4 ms·

(citation required, also addressing parent's points would be helpful.)

• idlewords 10y ago
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470475/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470475/ See also the very entertaining book by Daniel Okrent.
  • hx87 10y ago
    Even according to that article, Prohibition only worked in a public health sense if you considered a reduction in alcohol consumption an absolute public health good in itself. I don't know about you, but drinking 50 gallons a year of legitimate, old school, high-quality pre-prohibition beer and wine doesn't exactly sound worse than drinking 25 gallons a year of moonshine from questionable sources.
    • idlewords 10y ago
      It is an absolute good, in that death rates from alcoholism and its diseases are directly related to consumption rates. Cirrhosis, for example, fell by some 20%. But there are also follow-on effects, like the death of saloon culture, a drop in domestic violence, and lower infant mortality. This stuff is documented, so you don't actually have to deduce it from first principles. http://eh.net/eha/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Depew.pdf http://eh.net/eha/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Depew.pdf
      • alphydan 10y ago
        >> death of saloon culture, a drop in domestic violence, and lower infant mortality Didn't all those things happen in other countries which didn't implement prohibition? Are you sure it wasn't a natural evolution of society rather than a direct cause-effect from making alcohol harder to get?