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Neo-prohibitionism (also spelled neoprohibitionism and neo-Prohibitionism) is a current movement to attempt to stop consumption of alcohol in society through legislation and policies which further restrict the sale, possession, and marketing of alcohol in order to reduce average per capita consumption and change social norms to reduce its acceptability.
The term is usually used critically to describe groups or individuals, rather than by the groups or individuals themselves. For example, Candace Lightner, the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), eventually left the organization in anger and has since gone on to criticize it as neo-prohibitionist, stating that MADD "has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned … I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving". [1] Lightner was criticizing MADD's leaders who had called for the criminalization of all driving after drinking any amount of alcoholic beverage.
In Europe, the World Health Organization in 1992 launched a so-called Alcohol Action Plan that aimed at a continuous reduction of the per capita consumption; this attempt was criticized as "crypto-prohibitionism". [2]
The concept of neo-prohibitionism has been used and studied by scholars at George Mason University, [3] Ohio State University, [4] Brown University, [5] [6] Indiana University, [7] the University of Houston, [8] the University of Western Ontario, [9] the University of California, San Diego, [10] [11] Washington University in St. Louis, [12] the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, [13] Kean University. [8]
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage, transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. The word is also used to refer to a period of time during which such bans are enforced.
The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emphasize alcohol's negative effects on people's health, personalities and family lives. Typically the movement promotes alcohol education and it also demands the passage of new laws against the sale of alcohol, either regulations on the availability of alcohol, or the complete prohibition of it.
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity." It plays an influential role in the temperance movement. Originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement, the organization supported the 18th Amendment and was also influential in social reform issues that came to prominence in the progressive era.
A tavern is a type of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food such as different types of roast meats and cheese, and where travelers would receive lodging. An inn is a tavern that has a license to put up guests as lodgers. The word derives from the Latin taberna whose original meaning was a shed, workshop, stall, or pub.
A dram shop is a bar, tavern or similar commercial establishment where alcoholic beverages are sold. Traditionally, it is a shop where spirits were sold by the dram, a small unit of liquid.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is a non-profit organization in the United States, Canada and Brazil that seeks to stop drunk driving, support those affected by drunk driving, prevent underage drinking, and strive for stricter impaired driving policy, whether that impairment is caused by alcohol or any other drug. The Irving, Texas-based organization was founded on September 5, 1980, in California by Candace Lightner after her 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunk driver. There is at least one MADD office in every state of the United States and at least one in each province of Canada. These offices offer victim services and many resources involving alcohol safety. MADD has claimed that drunk driving has been reduced by half since its founding.
The Washingtonian movement was a 19th-century temperance fellowship founded on Thursday, April 2, 1840, by six alcoholics at Chase's Tavern on Liberty Street in Baltimore, Maryland. The idea was that by relying on each other, sharing their alcoholic experiences, and creating an atmosphere of conviviality, they could keep each other sober. Total abstinence from alcohol (teetotalism) was their goal. The group taught sobriety and preceded Alcoholics Anonymous by almost a century. Members sought out other "drunkards", told them their experiences with excessive alcohol use, and how the Society had helped them achieve sobriety. With the passage of time the Society became a prohibitionist organization in that it promoted the legal and mandatory prohibition of alcoholic beverages. The Society was the inspiration for Timothy Shay Arthur's Six Nights with the Washingtonians and his Ten Nights in a Bar-Room.
The American Beverage Institute is a trade group based in Washington, D.C. that lobbies on alcoholic drink related issues on behalf of the restaurant industry. It describes itself as "dedicated to protecting the on-premises dining experience - which often includes the responsible consumption of adult beverages." ABI was set up in 1991 by Richard Berman, executive director of the public affairs firm Berman and Company.
In the United States, the nationwide ban on alcoholic beverages, was repealed by the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 5, 1933.
David Justin Hanson is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the State University of New York in Potsdam, New York. He has researched the subject of alcohol and drinking for over 30 years, beginning with his PhD dissertation investigation, and has written widely on the subject.
Although the minimum legal age to purchase alcohol is 21 in all U.S. states and most territories, the legal details for consumption vary greatly. Although some states completely ban alcohol usage for people under 18, the majority have exceptions that permit consumption.
Christian views on alcohol are varied. Throughout the first 1,800 years of Church history, Christians generally consumed alcoholic beverages as a common part of everyday life and used "the fruit of the vine" in their central rite—the Eucharist or Lord's Supper. They held that both the Bible and Christian tradition taught that alcohol is a gift from God that makes life more joyous, but that over-indulgence leading to drunkenness is sinful. However, the alcoholic content of ancient alcoholic beverages was significantly lower than that of modern alcoholic beverages. The low alcoholic content was due to the limitations of fermentation and the nonexistence of distillation methods in the ancient world. Rabbinic teachers wrote acceptance criteria on consumability of ancient alcoholic beverages after significant dilution with water, and prohibited undiluted wine.
Wayne Bidwell Wheeler was an American attorney and longtime leader of the Anti-Saloon League. The leading advocate of the prohibitionist movement in the late 1800s and early 1900s, he played a major role in the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages.
The Prohibition era was the period from 1920 to 1933 when the United States prohibited the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and finally ended nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.
Alcohol laws are laws relating to manufacture, use, being under the influence of and sale of alcohol or alcoholic beverages. Common alcoholic beverages include beer, wine, (hard) cider, and distilled spirits. Definition of alcoholic beverage varies internationally, e.g., the United States defines an alcoholic beverage as "any beverage in liquid form which contains not less than one-half of one percent of alcohol by volume". Alcohol laws can restrict those who can produce alcohol, those who can buy it, when one can buy it, labelling and advertising, the types of alcoholic beverage that can be sold, where one can consume it, what activities are prohibited while intoxicated, and where one can buy it. In some cases, laws have even prohibited the use and sale of alcohol entirely.
In the United States, the temperance movement, which sought to curb the consumption of alcohol, had a large influence on American politics and American society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, culminating in the prohibition of alcohol, through the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, from 1920 to 1933. Today, there are organizations that continue to promote the cause of temperance.
Teetotalism is the practice or promotion of total personal abstinence from the consumption of alcohol, specifically in alcoholic drinks. A person who practices teetotalism is called a teetotaler or teetotaller, or is simply said to be teetotal. Globally, almost half of adults do not drink alcohol. A number of temperance organisations have been founded in order to promote teetotalism and provide spaces for non-drinkers to socialise.
In the Canadian province of Ontario, severe restrictions on the sale and consumption of alcoholic drink were imposed in localities during the later 19th century. Prohibition was imposed across the province under the 1916 Ontario Temperance Act, until restrictions were somewhat eased with the passage of the Liquor Control Act of 1927 which set up the still existing Liquor Control Board of Ontario. Regulations were further amended in 1934.
Finnish alcohol culture refers to the drinking culture regarding beverages containing ethyl alcohol in Finland and to the manners and habits connected to the drinking culture.
