. learn from history, from the past, are condemned to repeat it.

Boleo

During prohibition, alcohol was even more convenient. Speakeasy's were all over. Some places there would be one on every block. Bootleggers would deliver it right t your house if you were a regular costumer. Or you could send your 6 year-old to pick it up as there was no minimum age.

Plus it was less expensive. No tax at all and bootleggers would discount for buying it in bulk.

Db1105

I've never taken a "legal" drink in my life. Became an alcoholic in my teens. All the drug laws didn't stop me from using drugs. It just made me a criminal.

Aellyce

I also have the feeling that even if we assumed that prohibition or any legislation regarding alcohol and the currently known and available drugs were 100% effective (=everyone would comply with the law), we (humans) would find something else. Other new substances, behaviors, whatever to obsess about and cultivate in excess. And yet again, some of these hypothetical other things would most likely turn addictive and destructive with time, especially for those who are particularly vulnerable (like probably most of us here). So, could addiction ever been solved even with endless numbers of successful regulations?

Again, I think that the potential and temptation for getting out of control and excess has been so ingrained in our brains and in our nature in general that I don't easily see any way to eliminate all of it, as long as we remain what we are (human beings).

And more than human beings... like MesaMan said above, animals also have tendencies for this, some species or individuals at least. I even dare to go further that most living organisms carry the potential for getting out of control and using their environment and resources in ways that can be destructive and can deplete them (and other organisms bound to live around them) eventually. How many times has this happened in the history of Life?!

This surely sounds like a pretty dark view of Life, but is there any valid large-scale argument against it?

Still, at least in my mind and opinion, the above phenomena do not disqualify regulations as a means to keeping a certain level of order.

EndGameNYC

The drive and desire to eliminate unwanted thoughts, feelings and behaviors, as well as the consequences that accrue from them, I think, is not only unrealistic, but does grievous violence to reality and, specifically, to the human condition.

There are academic works, novels and films on this very topic, and they all end badly. We are not finished products at birth or at any other time in our personal development, but are always and ever in a state of flux, contradiction and conflict. Where, in all of this, does a Utopian view of being human have any place at all? (The etymology of the the word 'Utopia' has two meanings based on its Greek origins: 1. U-topos: The good place. 2. Oo-topos: The place that cannot be.)

According to the French Philosopher, Albert Camus, "Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is."

iggy24

all living organisms have always seeked the the experience of intoxication. it is really then a basic part of life. Trying to eliminate the intoxicants or shunnning those who get intoxicated is rather silly. I have seen videos of cougars eat plants laced with DMT. It is currently the most powerful hallucinagen known to man. They are known to do this on a regular basis. i don't think animals have moral or ethical reasons or barriers to why they would seek this or not...I conclude that really we don't either..it's just part of the human experience...natural in every way..

EndGameNYC

I mean this relative to the context of this thread, and not so much in terms of laws, societal norms and ethical imperatives.

A Clockwork Orange is one of the more popular examples of the possible consequences of the attempt to extinguish powerful human impulses.