NORML Intern Draws Parallels Between Alcohol, Cannabis Prohibitions

Parallel Enforcement Failures Across a Century

Both alcohol and cannabis prohibitions generated millions of arrests while failing to suppress demand or availability. Breen's analysis, posted to NORML's blog, traces the structural parallels between the Volstead Act enforcement era and modern cannabis arrests under the Controlled Substances Act. Federal agents made roughly 500,000 arrests for alcohol violations between 1920 and 1933. Cannabis arrests in the United States exceeded 600,000 annually at their 2007 peak, according to FBI Uniform Crime Reports.

The intern frames both policies as enforcement-driven regimes that diverted law enforcement resources toward vice crimes while violent crime flourished. Prohibition-era bootlegging networks evolved into organized syndicates. Cannabis prohibition similarly empowered cartels and unregulated black markets that persist in states without legal frameworks.

Breen argues the political coalitions sustaining each prohibition—temperance activists in the 1920s, anti-drug warriors in the late 20th century—relied on moral panic rather than evidence of public harm. The 18th Amendment fell after 13 years. Cannabis remains Schedule I under 21 U.S.C. § 812 despite state-level legalization in 24 jurisdictions.

Social Costs and Enforcement Disparities

Both prohibitions imposed disproportionate costs on minority communities through selective enforcement. Breen highlights arrest-rate disparities: Black Americans were 3.6 times more likely than white Americans to be arrested for cannabis possession in 2020, per ACLU data, despite comparable usage rates. Alcohol prohibition enforcement similarly targeted immigrant and working-class neighborhoods while affluent speakeasies operated with tacit police tolerance.

Neither prohibition reduced consumption meaningfully, the analysis notes. Per-capita alcohol consumption declined modestly during Prohibition but rebounded immediately after repeal. Cannabis use rates have remained stable or increased during the CSA era, with 18 percent of U.S. adults reporting past-year use in 2023 Gallup polling.

Breen frames the comparison as a cautionary tale for federal policymakers resisting cannabis rescheduling. The DEA's August 2024 notice of proposed rulemaking to move cannabis to Schedule III remains under administrative review, with no final rule published. For full background on this story, see the CannIntel topic hub on Cannabis Prohibition History.

What Repeal Required Then and Now

Alcohol prohibition ended through constitutional amendment; cannabis prohibition persists under statutory and treaty frameworks that complicate reform. The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th in December 1933 after state ratification. Cannabis prohibition rests on the Controlled Substances Act, the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and decades of DEA regulatory precedent. Each requires separate legislative or executive action to dismantle.

Breen's analysis doesn't propose a specific reform pathway but argues the historical record demonstrates prohibition's structural unsustainability. Public opinion shifted decisively against alcohol prohibition by 1932. Pew Research polling shows 88 percent of U.S. adults now support legal medical or recreational cannabis.

The intern concludes that both prohibitions share a common endpoint: collapse under enforcement futility and public rejection. The timeline remains the variable.

Next legislative test: whether Congress attaches cannabis banking reform to the FY 2027 appropriations process this fall, signaling incremental federal accommodation of state-legal markets.