Prohibition
Prohibition in the United States focused on the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages; however, exceptions were made for medicinal and religious uses. Alcohol consumption was never illegal under federal law. Nationwide Prohibition did not begin in the United States until January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect. The 18th amendment was ratified in 1919, and was repealed in December 1933 with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment.
History of the National Crime Syndicate
United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ratified the 21st Amendment to the Constitution on December 5, 1933, repealing Prohibition. The manufacture, sale and possession of alcoholic beverages was no longer illegal and the underworld reorganized their operations to make up for the loss of profits. For years prior to the end of Prohibition, some of the most influential crime leaders from across the United States looked to organization among the gangs as the future of crime in America, leading some crime historians to believe that organized crime truly began to establish itself at a boardwalk meeting in Atlantic City, 1929.