People keep repeating this, but when citizens see behavior that has serious negative consequences, they may--in perfectly good faith--want to suppress it throug

People keep repeating this, but when citizens see behavior that has serious negative consequences, they may--in perfectly good faith--want to suppress it through law. Not everything is a devious ploy. Also, the received wisdom that alcohol prohibition was a mistake is debatable. The many ills of alcoholism (health problems, violence, drunk driving) declined enough to possibly justify the experiment. But the experiment never changed human nature, of course. So it ended.