Amendment XVIII

[ Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission here of to the States by the Congress. ]

The Eighteenth Amendment was ratified January 16, 1914. It was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment, December 5, 1933.

From Nate:

What were they thinking? Would legislation prevent workers from drinking away their wages? Would they arrive at their jobs on Monday without hangovers?
I believe that this amendment was conceived without a sense of human nature. Distillation of alcohol only went underground, and abuse possibly intensified.
Today, we have a war on drugs that has been proven futile.

New York Times - Tues Dec 8, 2009 page D1
"A. Thomas McLellan: Scientist at Work - Addiction on 2 Fronts: Work and Home"
Sarah Kershaw – WASHINGTON
"A new top federal drug-control official knows his enemy well."

"PERSONAL MATTER A. Thomas McLellean says he is working against not just drug abuse, but also the belief by many that it is a moral, not medical, issue."