Prohibition came into effect in 1920, with the aim of saving the country from problems related to poverty and violence. The American Constitution established in the 18th Amendment, the prohibition, manufacture, commerce, transportation, export and import of alcoholic beverages. Because, for the government, all the ills experienced by the country had only alcohol as the causative agent. This law, which lasted 13 years, was considered the greatest legislative failure of all time in the United States.
The effect caused by the law was completely contrary to what was expected, instead of ending alcohol consumption, with social problems, among others, the law generated the demoralization of the authorities, the increase in corruption, explosions of criminality in several states. and, the enrichment of the mafias that dominated the smuggling of alcoholic beverages. The meeting point for people who wanted to drink were the speakesies, that is, clandestine bars located underground, with the aim of not attracting attention.
Arguing that legalizing alcoholic beverages would create more jobs, lift the economy and increase tax revenue, opponents of then US President Franklin Roosevelt convinced him to ask Congress to legalize beer. With this, in 1933 the constitutional amendment of the dry law was revoked. The national Prohibition Act immortalized the name of several people, especially that of the great gangster Al Capone, who commanded the liquor trade in Chicago.