From 1920 to 1933, the USA took a bold move. The Government decided that alcohol was a social illness and it needed to be removed from the country as soon as possible. Alcohol was not conducive to the North American way of life. It confused the brain and slowed productivity. It meant people had time off work or weren’t productive. It was ungodly, and it created a huge amount of health care issues. It would have kept those in Care Jobs Stroud way, or anywhere else for that matter, very busy.
When it became illegal, alcohol was still brewed and distilled. Homemade stills, where people distilled their own booze using rice, potatoes or worse, became more common. There was also a ready trade for this “moonshine” in the countryside, ferried as it was by criminals to individuals or into the cities and drank in secret bars known as a Speakeasy. These were hidden clubs, and they were generally run by crime lords.
One of the worst of these was Al Capone. He literally controlled Chicago and was so powerful that judges, chiefs of police and community leaders were all in the service of his pay. It took a dedicated team of officers called The Untouchables to bring him down.
Prohibition lasted for 13 years. Although the levels of liver cirrhosis and infant mortality went down, the Government lost so much in tax revenue that it needed the money to come back in. This was even more important during the great depression.
