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 The 18th amendment was ratified in 1919, and was repealed in December 1933 with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment.
Society of the United States
American attitudes towards drugs and alcoholic beverages have evolved considerably throughout the country's history. During the nineteenth century, alcohol was readily available and consumed, and no laws restricted the use of other drugs. A movement to ban alcoholic beverages, called the Prohibition movement, emerged in the late-nineteenth century. Several American Protestant religious groups, as well as women's groups such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union, supported the movement.