Randy is a buzz-kill Part 2: Didn't Prohibition kind of, uh, work?

The view is so commonplace that it's become a political proverb: Prohibition didn't work. It was a useless, costly experiment that gave rise to organized crime and drove bad habits underground. 

But here's the thing: Prohibition did work to reduce drinking. Whether it was worth the social cost is an open question. But here is the positive side of the ledger:

Basically, after an alarming rise in alcohol consumption in the preceding decades, Prohibition cut it by 60%. And then it took 35 years after repeal for drinking to reach the same level again. Historians agree that whether or not it was "worth it," Prohibition was successful in its stated objectives.

I personally doubt that Prohibition was "worth it." But I dislike the Manichaean view that if it was bad, all efforts to liberalize alcohol sales must be good. I think that alcohol does, on the whole, more social harm than social good (even though I hypocritically partake in it myself), and that it should be a public health priority. I think strong sin taxes - which do indeed work to discourage drinking - are one important way to keep consumption in check, and we should come up with others. 

And when I think of the consumption I want to discourage, I'm not thinking only of my own. I'm thinking about the people who really buy the alcohol. They, by and large, are alcoholics: 

(http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/10/how_much_alcohol_do_americans_drink_consumption_predicts_alcoholism_and.html)

There are a couple of things to take away from this chart. One is that I (and perhaps you) drink more than we think we do. (I'm probably in the top 25% of drinkers nationwide.)

But the scarier thing is that 75% of alcohol in the United States is being sold to people who drink about 10 drinks a day. To me that doesn't sound like a rosy outcome of "freedom of commerce." It sounds more like "a public health emergency." And it doesn't sound like the work of an industry whose name deserves to be as sexy and hip as tobacco's is uncool and tarnished. 

So while I don't think Prohibition was the right answer, I hope that we can find a better one. That goes for all substances that can serve us well at times, can help us feel happy when we want to, but can, in some cases, threaten a healthy life. Soon a chart for marijuana will be added to the one for alcohol - what do we want it to look like?