• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • News
  • Lifestyle
  • Wellness
  • Cuisine
  • Product Reviews
  • Subscribe
Cannabis News and Culture Magazine

Cannabis News and Culture Magazine

Cannabis News and Culture Magazine

Emerald Media News Subscription
  • Print Magazines
  • 100+ Minority-Owned Companies to Support
  • No Pipe, No Problem
  • Blunt vs. Joint
  • The Cost of Cannabis in Each State
  • Calculating Your Edibles Dosage
  • Flintts Mouthwatering Mints

Op-Ed: Perhaps Prohibition Problems are Repeating Themselves

October 11, 2019 by Danielle Guercio Leave a Comment

You might see a meme floating around from time-to-time about 10,000 Americans dying during alcohol prohibition “killed by the government” via poisoned alcohol. Though Snopes disproved some of these claims, they also confirmed that drinking industrial alcohol was responsible for deaths of many would-be revelers during the dry-ish years of prohibition. 

According to Time, “ On New Year’s Day 1927, 41 people died at New York’s Bellevue Hospital from alcohol-related poisonings. Oftentimes, they were drinking industrial methanol, otherwise known as wood alcohol, which was a legal but extremely dangerous poison. One government report said that of 480,000 gallons of liquor confiscated in New York in 1927, nearly all contained poisons.”

Like alcohol, cannabis has been an integral part of human culture, whether you like either substance matters little: people will drink alcohol and smoke, eat, or otherwise consume cannabis no matter what, and sometimes at all costs. 

Unlike alcohol, cannabis doesn’t cause violent chemical dependency, so you can understand how dangerous it was for the government to restrict access to a substance that people were already fully addicted to. 

Also unlike alcohol, cannabis can provide incredible health benefits which has people pushing back on an eight decade prohibition regardless of how illegal it is. This is why vapes were even created.

Along with e-cigs, a nicotine delivery system, cannabis concentrate vapes were developed to administer the chemicals in question to the body in a discreet and (hopefully) healthier manner. In their quest to access stealth microdoses of cannabis, people were willing to purchase black market vapes due to the prior reputation for general harmlessness that cannabis held before the “vape gate.”

Much like when alcohol was denatured to deter people from drinking it despite black market forces which would seek to put such poison in consumer hands, the government of America and many of its states does not actually care who is harmed by black market cannabis or even by nicotine delivery systems, provided they are able to keep funds coming in via enforcement and fines. 

Cannabis was known as a harmless substance, but its rising popularity has also concentrated the risk and reward of extralegal sales. We have no one to blame for this but the arbiters of continued prohibition. 

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Filed Under: Current, Wellness Tagged With: alcohol, history, op ed, prohibition

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Advertise Here

Categories

Sustainability

seaweed naturals

SeaWeed Naturals Combines the Power of Seaweed with Cannabis to Further Ocean Restoration

April 3, 2022 By Maggie Horton

fungi climate change

Research Finds Fungi Help Ease Climate Change and Benefit the Environment

March 30, 2022 By Julia Meyer

climate crisis and the pandemic

“We Can Act:” What Bending the COVID-19 Curve Teaches Us About the Climate Crisis

April 21, 2020 By Melissa Hutsell

Footer

  • Subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Press

Recent

  • Priscilla Vilchis and Lil Kim Launch Aphrodisiak: A Cannabis Brand Focused on Sensuality, Social Justice, and Inclusivity
  • First Latina CEO of a Cannabis Company Partners with Music Industry Trailblazer Lil Kim to Launch Aphrodisiak Brand
  • Aphrodisiak: The New Female-Led Cannabis Brand Empowering Women and Promoting Inclusivity
  • Las Vegas Welcomes Aphrodisiak
  • HighOnLove – Taking Pleasure to New Heights

Search

Copyright © 2023 · The Emerald™ · News & Lifestyle Magazine

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

Cannabis News and Culture Magazine
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.