I would eliminate Prohibition in the USA

If I could change one event in American history, this one would be pretty easy.

I would eliminate Prohibition.

In 1920, the 18th Amendment went into effect, prohibiting the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States.

The idea sounded simple enough: eliminate alcohol and you eliminate many of the problems associated with drinking.

There was just one problem.

Americans didn’t stop drinking.

Instead, the government took a product that millions of people still wanted and essentially handed the business of supplying it over to criminals.

Bootlegging became enormously profitable. Speakeasies appeared everywhere. Alcohol was smuggled across borders and manufactured illegally. Police officers, politicians and government officials were bribed to look the other way.

Organized crime certainly existed before Prohibition, so it wouldn’t be accurate to say Prohibition created it.

But Prohibition poured gasoline on the fire.

Criminal organizations suddenly had access to an enormous illegal industry worth huge amounts of money. They developed sophisticated networks for manufacturing, smuggling, transporting and distributing alcohol.

Men like Al Capone became rich and powerful supplying something the government had prohibited but millions of Americans continued to buy.

And controlling such a profitable illegal business meant competition wasn’t always settled in court.

It was often settled with violence.

By the time America finally admitted Prohibition wasn’t working and repealed it with the 21st Amendment in 1933, the damage had already been done. Organized crime had accumulated money, power, networks and influence that didn’t simply disappear when alcohol became legal again.

That’s why, if I could change one event in American history, I would never have allowed Prohibition to happen.

Regulate alcohol. Tax it. Establish an appropriate drinking age. Punish drunk driving and other behavior that harms innocent people.

But don’t pretend that passing a law automatically eliminates human demand.

Because Prohibition demonstrated something about government that we should never forget:

When millions of people want something, banning it doesn’t necessarily eliminate the market. Sometimes it simply determines who gets rich supplying it.