The Globe and Mail has an interesting article today on the upcoming Ken Burns documentary covering America\’s (and Canada\’s) experiment with Prohibition. Apparently, Prohibition and that era is now a \”hot topic\” … mainly because the whole thing was such a failure … PBS describes it as follows:
Prohibition turned law-abiding citizens into criminals, made a mockery of the justice system, caused illicit drinking to seem glamorous and fun, encouraged neighbourhood gangs to become national crime syndicates, permitted government officials to bend and sometimes even break the law, and fostered cynicism and hypocrisy that corroded the social contract all across the country.
Unfortunately, in Canada today, we still need to get rid of the remnants of Prohibition-era thinking from our laws: the prime example is our out-dated law from 1928 which prohibits the inter-provincial shipment of wine direct to consumers.