April 11, 2026 • 31 mins
From 1920 to 1933, the United States was, technically speaking, a dry country. The National Prohibition Act made the manufacture, transport and sale of alcohol illegal for the vast majority of the population. However, there were several loopholes available for the enterprising alcohol enthusiast -- and doctors quickly realized they could make loads of cash prescribing booze for medicinal purposes. Join the guys as they explore the rise and fall of the medicinal alcohol industry.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for tuning in.
(00:03):
We are returning with a classic episode. This is about.
This is about a period in US history that always
amazed us. Noel, you and I talk about this often.
Prohibition doesn't really work for anything.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, it's kind of like the streisand effect.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Yeah, you really want people talking about your business, you
should tell them to buzz off.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
We looked back in twenty nineteen at the National Prohibition
Act of the United States. So from nineteen twenty to
nineteen thirty three, the US was technically a dry country
because this Act made it illegal to manufacture, sell, or
(00:51):
transport alcohol. But there were a lot of loopholes, and
they got so ridiculous they did.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
And I'm certain that in the episode, I bring up
the classic I Love Lucy episode where she shills for
a company called Vita Meta Veggamin that is basically just
a bunch of booze.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, let's find out together. Thank you again, folks, will
roll the tape. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
(01:46):
The actor, vaudeville performer, cowboy and humorist Will Rogers once
famously said that the American people will vote dry so
long as they are able to stagger to the polls,
voting dry meaning voting against legalized alcohol. Welcome to the show.
I'm Ben.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
My name is No.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
That's really funny, Ben. That's a very good little loaded it.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
What do you call it?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Is like a pun a turn of phrase, I mean,
uh yeah, sort of a sort of a double message.
It's like a hidden meaning. Voting dry to me would
mean voting sober. But as long as they can stumble
the poles applying voting drunk.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
There's a lot going on there. There's a lot of stuff.
There's a lot of meaning. We got to unpack them.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
That that has to do with today's story, because, as
we know, voting also has a history of drunkenness. Remember
we did an episode about when people used to booze
people up and at the polls and then keep them
then keep them hostage, the weird little you know, speakeasy
booze dungeons. We're not talking about that today, exactly. We
are talking about h prohibition and a particular exception that
(02:49):
was made for drinking alcohol during that time.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Right right, And speaking of exceptional people and circumstances, let's
give a shout out to our super producer Casey Pegram Casey,
just for the record to establish all three of us
are not Teetotaler's right.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah, it's correct. I'll have a drink now.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And again I mean I'm no, no, definitely not. I
love that expression though, teetotaler, teetotaler.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
It's fun to say, and it sounds like a test
for people who have been drinking exactly if you pronounce
it correctly.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
But yes, yes, no, you're right.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Nowadays, when we think of prohibition, we think of you know,
al Capone, we think of some of us think of
the origin of some race cars. But this was a
very serious problem for thirteen years. The National Prohibition Act,
otherwise known as the Volsted Act, attempted to keep people
(03:50):
in the United States from drinking, transporting, even making any
intoxicating beverage.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
How that worked, though, Ben, how'd that work? Percent abstinence?
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Right?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh boy? Yeah, right, complete success.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I'm gonna move this microphone because oh yeah, I like
making icntact with you.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Can we keep that part in? Of course, it's some
Monday morning guys, it really is.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
But no, I mean, I'm I'm obviously being a little
sarcastic because as we know when you when you make people,
when you tell people they can't do something, they just
want to do it even more, don't they.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. It's it's one of
the hallmarks of you as a parent. No. Reverse psychology
is one of the hallmarks of any social dynamic.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
And I mean I have learned that anytime I tell
my kid not to do something, or scold her about
doing something, I can see the little glint in her
eye of it, just the itch that she's got a scratch,
she's got to do that thing. If I tell her
not to play the drums on the dinner table with cutlery,
then the moment I look away, she starts like kind
of just itching to tap that fork on the table.
It's little paradidtal really, Yeah, exactly, No, And it's the
(04:56):
same with human nature in general. People don't like being
told they can and can't do, especially when it's something
they've done freely for a long time.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Absolutely, it's easier to prevent someone from beginning a habit
or thing that and it's much more difficult to get
them to stop after they have already acclimated to it.
And that's why Prohibition was a spoiler alert, ridiculous historians
not completely successful. From nineteen twenty to nineteen thirty three,
(05:26):
Uncle Sam gave it the old College try, But very
very quickly doctors and politicians realized that some exceptions had
to apply. This could not be an absolutist rule because
you know, as you said, well, there were already people
very well acquainted with drinking. Some of these people had
(05:47):
become dependent on alcohol, so they would have painful physiological
withdrawal systems if they weren't able to have access to
that substance.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
That's right, yeah, I mean the shape, the dts, that
stuff is real.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
If you are absolutely addicted to alcohol, you can experience hallucinations,
all kinds of very disruptive things that can cause you
to not go about your normal existence.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And that's why. According to Daniel Okrint, the author of
Last Call, The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, some fifteen
thousand doctors applied for permits during the first six months
of the Volstead Act. These permits would allow them to
prescribe alcohol, but not just like a I don't know,
(06:38):
like a regular medicinal alcohol. It allowed them to prescribe
specific types of alcohol, right.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, rye whiskey scotch. Also, I believe there were some
clear ones on the list.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Too, right, Oh yeah, I mean, why would you go
to a doctor's office if you don't leave with a
prescription for gin?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You know what I mean? That applies in the in
the modern day.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Probably jin is interesting too, because I always think of
jin as being sort of an herbal type tasting booze.
It's probably the closest thing to like what you might
have drunk for medicine anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Right right, with a juniper berry base. Right, So already
we can see the opportunity for corruption, right That lingers
here because sure a lot of doctors during this time
were prescribing alcohol with nothing other than medicinal interest at hand.
(07:35):
But also you can't walk away from the money because
there wasn't much federal oversight of these doctors. You're a doctor,
You write prescriptions as long as it's not illegal. You
can write prescriptions for whatever you want, whenever you want.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
But there was illegal not if you had the permit.
I see, got it?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
You know, this reminds me of very obvious parallel in
our modern day with marijuana proit and that tide kind
of turning there was a while where it was a
little easier maybe than it should have been, to get
a medical marijuana card or prescription, and that was the
case with this situation as well. It became there's a
(08:16):
great story about Winston Churchill, a case study kind of
where he got hit by a car while doing a
lecture at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and he got
a cut on his forehead, and he bruised his chest
and had a sprained shoulder, and he was prescribed kind
of carte blanche access to alcohol, where he had a
(08:37):
doctor's note more so than a prescription signed by doctor
Otto C. Pickart, that said, this is to certify that
the post accident convalescence of the Honorable Winston S. Churchill
necessitates the use of alcoholic spirits, especially at meal times.
The quantity is naturally indefinite, but the minimum requirements would
be two hundred and fifty cubic centimeters. And then there's
(08:58):
a handwritten note on the top under this guy's letterhead,
this doctor from New York, saying keep on hand.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
So basically this was just a get out of jail.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Free car for Winston Churchill to be able to drink
as he typically did, which we know Churchill was fond
of his spirits.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
I love the phrase they're naturally indefinite. He was walking
around with this doctor's note on his person whenever he
wanted to buy alcohol, and whenever. I don't think this
would happen very often because it's Winston Churchill, but whenever,
(09:32):
maybe an authority figure stopped him and said, hey, you,
you absolute lush. Put this down. You're supposed to be
in charge of the country.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
And this doctor's note from Churchill is dated January twenty sixth,
nineteen thirty two, which, as we know, was on the
tail end of prohibition, which wrapped up in nineteen thirty three.
In earnest but by this point, according to a fantastic
Atlas Obscure article by Paula Masia, the doctors were becoming
much more like the modern day equivalent of marijuana dispensaries
(10:05):
than they were doctor's offices, where they were stocked with
every type of booze you could imagine. They were almost
more like an off the books liquor store than even
a doctor's office. Because they were cleaning up doing this,
they were able to make good money and have a
legal loophole out of prohibition.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Absolutely, as you find in a great article on How
Stuff Works by Michelle Constantinovski. Pretty much right after prohibition
began and doctors realized they could get these permits, they
also realized that alcohol was a useful treatment for no
less than twenty seven separate medical conditions. This included stuff
(10:45):
like cancer, incurable cancer, anxiety, but it also included diabetes,
snake bites, and even lactation problems. So you're a nursing
mother and you're having issues lactating, you know what, you
need some of Grandpa's leg medicine, which is a weird
I think Tennessee term for whiskey.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
It's actually my favorite brand.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Grandpa's like medicine. Oh maybe I'm thinking of moonshine. I
smell a T shirt, nol. I think that's a great
It's a great T shirt, right, Grandpa's like.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Medical Grandpa's Medicine.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
I can picture that with like an old timey label
with like xxx on it, you know, yeah, and then
ridiculous history written really small on the bottom.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah. I'm fine with that.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I mean, I have no problem with us advertising alcohol
as long as it's our own fake alcohol exactly.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Speaking of which, just to take a quick pause from
today's topic. Have you seen the amazing Casey on the
case t shirts that are now available in the Tea
Public store.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Oh, saving it for the end, but I'm glad you
brought it up. I just want to make people make sure, Yeah, yeah,
stop what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
You can go to our website Ridiculous hisstoryshow dot com,
or you can go directly to our store Tea Public
dot com slash Ridiculous History and check out our newest shirt,
which I pulled it up because I love I love
looking at this. We we've revealed this on air, right
that Casey used to be a child model. Okay, so,
(12:08):
uh so Casey, can you tell us about how this
how this hall came to be?
Speaker 5 (12:13):
Yeah, well, there was, you know, kind of a grassroots
campaign to uh have my face on a T shirt.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
I really didn't like the idea at first, but I apologize.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
I kind of thought, you know, we could kind of
kill two birds with one stone here. We could finally
deliver those modeling picks from a youth and my face
on a T shirt. So just kind of combined the two,
and you know, I think the results pretty spectacular.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
You got to say, I agree, so check it out.
It's it's worth your worth, your worth, your dime for sure.
Casey on the case.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
We are exploring the story of prohibition, and as you
would pointed out, man, there are quite a few modern
parallel especially when we talk about the purpose for a
prescribed substance. So this medicinal alcohol, sort of like medicinal marijuana,
(13:11):
becomes a popular loophole. Funny thing is, before Prohibition was
in effect, doctors knew the score. They knew that alcohol
was not medicine. But during Prohibition, the American Medical Association
or AMA changed its opinion. And the weird thing is
that the US Treasury Department backed them up. They authorized
(13:33):
doctors to write prescriptions for alcohol, and they were given
the doctors were given these government prescription forms to prescribe quote,
medicinal whiskey at pharmacies. But this was so corrupt and
was so open to abuse, because we're not just talking
about people stealing prescription pads. We're talking about people making
(13:54):
counterfeit prescription pads and then using that to pass around
with their friends. And let's just point out that the
pharmacies did not ask as many questions as they should have.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Oh, certainly not, certainly not.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
And it's like I said, with the whole comparison to
the modern day marijuana prescriptions, you could kind of just.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Go in and say you had it.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Got to the point eventually, as a pretty recently where
you can kind of just say you have a little
back pain, or you have maybe you got an eye twitch.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yeah, and that's about all it takes.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
And you have a seat on a couch, talk to
somebody behind a desk, answer these few questions. You know
what they're looking for, so you just give it to them,
give them what they want, and they don't really ask
any questions. They certainly don't run any tests or require
any real burden of proof. And that was exactly the
case with these with these these pharmacies giving out these booze.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Prescriptions a vague sense of unease, that's right, walking in
and saying I don't trust my elbows and there's nothing
I could do about it.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Well, the funny thing is like, isn't that why people
drink in the first place, to combat the elbows, to
combat with that vague sense of honeyes about life right
in the world.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
So this leads us to an interesting story because we're
emphasizing the role of the doctors, but we haven't talked
a lot about the pharmacist. And the pharmacist are part
of this supply chain. Historians have suspicions about one famous pharmacist,
Charles Walgreen.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Of the Walgreen Walgreens.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yes, of the Walgreen Walgreens, the very same. Throughout the
nineteen twenties, the Walgreens pharmacy change encountered tremendous growth. They
expanded from twenty stores to five hundred and twenty five.
For a long time, people would credit the introduction of
the milkshake to the pharmacy's success, but it sounds like
(15:43):
alcohol may have played a more prominent role. In an interview,
Charles Walgreen Junior said that while his father worried about
the danger of stores catching fire, he always wanted the
fire department to get in and out as quickly as possible,
because whenever they came in, the fire department would steal
a case of liquor from the back.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yikes.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
So this we know that there was a lot of
money to be had. I mean, organized crime had a
bonanza with this, right.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Oh yeah, sure, you got your al capones. You got
your bootlegging Tommy gun Totin gangsters, you know, running those
speakeasies and all the flapper girls and all that thing.
You know, this is the they were high times underground.
But I didn't really realize that this was happening above
ground as well, completely legally, and that Walgreens played a
(16:35):
huge part in that.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I mean, there's an.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Article on vinepaar dot com called the seventy five billion
dollar business that was built selling whiskey during Prohibition legally
by Emily Bell, and it shows a fantastic shot of
a behind the counter situation at Walgreens would have looked
like and that you know, you've got your apothecary type
bottles and you know things with their little plastic you know,
(16:57):
glass stoppers in it, but a lot of it is
right up booze.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
That's right. This was a business.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Every ten days, patients could pay about three dollars for
a prescription and another three or four dollars to have
it filled, and they would get about a pint of booze.
And that's not necessarily beer, of course, this was again
medicinal liquor. So ultimately, according to Okrant, the guy I
(17:26):
mentioned earlier in last call. According to him, what this
really functioned as was a new revenue stream for physicians
and pharmacists. You know, every ten days you're getting three bucks,
the pharmacies getting three or four bucks, and multiply that
out by the number of patients you have. Not to
put too dark a spin on it, but similar circumstances
(17:49):
have occurred recently in the last few years, not just
with marijuana, but with opioids. The so called is tough
for my Tennessee accent, the so called pill mills.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, exactly, where again, it doesn't take much burden of
proof to get a doctor to prescribe you whatever you
tickles your fancy as far as heavy opioid drugs are concerned.
And there's also the whole idea of doctor shopping. If
you've got multiple pill mill situations, you can go from
one to the other and have none of them really
(18:21):
know about each other, and you can just be kind
of swimming in this stuff. And that is one of
the reasons, aside from laxness and utter irresponsibility on the
part of big pharma, that caused the opioid epidemic that
is such a huge problem in our country.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
And we see the same sort of federal level corruption
in the turn of the century Prohibition days. There's a
great example about you remember the Great Gatsby, right, I
have Scott Fistory.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yeah, So there's a real life guy named George Remis
who inspired the Great Gatsby, and he figured out how
to play the system. He thought medicinal whisky. He was
a bang up business model. So he bought a ton
of distilleries which had these storage areas full of whisky
that could not be sold. So he bought pharmacies for
(19:12):
the express purpose of distributing this whiskey. And then he
bribed the Feds to allow more and more whiskey to
sort of what they call it in retail stores shrinkage.
Allowed whiskey to disappear from the official record, and so
in a very short amount of time he made quite
a bit of money. And let's get back to those justifications,
(19:35):
because there is one great example from the Atlas Obscure
article he mentioned earlier. In Providence, Rhode Island, one physician
prescribed whiskey for a single condition debility, and debility just
beans by the way, physical weakness, just feeling down.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
It's sort of like a lighter version of being debilitated.
I guess just my.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Debility, but I'm going to bring debility back. So legally speaking,
these physicians could get their licenses revoked if they were
found to be distributing medicinal liquor for anything less than
medical purposes. However, what that really translated to, if we're
(20:21):
being honest, is they were either super blatant about what
they were doing or they didn't bribe the right people.
Only about one hundred and seventy doctors per year ever
had their licenses revoked.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
And here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I mean, it really wasn't as it progressed throughout prohibition.
It really was not just a flash in the pan
or like the exception to the rule.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
It kind of became the rule.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
And I don't I don't know, but I don't know
if you can tell me this, but I did get
a sense that the Winston Churchill example was.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Kind of how it was.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
It was a little bit more something that was available
to the privileged or people that had act access to
doctors that would work with them.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, if you had the money, you could play ball,
you know what I mean. So this is still this
is still a time where there's a lot of institutionalized racism,
there's class warfare, you know, it's it's the Gilded Age,
the Roaring twenties of inequality. This stuff was not necessarily
cheap for the average person, but it was still a
(21:25):
big business. Physicians wrote and estimated eleven million prescriptions per year,
and the Prohibition Commissioner John F. Kramer cited anecdotally one
doctor who wrote four hundred and seventy five prescriptions for
whiskey in one day.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Jeez. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
And I believe the rough estimate of the number of
prescriptions written throughout this period when prohibition was the law
of the land was around eleven million prescriptions. So while
it certainly wasn't available to everybody, it was a to
quite a few individuals that knew how to milk this
particular loophole. And as we know, this was just one
(22:15):
of several loopholes.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
We already talked about in the past, the hilarious practice
of selling concentrated grape juice with very specific instructions on
what not to do, because if you obeyed these instructions,
you would accidentally make wine and you should turn that
(22:37):
into the authorities. If you happen to accidentally take these
like three or four steps, So everybody was lying to
themselves as individuals, as communities, as a nation, and the
numbers spoke for themselves. Upper crust Americans would take advantage
of French champagne, which was imported for medicinal use, so
(23:02):
much so that imports skyrocketed by three hundred and thirty
two percent in nineteen twenty alone. People who still had
the drive to drink but maybe not the scratch to
go to the pharmacy would make alcohol for themselves, using
corn syrup to make moonshine. The moonshine would be counterfeited
(23:24):
or adulterated and supplied to speakeasies, which used to be cool.
Speakeasies aren't really that cool anymore, right am I old
speakeasy is are cool. Yeah, when's the last time you
went to a cool speakeasy? Oh?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I went to? I don't know. I mean, what makes
what makes a Speakeasy's? There's the basement, right, it's like.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
The whole story of you know, the whole dogg and
pony show business of like you have to go to
apecerfic thing, you know, a password.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Seek phone booth or something like that. Yeah, I think
that's fun. But people told me it's corny now maybe so,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
I'm not saying I'm like the arbiter of cool or anything,
but I did go to I think it was considered
a speakeasy a couple months ago in New York, and
it was like a Japanese themed one, and all the
drinks were like match up powder and like different Japanese whiskies,
and it was good.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I think other thing that makes the speak easyest speakeasy
is that it's very expensive. Dare I say over price?
Dare you dare?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Because can you imagine in prohibition era? You know, it
was basically that wasn't basically it was an illegal enterprise,
so of course the markup was probably nuts.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, you couldn't get it right, and you might not
know exactly what you're buying if you haven't checked it
out before. Check out our previous episode on the US
government's plan to poison the heck out of.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Hundreds of people. That'll show them.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, through adulterating the alcohol that was being sold illegally,
this was not sustainable. There were other exceptions that we
should list to be fair. There were religious exemptions. You know,
if you were a priest administering communion or or a rabbi,
you had you had the ability to create your own
(25:05):
alcohol or obtain it for use in religious services. But
these things were not as big of a business as
the medical loophole, which seems like a no brain you
know what. I know, this is a history show, but
I predict this kind of loophole will come up again.
Whatever the next substance our nation attempts to prohibit is,
(25:28):
we will find ourselves in a situation where someone says,
I need a prescription for my debility, for my general honease,
and nothing but quaaludes will help.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, that's true. That's what I call it. That's where
the quail comes from. And coeludes because it's for quelling.
That just generalized unease facts. These are facts.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
So as we know, prohibition ultimately came to an end.
The twenty first Amendment was ratified in nineteen thirty three,
ending the era of illegal booze and ending the financial
windfall for a lot of pharmacies and a lot of doctors.
(26:09):
And going back to what we said at the top
about reverse psychology, Oxford University Press noted that alcohol enthusiasts
actually drank more liquor during prohibition than before prohibition.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And is that itch man telling you that? Tell me?
Speaker 3 (26:29):
You tell me what I can't do, Now I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna double down and say, oh I can do it,
and I will.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
An alcoholic consumption pre prohibition, so pre nineteen twenty had
been trending toward beer, you know what I mean, Like
you get off work, you have a couple of beers
with your buddies, right, and then you go home to
dinner or you cook something. I don't know, but during
the era of prohibition, seventy five percent of all alcoholic
beverages were liquor. Because now people they didn't just drink more,
(27:00):
went for the hard stuff because why risk of getting
on the wrong side of the law over. You know
a Miller Light or what's a what's another beer? I
don't want to just named Miller Light. There are other beers.
There's a Miller High, Miller highlighte the Champagne.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Of beers, the Champagne of beers. I believe Miller makes
other products as well.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I heard the phrase for Budweiser. I heard the phrase,
you know bud light. We all know bud light. But
I heard someone describe regular Budweiser as bud heavy, which
sounds about right, but it seems like an awkward phrase.
But now, if you are listening to this, we hope
that you enjoy the freedom to have a boozy cocktail,
(27:44):
a nice cold beer, a glass of wine to your
heart's content, as long as you are responsible about it.
And hey, maybe maybe we end today's show on a
question about modern prohibition. Do you believe that there are
examples of prohibition working or is prohibition inherently doomed to
(28:06):
fail due to you that reverse psychology trick that we
were talking about earlier, or is it just a matter
of what is most profitable for the government and the
companies involved.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Let us know.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
You can find us on our Facebook page, where we
are ridiculous historians. You can find us on Twitter. You
can find our show on Instagram. But wait, as Billy
Mays was want to say, there's more. You can find
my co host and I on our own personal instagrams.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Turns out we have lives. It's weird.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
We're not just locked in the shipping container twenty four
hours a day. And although we as a decent percentage
of the day, I am at Embryonic Insider.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
And I am at Ben Bollen big thanks to our
super producer, Casey Pegram. Again, if you thought that we
were just blowing smoke about this.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Casey on the case T shirt, we really like.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
We're over the moon about it, and we have had
a pretty tough time not mentioning this on previous episodes
because we didn't want anyone to know about it until.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
It hit the store. Right, that's accurate.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Casey is adorable, little dickens, and it really has the
appearance of some kind of eighties noir la detective kind
of thing, whereas this very stark black and white image
of young Casey and the text looks like dirty dancing
or something like that.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
It's pretty fantastic.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
And his face is all power move, very pensive, very
power move. A lot going on behind those deep baby
blue eyes. All you can't tell. I don't know what
color are your eyes, Casey, They.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Are blue, all right, nailed the images black and white.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yes you'd never know.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Well that will have to wait for the next T shirt,
but yeah, do check it out. We're ordering some for ourselves,
which Casey apologies.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
An advanced effect.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
It's weird in the meantime, we'd also like to thank
Alex Williams, who composed our track. You'd like to think
our research associate Gabe and you know what, while we're
while we're handing out thank yous, like their booze prescriptions
during prohibition.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
That should be a thing that needs to take off.
We need to make that happen. Oh, handing out things?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
No, no, no, just just that as an expression sort of
like selling selling. I could sell something to a man.
I could sell a catchup popsicle to a man in
white gloves. This idea of like Willy nilly, just giving
things away, passing stuff out like booze prescriptions during prohibition.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Helps the rhymes, right, I like it.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
I would like to think what was that band who
did level terrorists apart?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Again?
Speaker 1 (30:37):
That was a Joy Division, Joy Division. I'd like to
thank Joy Division. I quite enjoy that song.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
I would like to think a New Order who I
kind of prefer Hot Take No, I know right, oh wow, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
No, I'm not picking battles of the bands. I'm just
saying I like that song. There's a surprisingly wide variety
of covers of that song as well. But I'd also
like to.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Think, you know, Ben, I accept your thanks with an
open heart, and I shoot it back at you care
Bears style, nice, nice, nice care bears too. Scared the
heck out, are you kidding? That green face in the book,
And that was some devil worship stuff, my friend. The
way she like basically bewitched that young boy, the young
wizard's assistant. She bewitched him and kind of like lured
(31:21):
him into her creepy caravan. And yeah, no, no, thank.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
You made him evil. He had debility, he sure did, Ben,
you sure did. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for tuning in.
(00:03):
We are returning with a classic episode. This is about.
This is about a period in US history that always
amazed us. Noel, you and I talk about this often.
Prohibition doesn't really work for anything.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, it's kind of like the streisand effect.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Yeah, you really want people talking about your business, you
should tell them to buzz off.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
We looked back in twenty nineteen at the National Prohibition
Act of the United States. So from nineteen twenty to
nineteen thirty three, the US was technically a dry country
because this Act made it illegal to manufacture, sell, or
(00:51):
transport alcohol. But there were a lot of loopholes, and
they got so ridiculous they did.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
And I'm certain that in the episode, I bring up
the classic I Love Lucy episode where she shills for
a company called Vita Meta Veggamin that is basically just
a bunch of booze.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, let's find out together. Thank you again, folks, will
roll the tape. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
(01:46):
The actor, vaudeville performer, cowboy and humorist Will Rogers once
famously said that the American people will vote dry so
long as they are able to stagger to the polls,
voting dry meaning voting against legalized alcohol. Welcome to the show.
I'm Ben.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
My name is No.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
That's really funny, Ben. That's a very good little loaded it.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
What do you call it?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Is like a pun a turn of phrase, I mean,
uh yeah, sort of a sort of a double message.
It's like a hidden meaning. Voting dry to me would
mean voting sober. But as long as they can stumble
the poles applying voting drunk.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
There's a lot going on there. There's a lot of stuff.
There's a lot of meaning. We got to unpack them.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
That that has to do with today's story, because, as
we know, voting also has a history of drunkenness. Remember
we did an episode about when people used to booze
people up and at the polls and then keep them
then keep them hostage, the weird little you know, speakeasy
booze dungeons. We're not talking about that today, exactly. We
are talking about h prohibition and a particular exception that
(02:49):
was made for drinking alcohol during that time.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Right right, And speaking of exceptional people and circumstances, let's
give a shout out to our super producer Casey Pegram Casey,
just for the record to establish all three of us
are not Teetotaler's right.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah, it's correct. I'll have a drink now.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And again I mean I'm no, no, definitely not. I
love that expression though, teetotaler, teetotaler.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
It's fun to say, and it sounds like a test
for people who have been drinking exactly if you pronounce
it correctly.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
But yes, yes, no, you're right.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Nowadays, when we think of prohibition, we think of you know,
al Capone, we think of some of us think of
the origin of some race cars. But this was a
very serious problem for thirteen years. The National Prohibition Act,
otherwise known as the Volsted Act, attempted to keep people
(03:50):
in the United States from drinking, transporting, even making any
intoxicating beverage.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
How that worked, though, Ben, how'd that work? Percent abstinence?
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Right?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh boy? Yeah, right, complete success.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I'm gonna move this microphone because oh yeah, I like
making icntact with you.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Can we keep that part in? Of course, it's some
Monday morning guys, it really is.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
But no, I mean, I'm I'm obviously being a little
sarcastic because as we know when you when you make people,
when you tell people they can't do something, they just
want to do it even more, don't they.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. It's it's one of
the hallmarks of you as a parent. No. Reverse psychology
is one of the hallmarks of any social dynamic.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
And I mean I have learned that anytime I tell
my kid not to do something, or scold her about
doing something, I can see the little glint in her
eye of it, just the itch that she's got a scratch,
she's got to do that thing. If I tell her
not to play the drums on the dinner table with cutlery,
then the moment I look away, she starts like kind
of just itching to tap that fork on the table.
It's little paradidtal really, Yeah, exactly, No, And it's the
(04:56):
same with human nature in general. People don't like being
told they can and can't do, especially when it's something
they've done freely for a long time.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Absolutely, it's easier to prevent someone from beginning a habit
or thing that and it's much more difficult to get
them to stop after they have already acclimated to it.
And that's why Prohibition was a spoiler alert, ridiculous historians
not completely successful. From nineteen twenty to nineteen thirty three,
(05:26):
Uncle Sam gave it the old College try, But very
very quickly doctors and politicians realized that some exceptions had
to apply. This could not be an absolutist rule because
you know, as you said, well, there were already people
very well acquainted with drinking. Some of these people had
(05:47):
become dependent on alcohol, so they would have painful physiological
withdrawal systems if they weren't able to have access to
that substance.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
That's right, yeah, I mean the shape, the dts, that
stuff is real.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
If you are absolutely addicted to alcohol, you can experience hallucinations,
all kinds of very disruptive things that can cause you
to not go about your normal existence.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And that's why. According to Daniel Okrint, the author of
Last Call, The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, some fifteen
thousand doctors applied for permits during the first six months
of the Volstead Act. These permits would allow them to
prescribe alcohol, but not just like a I don't know,
(06:38):
like a regular medicinal alcohol. It allowed them to prescribe
specific types of alcohol, right.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, rye whiskey scotch. Also, I believe there were some
clear ones on the list.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Too, right, Oh yeah, I mean, why would you go
to a doctor's office if you don't leave with a
prescription for gin?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You know what I mean? That applies in the in
the modern day.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Probably jin is interesting too, because I always think of
jin as being sort of an herbal type tasting booze.
It's probably the closest thing to like what you might
have drunk for medicine anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Right right, with a juniper berry base. Right, So already
we can see the opportunity for corruption, right That lingers
here because sure a lot of doctors during this time
were prescribing alcohol with nothing other than medicinal interest at hand.
(07:35):
But also you can't walk away from the money because
there wasn't much federal oversight of these doctors. You're a doctor,
You write prescriptions as long as it's not illegal. You
can write prescriptions for whatever you want, whenever you want.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
But there was illegal not if you had the permit.
I see, got it?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
You know, this reminds me of very obvious parallel in
our modern day with marijuana proit and that tide kind
of turning there was a while where it was a
little easier maybe than it should have been, to get
a medical marijuana card or prescription, and that was the
case with this situation as well. It became there's a
(08:16):
great story about Winston Churchill, a case study kind of
where he got hit by a car while doing a
lecture at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and he got
a cut on his forehead, and he bruised his chest
and had a sprained shoulder, and he was prescribed kind
of carte blanche access to alcohol, where he had a
(08:37):
doctor's note more so than a prescription signed by doctor
Otto C. Pickart, that said, this is to certify that
the post accident convalescence of the Honorable Winston S. Churchill
necessitates the use of alcoholic spirits, especially at meal times.
The quantity is naturally indefinite, but the minimum requirements would
be two hundred and fifty cubic centimeters. And then there's
(08:58):
a handwritten note on the top under this guy's letterhead,
this doctor from New York, saying keep on hand.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
So basically this was just a get out of jail.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Free car for Winston Churchill to be able to drink
as he typically did, which we know Churchill was fond
of his spirits.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
I love the phrase they're naturally indefinite. He was walking
around with this doctor's note on his person whenever he
wanted to buy alcohol, and whenever. I don't think this
would happen very often because it's Winston Churchill, but whenever,
(09:32):
maybe an authority figure stopped him and said, hey, you,
you absolute lush. Put this down. You're supposed to be
in charge of the country.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
And this doctor's note from Churchill is dated January twenty sixth,
nineteen thirty two, which, as we know, was on the
tail end of prohibition, which wrapped up in nineteen thirty three.
In earnest but by this point, according to a fantastic
Atlas Obscure article by Paula Masia, the doctors were becoming
much more like the modern day equivalent of marijuana dispensaries
(10:05):
than they were doctor's offices, where they were stocked with
every type of booze you could imagine. They were almost
more like an off the books liquor store than even
a doctor's office. Because they were cleaning up doing this,
they were able to make good money and have a
legal loophole out of prohibition.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Absolutely, as you find in a great article on How
Stuff Works by Michelle Constantinovski. Pretty much right after prohibition
began and doctors realized they could get these permits, they
also realized that alcohol was a useful treatment for no
less than twenty seven separate medical conditions. This included stuff
(10:45):
like cancer, incurable cancer, anxiety, but it also included diabetes,
snake bites, and even lactation problems. So you're a nursing
mother and you're having issues lactating, you know what, you
need some of Grandpa's leg medicine, which is a weird
I think Tennessee term for whiskey.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
It's actually my favorite brand.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Grandpa's like medicine. Oh maybe I'm thinking of moonshine. I
smell a T shirt, nol. I think that's a great
It's a great T shirt, right, Grandpa's like.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Medical Grandpa's Medicine.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
I can picture that with like an old timey label
with like xxx on it, you know, yeah, and then
ridiculous history written really small on the bottom.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah. I'm fine with that.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I mean, I have no problem with us advertising alcohol
as long as it's our own fake alcohol exactly.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Speaking of which, just to take a quick pause from
today's topic. Have you seen the amazing Casey on the
case t shirts that are now available in the Tea
Public store.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Oh, saving it for the end, but I'm glad you
brought it up. I just want to make people make sure, Yeah, yeah,
stop what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
You can go to our website Ridiculous hisstoryshow dot com,
or you can go directly to our store Tea Public
dot com slash Ridiculous History and check out our newest shirt,
which I pulled it up because I love I love
looking at this. We we've revealed this on air, right
that Casey used to be a child model. Okay, so,
(12:08):
uh so Casey, can you tell us about how this
how this hall came to be?
Speaker 5 (12:13):
Yeah, well, there was, you know, kind of a grassroots
campaign to uh have my face on a T shirt.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
I really didn't like the idea at first, but I apologize.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
I kind of thought, you know, we could kind of
kill two birds with one stone here. We could finally
deliver those modeling picks from a youth and my face
on a T shirt. So just kind of combined the two,
and you know, I think the results pretty spectacular.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
You got to say, I agree, so check it out.
It's it's worth your worth, your worth, your dime for sure.
Casey on the case.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
We are exploring the story of prohibition, and as you
would pointed out, man, there are quite a few modern
parallel especially when we talk about the purpose for a
prescribed substance. So this medicinal alcohol, sort of like medicinal marijuana,
(13:11):
becomes a popular loophole. Funny thing is, before Prohibition was
in effect, doctors knew the score. They knew that alcohol
was not medicine. But during Prohibition, the American Medical Association
or AMA changed its opinion. And the weird thing is
that the US Treasury Department backed them up. They authorized
(13:33):
doctors to write prescriptions for alcohol, and they were given
the doctors were given these government prescription forms to prescribe quote,
medicinal whiskey at pharmacies. But this was so corrupt and
was so open to abuse, because we're not just talking
about people stealing prescription pads. We're talking about people making
(13:54):
counterfeit prescription pads and then using that to pass around
with their friends. And let's just point out that the
pharmacies did not ask as many questions as they should have.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Oh, certainly not, certainly not.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
And it's like I said, with the whole comparison to
the modern day marijuana prescriptions, you could kind of just.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Go in and say you had it.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Got to the point eventually, as a pretty recently where
you can kind of just say you have a little
back pain, or you have maybe you got an eye twitch.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yeah, and that's about all it takes.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
And you have a seat on a couch, talk to
somebody behind a desk, answer these few questions. You know
what they're looking for, so you just give it to them,
give them what they want, and they don't really ask
any questions. They certainly don't run any tests or require
any real burden of proof. And that was exactly the
case with these with these these pharmacies giving out these booze.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Prescriptions a vague sense of unease, that's right, walking in
and saying I don't trust my elbows and there's nothing
I could do about it.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Well, the funny thing is like, isn't that why people
drink in the first place, to combat the elbows, to
combat with that vague sense of honeyes about life right
in the world.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
So this leads us to an interesting story because we're
emphasizing the role of the doctors, but we haven't talked
a lot about the pharmacist. And the pharmacist are part
of this supply chain. Historians have suspicions about one famous pharmacist,
Charles Walgreen.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Of the Walgreen Walgreens.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yes, of the Walgreen Walgreens, the very same. Throughout the
nineteen twenties, the Walgreens pharmacy change encountered tremendous growth. They
expanded from twenty stores to five hundred and twenty five.
For a long time, people would credit the introduction of
the milkshake to the pharmacy's success, but it sounds like
(15:43):
alcohol may have played a more prominent role. In an interview,
Charles Walgreen Junior said that while his father worried about
the danger of stores catching fire, he always wanted the
fire department to get in and out as quickly as possible,
because whenever they came in, the fire department would steal
a case of liquor from the back.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yikes.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
So this we know that there was a lot of
money to be had. I mean, organized crime had a
bonanza with this, right.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Oh yeah, sure, you got your al capones. You got
your bootlegging Tommy gun Totin gangsters, you know, running those
speakeasies and all the flapper girls and all that thing.
You know, this is the they were high times underground.
But I didn't really realize that this was happening above
ground as well, completely legally, and that Walgreens played a
(16:35):
huge part in that.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I mean, there's an.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Article on vinepaar dot com called the seventy five billion
dollar business that was built selling whiskey during Prohibition legally
by Emily Bell, and it shows a fantastic shot of
a behind the counter situation at Walgreens would have looked
like and that you know, you've got your apothecary type
bottles and you know things with their little plastic you know,
(16:57):
glass stoppers in it, but a lot of it is
right up booze.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
That's right. This was a business.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Every ten days, patients could pay about three dollars for
a prescription and another three or four dollars to have
it filled, and they would get about a pint of booze.
And that's not necessarily beer, of course, this was again
medicinal liquor. So ultimately, according to Okrant, the guy I
(17:26):
mentioned earlier in last call. According to him, what this
really functioned as was a new revenue stream for physicians
and pharmacists. You know, every ten days you're getting three bucks,
the pharmacies getting three or four bucks, and multiply that
out by the number of patients you have. Not to
put too dark a spin on it, but similar circumstances
(17:49):
have occurred recently in the last few years, not just
with marijuana, but with opioids. The so called is tough
for my Tennessee accent, the so called pill mills.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, exactly, where again, it doesn't take much burden of
proof to get a doctor to prescribe you whatever you
tickles your fancy as far as heavy opioid drugs are concerned.
And there's also the whole idea of doctor shopping. If
you've got multiple pill mill situations, you can go from
one to the other and have none of them really
(18:21):
know about each other, and you can just be kind
of swimming in this stuff. And that is one of
the reasons, aside from laxness and utter irresponsibility on the
part of big pharma, that caused the opioid epidemic that
is such a huge problem in our country.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
And we see the same sort of federal level corruption
in the turn of the century Prohibition days. There's a
great example about you remember the Great Gatsby, right, I
have Scott Fistory.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yeah, So there's a real life guy named George Remis
who inspired the Great Gatsby, and he figured out how
to play the system. He thought medicinal whisky. He was
a bang up business model. So he bought a ton
of distilleries which had these storage areas full of whisky
that could not be sold. So he bought pharmacies for
(19:12):
the express purpose of distributing this whiskey. And then he
bribed the Feds to allow more and more whiskey to
sort of what they call it in retail stores shrinkage.
Allowed whiskey to disappear from the official record, and so
in a very short amount of time he made quite
a bit of money. And let's get back to those justifications,
(19:35):
because there is one great example from the Atlas Obscure
article he mentioned earlier. In Providence, Rhode Island, one physician
prescribed whiskey for a single condition debility, and debility just
beans by the way, physical weakness, just feeling down.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
It's sort of like a lighter version of being debilitated.
I guess just my.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Debility, but I'm going to bring debility back. So legally speaking,
these physicians could get their licenses revoked if they were
found to be distributing medicinal liquor for anything less than
medical purposes. However, what that really translated to, if we're
(20:21):
being honest, is they were either super blatant about what
they were doing or they didn't bribe the right people.
Only about one hundred and seventy doctors per year ever
had their licenses revoked.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
And here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I mean, it really wasn't as it progressed throughout prohibition.
It really was not just a flash in the pan
or like the exception to the rule.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
It kind of became the rule.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
And I don't I don't know, but I don't know
if you can tell me this, but I did get
a sense that the Winston Churchill example was.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Kind of how it was.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
It was a little bit more something that was available
to the privileged or people that had act access to
doctors that would work with them.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, if you had the money, you could play ball,
you know what I mean. So this is still this
is still a time where there's a lot of institutionalized racism,
there's class warfare, you know, it's it's the Gilded Age,
the Roaring twenties of inequality. This stuff was not necessarily
cheap for the average person, but it was still a
(21:25):
big business. Physicians wrote and estimated eleven million prescriptions per year,
and the Prohibition Commissioner John F. Kramer cited anecdotally one
doctor who wrote four hundred and seventy five prescriptions for
whiskey in one day.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Jeez. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
And I believe the rough estimate of the number of
prescriptions written throughout this period when prohibition was the law
of the land was around eleven million prescriptions. So while
it certainly wasn't available to everybody, it was a to
quite a few individuals that knew how to milk this
particular loophole. And as we know, this was just one
(22:15):
of several loopholes.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
We already talked about in the past, the hilarious practice
of selling concentrated grape juice with very specific instructions on
what not to do, because if you obeyed these instructions,
you would accidentally make wine and you should turn that
(22:37):
into the authorities. If you happen to accidentally take these
like three or four steps, So everybody was lying to
themselves as individuals, as communities, as a nation, and the
numbers spoke for themselves. Upper crust Americans would take advantage
of French champagne, which was imported for medicinal use, so
(23:02):
much so that imports skyrocketed by three hundred and thirty
two percent in nineteen twenty alone. People who still had
the drive to drink but maybe not the scratch to
go to the pharmacy would make alcohol for themselves, using
corn syrup to make moonshine. The moonshine would be counterfeited
(23:24):
or adulterated and supplied to speakeasies, which used to be cool.
Speakeasies aren't really that cool anymore, right am I old
speakeasy is are cool. Yeah, when's the last time you
went to a cool speakeasy? Oh?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I went to? I don't know. I mean, what makes
what makes a Speakeasy's? There's the basement, right, it's like.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
The whole story of you know, the whole dogg and
pony show business of like you have to go to
apecerfic thing, you know, a password.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Seek phone booth or something like that. Yeah, I think
that's fun. But people told me it's corny now maybe so,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
I'm not saying I'm like the arbiter of cool or anything,
but I did go to I think it was considered
a speakeasy a couple months ago in New York, and
it was like a Japanese themed one, and all the
drinks were like match up powder and like different Japanese whiskies,
and it was good.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I think other thing that makes the speak easyest speakeasy
is that it's very expensive. Dare I say over price?
Dare you dare?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Because can you imagine in prohibition era? You know, it
was basically that wasn't basically it was an illegal enterprise,
so of course the markup was probably nuts.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, you couldn't get it right, and you might not
know exactly what you're buying if you haven't checked it
out before. Check out our previous episode on the US
government's plan to poison the heck out of.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Hundreds of people. That'll show them.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, through adulterating the alcohol that was being sold illegally,
this was not sustainable. There were other exceptions that we
should list to be fair. There were religious exemptions. You know,
if you were a priest administering communion or or a rabbi,
you had you had the ability to create your own
(25:05):
alcohol or obtain it for use in religious services. But
these things were not as big of a business as
the medical loophole, which seems like a no brain you
know what. I know, this is a history show, but
I predict this kind of loophole will come up again.
Whatever the next substance our nation attempts to prohibit is,
(25:28):
we will find ourselves in a situation where someone says,
I need a prescription for my debility, for my general honease,
and nothing but quaaludes will help.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, that's true. That's what I call it. That's where
the quail comes from. And coeludes because it's for quelling.
That just generalized unease facts. These are facts.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
So as we know, prohibition ultimately came to an end.
The twenty first Amendment was ratified in nineteen thirty three,
ending the era of illegal booze and ending the financial
windfall for a lot of pharmacies and a lot of doctors.
(26:09):
And going back to what we said at the top
about reverse psychology, Oxford University Press noted that alcohol enthusiasts
actually drank more liquor during prohibition than before prohibition.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And is that itch man telling you that? Tell me?
Speaker 3 (26:29):
You tell me what I can't do, Now I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna double down and say, oh I can do it,
and I will.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
An alcoholic consumption pre prohibition, so pre nineteen twenty had
been trending toward beer, you know what I mean, Like
you get off work, you have a couple of beers
with your buddies, right, and then you go home to
dinner or you cook something. I don't know, but during
the era of prohibition, seventy five percent of all alcoholic
beverages were liquor. Because now people they didn't just drink more,
(27:00):
went for the hard stuff because why risk of getting
on the wrong side of the law over. You know
a Miller Light or what's a what's another beer? I
don't want to just named Miller Light. There are other beers.
There's a Miller High, Miller highlighte the Champagne.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Of beers, the Champagne of beers. I believe Miller makes
other products as well.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I heard the phrase for Budweiser. I heard the phrase,
you know bud light. We all know bud light. But
I heard someone describe regular Budweiser as bud heavy, which
sounds about right, but it seems like an awkward phrase.
But now, if you are listening to this, we hope
that you enjoy the freedom to have a boozy cocktail,
(27:44):
a nice cold beer, a glass of wine to your
heart's content, as long as you are responsible about it.
And hey, maybe maybe we end today's show on a
question about modern prohibition. Do you believe that there are
examples of prohibition working or is prohibition inherently doomed to
(28:06):
fail due to you that reverse psychology trick that we
were talking about earlier, or is it just a matter
of what is most profitable for the government and the
companies involved.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Let us know.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
You can find us on our Facebook page, where we
are ridiculous historians. You can find us on Twitter. You
can find our show on Instagram. But wait, as Billy
Mays was want to say, there's more. You can find
my co host and I on our own personal instagrams.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Turns out we have lives. It's weird.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
We're not just locked in the shipping container twenty four
hours a day. And although we as a decent percentage
of the day, I am at Embryonic Insider.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
And I am at Ben Bollen big thanks to our
super producer, Casey Pegram. Again, if you thought that we
were just blowing smoke about this.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Casey on the case T shirt, we really like.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
We're over the moon about it, and we have had
a pretty tough time not mentioning this on previous episodes
because we didn't want anyone to know about it until.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
It hit the store. Right, that's accurate.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Casey is adorable, little dickens, and it really has the
appearance of some kind of eighties noir la detective kind
of thing, whereas this very stark black and white image
of young Casey and the text looks like dirty dancing
or something like that.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
It's pretty fantastic.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
And his face is all power move, very pensive, very
power move. A lot going on behind those deep baby
blue eyes. All you can't tell. I don't know what
color are your eyes, Casey, They.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Are blue, all right, nailed the images black and white.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yes you'd never know.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Well that will have to wait for the next T shirt,
but yeah, do check it out. We're ordering some for ourselves,
which Casey apologies.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
An advanced effect.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
It's weird in the meantime, we'd also like to thank
Alex Williams, who composed our track. You'd like to think
our research associate Gabe and you know what, while we're
while we're handing out thank yous, like their booze prescriptions
during prohibition.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
That should be a thing that needs to take off.
We need to make that happen. Oh, handing out things?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
No, no, no, just just that as an expression sort of
like selling selling. I could sell something to a man.
I could sell a catchup popsicle to a man in
white gloves. This idea of like Willy nilly, just giving
things away, passing stuff out like booze prescriptions during prohibition.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Helps the rhymes, right, I like it.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
I would like to think what was that band who
did level terrorists apart?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Again?
Speaker 1 (30:37):
That was a Joy Division, Joy Division. I'd like to
thank Joy Division. I quite enjoy that song.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
I would like to think a New Order who I
kind of prefer Hot Take No, I know right, oh wow, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
No, I'm not picking battles of the bands. I'm just
saying I like that song. There's a surprisingly wide variety
of covers of that song as well. But I'd also
like to.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Think, you know, Ben, I accept your thanks with an
open heart, and I shoot it back at you care
Bears style, nice, nice, nice care bears too. Scared the
heck out, are you kidding? That green face in the book,
And that was some devil worship stuff, my friend. The
way she like basically bewitched that young boy, the young
wizard's assistant. She bewitched him and kind of like lured
(31:21):
him into her creepy caravan. And yeah, no, no, thank.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
You made him evil. He had debility, he sure did, Ben,
you sure did. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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