…if it is a time-bound prohibition, maybe in the order of a few weeks, so society can rethink about their consumption habits.

Indefinite prohibition, of the kind that was amended in the US constitution, denies the human desire to consume alcohol and pretend it can be legislated away. A cursory reading of the Wikipedia article on the capital-P Prohibition showed lasting effects in alcohol consumption (I guess, good in the sense that there’s changes in domestic abuse patterns, for example?) and organized crime (bad, with Al Capone and people like him)

  • Mulligrubs@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    8 days ago

    You are correct, there are lasting effects in alcohol consumption.

    Unfortunately, there are also lasting effects in alcohol prohibition. The costs of prohibition far outweigh the costs of consumption.

    Humans have consumed alcohol for thousands of years, in many cultures, daily or near daily. It’s been banned a few times, and the costs are great. We know what they are.

    1. When you ban any very popular thing, you create a black market for that thing. In the case of a alcohol prohibition, a fantastically large and well-funded black market. This black market will murder many people to continue to make outrageous amounts of money (much more than anyone makes when it is legal).
    2. Home-made alcohol will be sold by that black market. Just like drugs, people will cut that alcohol to make larger profits. A lot of people will get sick and/or die from the various problems that arise with that. Much more than alcohol alone.
    3. Alcohol is a part of nature, you can’t get rid of it. It’s a byproduct of food. Food can also cause lasting effects from consumption. Very costly effects; obesity, addiction, heart disease, and so on are all often byproducts of food. Yeah, there are lasting effects from consumption. You don’t need alcohol to live, you don’t need Twinkies to live, and so on. Just… let it go. It’s a never ending quest for control that leads straight to hell.
    4. So not only do you have larger black markets with more money, and not only do you have increased workload for medical facilities everywhere, you also have to have a police force to suppress all of this now illegal drinking. You can pretend that these are robots that won’t abuse power, but they aren’t, and they will abuse power, and people will die. (and a lot of cops drink).
    5. This doesn’t even scratch the costs of prohibition. I could write a book. Instead, other authors have written about it, and they are much smarter than me. See Peter McWilliams, “Ain’t Nobody’s Business if you Do”. His death was tragically connected to prohibition, but I’d have to write another book.
    • cardboardboxfort@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      8 days ago

      When you ban any very popular thing, you create a black market for that thing.

      Making dangerous things illegal because a black market (also illegal and something you can punish when found) will form for it anyways is a logical fallacy. Blasting caps are highly regulated and the OKC bomber had to steal them in order to build his truck bomb, but that doesn’t mean the regulations making them harder to obtain failed and we should just make them available at every store. It means criminal elements will always be part of our society and that we need to better address those criminals.

      Home-made alcohol will be sold by that black market.

      It was completely legal for people to make their own beer and wine and in some cases even obtain legal liquor so long as a doctor said it was medicinal. This point doesn’t defend your argument that there are long-term consequences of prohibition that out-weigh the positives.

      Alcohol is a part of nature, you can’t get rid of it.

      Yes but so are deadly mushrooms. Do we eat them? No. Most Native American tribes knew about alcohol, the naturally occurring stuff that you occasionally see birds get sloshed off of, but they all treated it as a sacred drink reserved for things like the occasional vision quest or other ceremonies. They didn’t abuse it like Europeans did until they were eventually exposed to hard liquor, which is not a natural by-product of nature. Liquor requires distillation which is a artificial and a uniquely human process.