Results: What you DIDN'T know about Prohibition! Part 1

Most people have heard of Prohibition or the 18th Amendment or as it was called the Volstead Act. Where you aware that from 1920 to 1933 it was illegal to product, sell or transport 'intoxicating liquors in the USA?

Did you know that the Volstead Act had enormous loopholes in it so that its enforcement was literally impossible due to the many options people had?

The 'loopholes' including allowing doctors to prescribe alcohol for 'medicinal purposes, farmers to brew 100 gallons of 'soft cider' for personal use, families to make 60 gallons of home made wine, clergymen could distribute sacramental liquor to members of their church or synagogue. Are you surprised to learn that so many people had the ability to buy and sell liquor legally?

People today wonder why the government wanted to control the sale and consumption of alcohol. Would it surprise you to know that in the early part of the 20th century that the average consumption of pure alcohol was 80 gallons per year for every person in the USA?

One of the provisos of the Volstead Act was that if you had liquor in your home at midnight January 17, 1920 you could legally consume it. Mary Pickford's mother bought an entire liquor store and had its stock moved to her home. Both the outgoing and incoming Presidents of the time had huge liquor stores at the White House and moved it either in or out of the White House depending on which way they were going. A man in NY bought 80,000 bottles of liquor and was still drinking it into the 40s. Does it surprise you that the government would allow this?

Canada never had a full Prohibition and as such running liquor across the line was a full time business. Bootleggers bought the liquor legally in Canada and then either shipped it by rail or sea into the USA. Are you surprised that at the height of Prohibition in the USA 20% of Canada's tax income was from liquor taxes?