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Malarkey.
Alcohol Prohibition Was a Failure
By Mark Thornton
July 17, 1991
[...]
Prohibition Was Not a Healthy Move
One of the few bright spots for which the prohibitionists can present some supporting evidence is the decline in"alcohol-related deaths" during Prohibition. On closer examination, however, that success is an illusion. Prohibition did not improve health and hygiene in America as anticipated.
Cirrhosis of the liver has been found to pose a significant health risk, particularly in women who consume more than four drinks per day.[24] However, deaths due to cirrhosis and alcoholism are a small portion of the total number of deaths each year, and alcohol can be considered only a contributing cause of most of those deaths.[25] Many people who do not drink develop cirrhosis, and the vast majority of heavy drinkers never develop it.[26] Dr. Snell of the MayoClinic in Rochester, Minnesota, reported in 1931 that "we know now that cirrhosis occurs in only 4 percent of alcoholic individuals."[27] Even in the worst pre-Prohibition year, recorded deaths due to alcoholism and cirrhosis of the liver amounted to less than 1.5 percent of total deaths.
An examination of death rates does reveal a dramatic drop in deaths due to alcoholism and cirrhosis, but the drop occurred during World War I, before enforcement of Prohibition.[28] The death rate from alcoholism bottomed out just before the enforcement of Prohibition and then returned to pre-World War I levels.[29] That was probably the result of increased consumption during Prohibition and the consumption of more potent and poisonous alcoholic beverages. The death rate from alcoholism and cirrhosis also declined rather dramatically in Denmark, Ireland, and Great Britain during World War I, but rates in those countries continued to fall during the 1920s (in the absence of prohibition)when rates in the United States were either rising or stable.[30]
Prohibitionists such as Irving Fisher lamented that the drunkards must be forgotten in order to concentrate the benefits of Prohibition on the young. Prevent the young from drinking and let the older alcoholic generations die out. However,if that had happened, we could expect the average age of people dying from alcoholism and cirrhosis to have increased. But the average age of people dying from alcoholism fell by six months between 1916 and 1923, a period of otherwise general improvement in the health of young people.[31]
There appear to have been no health benefits from Prohibition.[32] On the contrary, the harmlessness and even health benefits of consumption of a moderate amount of alcohol have been long established. As early as 1927 ClarenceDarrow and Victor Yarros could cite several studies showing that moderate drinking does not shorten life or seriously affect health and that in general, it may be beneficial.[33] According to the eminent Harvard psychologist Hugo Månsterberg, "there exists no scientifically sound fact which demonstrates evil effects from a temperate use of alcohol by normal adult men."[34]
Studies continue to find the same results and that problems with alcohol are associated with excess--a problem with most goods.[35] Gene Ford cites 17 recent studies that provide evidence of the benefits to the heart and cardiovascular system of moderate drinking.[36] The evidence appears so strong that the American Heart Association has conceded that "modest alcohol consumption has been associated with beneficial effects," and that "an increased HDL-cholesterol[the good kind] level appears to be a dividend of moderate consumption of alcohol."[37]
Not all prohibitionists were blind to the potential benefits of alcohol. However, many were technocrats or Progressives, and if some benefit of alcohol were admitted they would have been forced to conclude that the government should act to encourage moderate consumption of alcohol. One technocrat-economist, Thomas Carver, was familiar with the"possibility" that moderate drinking could be beneficial,[38] but according to Fisher, he was "a courageous scholar" and discarded that possibility to pursue the undeniable benefits of Prohibition.
Alcohol Prohibition Was a Failure
