[Security guard]: Don't do it, kid.
[Seth]: I never had a choice.
Today alcohol is so ubiquitous in the West that it's kind of mind-blowing
to think that there was a time when you could be arrested just for buying a six-pack.
Welcome to WatchMojo's Top 5 Facts.
In today's installment, we're counting down the five most fascinating facts
about the USA's prohibition of alcohol during the 1920s and 30s.
[Nucky Thompson]: As you know, in less than two hours,
liquor will be declared illegal by decree of the distinguished gentlemen of our nation's Congress.
[booing]
To those beautiful ignorant bastards.
[Acclamation]
No 5: Drinking wasn't actually illegal
[Narrator]: The brewers and distillers were suffering.
County by county, state by state, they were being forced to close down.
The Eighteenth Amendment, also know as the Volstead Act,
went into effect in January 1920,
and made the manufacture, sale and distribution of liquor illegal.
So if, like some wealthy individuals of the day,
you bought the stock of an entire liquor store before the law went into effect,
you could still enjoy it in the privacy of your own home.
[Nucky Thompson]: What's that, lemonade in your hand?
[Mayor Frank]: I'm just proposing we call a spade a spade.
It was also possible to receive a doctor's prescription and buy medical whiskey from a pharmacy.
So-called 'Blind pigs" got around the sales restriction
by instead charging people to see some interesting animals, like a blind pig,
and gave patrons a free drink with admission.
[Arthur Hoggett]: That'll do, pig. That'll do.
No 4: Prohibition made cocktails popular
[Peter Bretter]: What about, like, some pineapple juice... with a little bit of rum on the side.
[Waiter]: Of course. I like your style. Cocktail guy.
Since the manufacture of alcohol was done on the black market,
much of the liquor being supplied to illegal saloons was filled with poisons
like wood alcohol, iodine and sulfuric acid.
But more on that later.
[Coughing]
[Jim Levenstein]: Excuse me.
So since this stuff tasted awful and there wasn't a wide variety of it,
bartenders were mixing things like fruit juices, sugar and grenadine to mask the 'taste of death'.
Historical data on these details seems spotty, but it does tend a reason.
Also, sweet drinks were easier to down quickly,
which is important when the joint could be raided at any moment.
No 3: Propaganda played a huge role
[Narrator]: But at high school age, even though your mind seems mature, your body isn't.
Alcohol is a violent narcotic.
In order to get the law passed,
groups like The Christian Women's Temperance League and the Anti-Saloon League
launched massive anti-alcohol campaigns to sway popular opinion over the course of eight years.
[Mrs. McGarry]: Liquor, thy name’s Delirium!
Drinking was portrayed as the cause of just about every societal ill.
It was said to bankrupt and destroy families,
while making evil brewery tycoons and saloon owners filthy rich.
The Dry Campaigners, as they were called,
also wanted to paint booze as massively expensive to taxpayers.
[Speaker]: I see, alcohol must go.
Ironically though, it was actually the millions lost to tax revenues and the hundreds of millions that cost to enforce the law
that led to its repeal in 1933.
[Mr. Mackey]: ... and so that's why alcohol is bad.
Has that marijuana made it back up here yet?
No 2: The KKK supported prohibition and Vice Versa
[Wizard]: And from all those smart-ass folk say we come descended from the monkeys!
That's not my culture'n heritage!
[Acclamation]
The Ku Klux Klan are a white supremacist group first founded in the mid-nineteenth century.
Before prohibition, they were small fringe organization scattered throughout the South.
But their ardent and sometimes even violent support of prohibition made them hugely popular with the general booze-hating public.
By 1925, their membership numbers have ballooned from a few thousand to between 3 and 6 million members all over the country.
They burned down saloons, raided roadhouses for stashes of hooch
and were even deputized by federal officials to do so.
Luckily, they fell from popularity that same decade,
and now have fewer than ten thousand members.
[KKK member]: Look what we got us here, brothers.
[KKK member]: Mexicans!
No 1: Uncle Sam's tainted hooch killed thousands
[Jack Bondurant]: Partner, I don't know if that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen
or you're some kind of damn genius.
Oooff!
Manufacture of alcohol for industrial purposes was still permitted during prohibition,
but the government tried to make it completely undrinkable by forcing manufacturers to add chemicals to it.
Some of these chemicals were harmless,
but others were toxic.
It's estimated that a tenth of all the industrial alcohol produced in this period won't be that drunk anyhow
causing paralysis, blindness and even death.
The most common estimate is that about 10,000 people died from this tainted hooch.
But some authors put that number at as high as 12,000 in 1927 alone.
[Harry Potter]: Professor!
Professor!
So what do you think?
[Evan]: I'm so drunk. I can't even, like, process this.
Should we give prohibition another try?
Or maybe prohibit fewer intoxicants?
[The Simpsons]: We Want Prohibition!
[Judge]: You can't seriously want to ban alcohol.
It tastes great, makes women appear more attractive and makes a person virtually invulnerable to criticism.
For more sugary sweet Top 10s and may-cause-blindness Top5s,
be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.
[Peter Klaven]: You got it, Joban.
[Sydney Fife]: I'm sorry, what?
[Peter Klaven]: Nothing.