| Do we need laws that prevent us from
running risks with our lives? If so, then perhaps laws are needed prohibiting
(禁止) the sale of cigarettes and alcoholic drinks. Both products have been known
to kill people. The hazards of drinking too much alcohol are as bad or worse
than the hazards of smoking too many cigarettes. All right then, let's pass a
law dosing the liquor stores and the bars in this country. Let's put an end once
and for all to the disease from which as many as 10 million Americans currently
suffer -- alcoholism(酗酒)。 But wait. We've already tried that. For 13 years, between 1920 and 1933, there were no liquor stores anywhere in the United States. They were shut down -- abolished by an amendment (修正案), the Volstead Act. After January 20, 1920, there was supposed to be no more manufacturing, selling, or transporting of "intoxication liquors." Without any more liquor, people could not drink it. And if they did not drink it, how could they get drunk? There would be no more dangers to the public welfare from drunkenness and alcoholism (酒精中毒). It was all very logical. And yet prohibition of liquor, beer, and wine did not work. Why? Because, law or no law, millions of people still liked to drink alcohol. And they were willing to take risks to get it. They were not about to change their tastes and habits just because of a change in the law. And gangs of liquor smugglers(走私犯) made it easy to buy an illegal drink -- or two or three. They smuggled millions of gallons of the illegal beverages (饮料) across the Canadian and Mexican Borders. Drinkers were lucky to know of an illegal bar that served Mexican or Canadian liquor. Crime and drunkenness were both supposed to decline as a result of prohibition. Instead people drank more alcohol than ever -- often poisoned alcohol. On December 5, 1933, they removed prohibition by approving the 21st Amendment to the Constitution. |