The Great Gatsby: The Role Of Prohibition In The United States

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"He's a bootlegger…one time he killed a man who found out"- The Great Gatsby Mark Twain. In early 1919, after being approved by a 36th state, the 18th amendment was ratified and was put into effect a year later in 1920. With this law, they had banned the production and sales of alcohol in the united stated hoping that it would help reduce drinking after the first world war. Examining how prohibition caused harm to the nation from physical, economical and even disrespect for the law. The start of prohibition was thought to be a good thing but later on was found to be something that history will never repeat. When prohibition was set into action they thought, since they had a short prohibition during the war, they believed that it would be a good idea to do as its own thing. After the legislature passed with three-quarters of the congress from the U.S. in just 11 months. (http://www.history.com/topics/prohibition) Prohibition was considered the noble experiment since states started prohibiting alcohol and so the government thought that it would be a good idea to try in and ban the production, sales, …show more content…
So economically a lot of other things lost interest as well since people wanted booze that is what they focused more on getting rather than wanting to busy themselves they got drunk. For instance, during the prohibition decline in amusement and the entertainment industry, restaurants failed and theater revenue failed. Governments had lost the tax revenue from the beer and alcohol that they use to produce, so many states that had relied heavily on the excise taxes on the liquor sales to fund their budgets. To top it all of the government ended up losing more money with prohibition since the federal government spent $11 billion in lost tax revenue while costing over $300 million to enforce

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