Did the incidence of alcoholism increase after prohibition was lifted?

Published January 27, 2011

Question by TC: Did the incidence of alcoholism increase after prohibition was lifted?
People often argue that drug addiction would increase if drugs were decriminalized. Since alcohol is the only drug that has been decriminalized, I am curious if this happened with alcohol.

Best answer:

Answer by wild moose of doom
as far as i know, not at all. but it’s worth pointing out that criminalizing drugs doesn’t decrease the number of addicts. It decreases the number of occasional users, but the addicts are always there. (for example when opium was banned there was a survey ten years after the fact which found that the number of addicts had not increased or decreased, and the amount of crime had gone up(as these people now had to buy from dealers, and gangs now had a new drug to fight for control over).) and i think this is the book i got that piece of info from is; “Opium” by Thomas M. Santella but I’m not 100 percent sure.

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