Essay On Prohibition In Canada

By 1918, the federal government imposed the law of prohibition Canada-wide. The idea of prohibition began in the early twentieth century when temperance groups such as the Dominion Alliance for the Total Suppression of the Liquor Traffic and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union believed alcohol was the main source of many problems of the poor (Hundey and Michael 87). These types of groups campaigned to have the government shut down bars and taverns (Hallowell). During this time period, drinking alcohol was considered illegal. As a result, Canada faced positive effects while also facing many negative effects. Some of those negative points included an increase in bootlegging and organized crimes such as smuggling liquor through the Canada-US border, caused a change to the drinking habits of Canada but for the worse and caused many people to cheat and unlawfully gain access to the drinking and selling of alcohol such as fake prescriptions (McMillan, McWilliams). Although Canada may have had great benefits from prohibition, it also
This did not mean that no one at all could legally obtain alcohol. People who were ill and were in the need of alcohol for medicinal uses were allowed to obtain alcohol. Their doctor would give them a prescription for alcohol and they would get the alcohol from pharmacies. This led people who were healthy to cheat and unlawfully get alcohol. To get alcohol from the pharmacies, people would go to the doctors and pretend to be ill (Prohibition). If the doctor believed that they were ill and thought that alcohol would help them, they would prescribe the patient with alcohol for medicinal uses. The people who cheated would use that alcohol for recreational uses and get drunk. This shows that prohibition did not stop people from obtaining alcohol, but it pushed people to find an illegal way to obtain it which proves why prohibition was a failed attempt to ban