Chapter 6
A History of Regulation

Unlike other addictive drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, alcohol is legal to use and can be easily purchased by adults in the United States almost anywhere and at any time. People routinely buy a six-pack of beer along with a gallon of milk at their corner grocery store or even when they stop at a gas station. Dr. Gail Gleason Milgram calls alcohol "the drug of choice for most Americans."⁷²

Yet America is also the nation that early in the twentieth century believed alcohol was such a menace to the well-being of its citizens that it banned the manufacture and sale of this drug during what was known as Prohibition. This unique effort in social engineering began in 1919, but Prohibition had no sooner gone into effect than tens of millions of Americans began rebelling against it. Their decision to keep drinking beer, wine, and liquor even though it was illegal doomed America's attempt to eradicate alcohol, and Prohibition ended in 1933.

Although Prohibition has been dead for decades, remnants remain of the national fear that once existed regarding the harm that unlimited access to alcohol can cause people. The spirit of Prohibition still lives today in laws that restrict the sale of beer, wine, and liquor in a few states and counties scattered around the nation.

The fact that Americans are still divided over alcohol use in the twenty-first century is not surprising. In one form or another, the debate over regulating alcohol has raged in America for over two centuries. In Understanding America's Drinking Problem: How to Combat the Hazards of Alcohol, author Don Cahalan explains: "Ever since the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, our politicians and the rest of us have see-sawed up and down on whether and how to control alcohol problems."⁷³

The Temperance Movement

The first colonists believed alcohol was a necessary part of life. But by the time Americans were winning their freedom from Great Britain in the Revolutionary War, many people had begun to realize that alcohol was causing severe problems. The reason was a change in drinking patterns during the eighteenth century as Americans began to drink more, especially distilled spirits such as brandy.

In some ways, this new style of drinking mirrored the earlier gin fever that had swept through Great Britain. By the 1830s the annual per capita consumption for people aged fifteen or older was 7 gallons of pure alcohol (100 percent alcohol), a quantity more than twice the current rate of 2.8 gallons, resulting from drinking an average of 9.5 gallons of spirits, 1 to 2 gallons of wine, and 27 gallons of beer. The higher drinking levels led to increased public drunkenness, incidents of violence, and other social problems.

The American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, later known as the American Temperance Society (ATS), was founded in Boston in 1826 to combat the new levels of abuse of alcohol, and by 1833 six thousand local temperance societies with more than 1 million members had been formed. Most Temperance groups at first only sought to moderate and not ban drinking, but by 1836 members of ATS, which was led by Protestant clergymen, were advocating total abstinence and became known as teetotalers. The word teetotal originated in England when a man who stuttered badly backed the idea of abstinence at a temperance meeting: "We can't keep 'em sober unless we have the pledge [to quit drinking] total. Yes, Mr. Chairman, tee-tee-total."⁷⁴

The concept that alcohol could be a harmful substance was strange to Americans in the first few decades of the nineteenth century because so many of them still believed that people needed to drink alcohol to remain healthy. The U.S. Army served daily rations of alcohol to its soldiers, and many other employers provided the same on-the-job benefit for their workers. But after the temperance movement began to grow in power, it began changing daily life in America, and by the 1830s these daily rations of alcohol were coming to an end. One New York farmer who quit giving his hired hands whiskey claimed they now "labored like sober, rational men, and not like intoxicated mutineers."⁷⁵

One way the temperance movement tried to persuade drinkers to give up alcohol was to have them pledge to quit; as a result, millions of people "took the pledge," although many would fail to keep the promise and would later return to drinking. One of the most effective early temperance leaders was the Reverend Lyman Beecher, who advocated total abstinence with dramatic, highly effective statements such as this one: "Much is said about the prudent use of spirits, but we might as well speak of poison taken prudently every day."⁷⁶ Temperance groups also began to lobby for legislation to prohibit alcohol. The first such law was passed in New York State in 1845, but it was repealed two years later when citizens who wanted to drink complained about the legislation.

The temperance movement was strengthened during the middle of the nineteenth century when women began to assume leadership roles in fighting alcohol, making this the first time that American women became actively involved in social issues. In 1854 Susan B. Anthony, who is more famous for helping women win the right to vote, established the Woman's State Temperance Society of New York, the first such group formed by women and run by women. Another famous temperance leader was Carry Nation, whose axe-wielding protests in taverns helped popularize the issue. The most influential single group during this period, however, was the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). The WCTU, which was founded in 1841, once had over two hundred thousand dues-paying members and is still active today.

Because women could not vote during the nineteenth century, they could not directly influence elected officials to regulate alcohol consumption. Instead, they generated public outrage by staging protests aimed at saloons, which were considered as bad a problem as alcohol because they had become centers of gambling, prostitution, and other criminal activities.

These public protests peaked during the Woman's Crusade of 1873–1874 with a series of direct actions against saloons across the nation. Women sang religious hymns and held prayer vigils outside saloons (protests that helped keep patrons away), began petition drives to close saloons, and tried to win the support of local officials to regulate such establishments.

Prohibition

These crusaders managed to shut down some saloons, but not enough to ease the problem. The movement then began to fight to shut off the source of alcohol itself.

The first state prohibition law was passed in Maine in 1846, but few states did anything for decades to ease the flow of alcohol. But when the Anti-Saloon League was founded in 1893, it led a new wave of state prohibition drives that culminated in passage of the eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which banned the manufacture and sale of liquor in the United States for more than a decade.

The eighteenth Amendment was ratified on January 29, 1919, and went into effect on January 29, 1920. Prohibition, however, did not stop millions of people from drinking. Americans flocked to establishments that sold alcohol illegally; these small, secretive clubs were nicknamed speakeasies because people often had to tell the guard at the door a password to gain entrance to them. The nation's continued thirst for alcohol helped make multimillionaires of criminals like Chicago's Al Capone, whose gangs illegally made, imported, and sold beer and liquor.

The Woman's Crusade in Xenia, Ohio

During the winter of 1873–1874, the Woman's Crusade against alcohol spread across much of the northern United States as thousands of women participated in demonstrations and prayer vigils to close down saloons. The following account of one such crusade, which conveys the sense of triumph felt by those who participated, is reported by a witness in Xenia, Ohio. It is from the Ohio State University history department's Internet site on Prohibition.

Going out I saw crowds of people thronging towards Whitman street, and heard on every hand in joyful accents, "The Shades of Death [a saloon] has surrendered!: The good news proved true, and I found Whitman street thronged with people. A little before 3 o'clock, as it appeared from the general account, Mr. Steve Phillips, of the "Shades of Death," invited the ladies to enter, and announced that he gave up everything to them, and would never sell anything intoxicating in Xenia again. Then the ladies, joined by the spectators, sang "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," while the liquors were rolled into the street. A half-barrel of blackberry brandy, the same of high-wines, a few kegs of beer, and some bottles of ale and whisky were soon emptied into the street, amid the shouts of the enthusiastic multitude. Of the women around, some were crying, some were laughing, a few alternately singing and returning thanks. One elderly lady in the edge of the crowd was almost in hysterics, but still shouting in a hoarse whisper, such as one often hears at camp-meeting: "Bless the Lord! O, bless the Lord!" She had the appearance of a lady in good circumstances, and a citizen informed me that she is ordinarily one of the quietest, most placid of women. One of her sons died of intemperance, and another is much addicted to liquor.

Prohibition simply did not work: Alcohol was still available for anyone who sought it. In Drinking and Intoxication: Selected Readings inSocial Attitudes and Controls, Raymond G. McCarthy says that although inadequate enforcement and public corruption were factors, the major reason Prohibition failed was because people refused to give up their drinks:

It cannot be doubted that one element which would be essential for the successful enforcement of Prohibition was ultimately lacking––popular support. However much public sentiment the advocates of Prohibition had mustered in favor of the experiment before the Eighteenth Amendment was passed, sufficient popular support for its enforcement was not in evidence in the succeeding years.⁷⁷

Support for Prohibition gradually weakened, and in 1932 the Democratic Party adopted a platform calling for repeal, which helped Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt win election as president. In February 1933 Congress adopted the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution, which repealed the Eighteenth, and on December 5, 1933, Utah became the 36th state to vote for repeal, thus ratifying the amendment and ending Prohibition.

Although Prohibition failed, some good came from it. Prohibition shattered the old saloon system, which was considered responsible for much of the nation's alcohol abuse, and it helped curb America's previously spectacular drinking habit. The nation's per capita consumption of pure alcohol from 1906 to 1910 equaled 2.6 gallons, but after repeal of Prohibition in 1934 that figure had fallen to 0.97 of a gallon.

More Alcohol Woes

Although a few states continued to prohibit the sale of alcohol for many years (Kansas until 1948, Oklahoma until 1957, and Mississippi until 1966), most state and local governments turned to less strict measures to control alcohol abuse, such as banning the sale of alcohol on Sunday or only allowing government-operated establishments to dispense alcohol. In Battling Demon Rum, Thomas R. Pegram explains this less severe style of alcohol regulation:

Although the new system was more uniform in practice and more efficient in enforcement, it nevertheless resembled the basic forms of liquor control practiced at the turn of the century: prohibition [in some counties alcohol is banned even today], government control of liquor sales through state stores, or a system of licenses, taxes, and regulations to monitor retail dealers.⁷⁸

Not surprisingly, when Prohibition ended Americans gradually began to drink more again; by 1940 per capita consumption had increased to 1.56 gallons of pure alcohol, and by 1970 it was 2.61 gallons, slightly higher than the level before Prohibition. As the decades passed and increased drinking led to more and more alcohol-related problems, some people began to demand government action to control abusive drinkers.

MADD

The group that led the way for a return to stronger government intervention in alcohol problems was Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). In May 1980, after her thirteen-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunk driver in Sacramento, California, Realtor Candy Lightner formed Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (Drunk Drivers was later changed to Drunk Driving in 1984). The driver of the car that killed Cari had received only minor punishment for a previous drunk-driving conviction, and Lightner decided that stronger drunk-driving laws were needed to make highways safe.

By the end of the year, Lightner had forced creation of a California Governor's Task Force on Drinking-Driving, launched the national movement known as MADD, and began to make people around the nation concerned about drunk driving and related alcohol problems. In Contested Meanings: The Construction of Alcohol Problems, Joseph R. Gusfield says the group galvanized the nation to act on this issue:

The very name, MADD, presents the symbols that carry an expressive imagery. "Mothers" puts the issue in a framework of violence against children. "Against" provides an emotional sense of battles and enemies. "Drunk drivers" provides an image of the [driver] as socially irresponsible and out of self-control. This is the "killer drunk" who constitutes the villain of the story. . . . This capacity to characterize [drunk driving] as a drama of villains and victims has produced a moral fervor that moved the problem from its shadowy existence into the light of public mobilization.⁷⁹

In 1982, the year in which MADD grew to one hundred chapters nationwide, there were 25,165 traffic fatalities linked to alcohol, 57.3 percent of the nearly forty-four thousand people killed in all crashes. But thanks to MADD and many other groups that joined the effort to fight drunk driving, lawmakers since then have passed tough new laws that have imposed much harsher penalties on offenders. Many of the new laws nationwide have greatly increased fines drunk drivers have to pay and have mandated that even first-time offenders must serve minimum jail sentences. These penalties are so much more severe than under the old laws that they have helped to significantly reduce such deaths by making many people afraid to drive when they are intoxicated. Many states also require drunk-driving offenders to take a class on alcohol use or even attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 1999 there were 41,611 traffic fatalities on the nation's roads, but only 15,786, or 37.9 percent, involved drinking drivers. The new regulations had begun working to get drunk drivers off the road.

The New Prohibition

The success the nation had in dealing with drunk driving convinced some groups concerned about excessive drinking that they had a chance to successfully fight what they considered to be other alcohol-related problems, such as teenage drinking and the huge amount of alcohol advertising on television. This phenomenon is known as "the New Prohibition."

One of the groups in this new movement is the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a nonprofit education and advocacy organization. "It's improper to allow unfettered marketing of a product [alcohol] that causes 100,000 deaths a year,"⁸⁰ says CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. The CSPI, which has eight hundred thousand subscribers to its newsletter, backs restrictions on advertising, higher taxes for alcoholic beverages, and greater efforts to reduce drinking by young people.

CSPI strongly believes that federal, state, and local governments need to do more to regulate companies that produce alcoholic beverages, specifically in the area of advertising: "The alcohol industry's relentless marketing and powerful political influence coupled with ineffective government alcohol policies, contribute to this ongoing public health and safety epidemic."⁸¹

The efforts to control alcohol advertising take many forms. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, for example, has tried to stop wine makers from claiming on their labels that drinking wine is healthy, the city of Los Angeles has banned outdoor advertising of alcoholic beverages, and the CSPI wants to bar alcohol ads on television until after 10:00 p.m. so that fewer young people see such commercials.

Youth Drinking

Of all of the efforts to regulate alcohol today, more are aimed at illegal underage drinkers than any other group. That is because teenage drinking is one of the nation's biggest alcohol problems. Although the legal drinking age in America was once eighteen, it has been twenty-one for several decades. Despite that, many young people drink. In 2000 a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study on underage drinking showed that 30 percent of twelfth graders, 26.2 percent of tenth graders, and 14.1 percent of eighth graders reported binge drinking at least once in the two weeks prior to the survey; binge drinking was defined as five or more drinks on one occasion.

To many people, one of the most troubling aspects of underage drinking is the exposure young people get to alcohol through advertisements. The alcohol industry spends more than $1 billion a year on advertising, much of it on television shows involving sporting events that young people avidly watch. In a 1999 report on underage drinking and advertising, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said,

Underage alcohol use is a significant national concern. Last year [1998], a third of twelfth graders reported binge drinking. Moreover, while underage alcohol use levels decreased from about 1980 to 1993, those decreases have stopped and some important markers of underage alcohol use appear to be on the rise. Finding ways to deter alcohol use by those under 21 is a constant challenge to the beverage alcohol industry . . . as well as for government agencies and consumer [groups].⁸²

Partly because it has not been proven that advertising directly increases underage alcohol consumption, the FTC recommended the industry continue to self-regulate its marketing to avoid appealing to younger people. But the fact that young people are exposed to such ads, as well as to examples of alcohol use in movies and other mass media, is a big concern. Former surgeon general David Satcher believes the problem of underage drinking has become worse because drinkers are getting younger and younger:

There was a time when alcohol use was considered a "rite of passage," however, that "passage" was from adolescence into adulthood. Today as we see younger and younger children using alcohol, the "passage" is too frequently from childhood into adolescence. We now know that children who begin drinking alcohol before the age of 15 are four times more likely to develop alcoholism in adulthood than those children who do not begin consuming alcohol until the legal age of 21.⁸³

Part of Life

The controversy over alcohol advertising is only one of the many concerns Americans have over the very real dangers that alcohol poses to society. However, the fact that alcohol is such an important part of life for so many millions of people means that any attempt to regulate it will always meet with resistance. Marc Schuckit, a psychiatrist and addiction specialist who teaches at the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine, explains this situation:

It's part of our culture. People accept it as a normal part of our culture and dance around the issue [of alcohol's danger] by saying that everyone's at risk but me. When you have something that's been in your society so long and so tolerated, it's hard even to stop and think about the risks that are involved.⁸⁴