As the first relaxation of a total ban on the sale of alcohol in the United States, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Colin Harrison Act on March 22, 1933, legalizing the sale of light wine and beer.
Named after its sponsors, Senator Pat Harrison and Representative Thomas Cullen, the U.S. Congress passed the Cullen Harrison Act on March 21, 1933, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law the next day.
This law allowed the production and sale of beer containing 3.2 percent alcohol by weight, as well as wine with the same low alcohol content, which was considered very low and not intoxicating.
This law came into force on April 7, 1933. This date is National Beer Day in the USA.
After signing the bill, Roosevelt said, “I think now is the time for a beer.” As a result, crowds gathered outside breweries and pubs to celebrate the return of light beer to the market.
The United States in the nineteenth century actively consumed strong alcohol, primarily gin, whiskey and rum. And these strong species accounted for more than 70% of all alcohol consumed there.
The phenomenon of heavy alcoholism has spread in the US due to the extremely low price of its products, at 30 cents per gallon of whiskey. This phenomenon has gone as far as describing American society as “a nation of drunkards and alcoholics.”
Statistics on this occasion mention that in 1810 there were no less than 14,000 producers of strong alcohol in the United States, and the total production exceeded 33 million gallons, with an average annual per capita consumption of about 19 liters.
In response to this situation, the American “sobriety movement” was founded in 1826, and in 1893 its offshoot, the Anti-Saloon League in Ohio, which undertook to pass a federal law completely prohibiting the production and consumption of alcohol.
This association, now called the American Council on Addiction and Alcoholism, began holding local referendums, and as a result, by 1910 in Illinois alone, about 40% of counties and more than 1,000 cities had submitted drafts of Prohibition laws.
At the federal level, this association coordinated the efforts of anti-alcohol groups and secured the passage by the US Senate on August 1, 1917 of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting the sale and manufacture of any intoxicating liquor, effective January 16, 1920, and this law was known as the “Volstead Act “. According to Andrew Volstead, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, the ban remained in effect until it was lifted on December 5, 1933.
The famous ban on the sale of liquor led to the emergence of criminal gangs that secretly sold alcohol and fought among themselves over huge profits, and the level of corruption in the security forces rose alarmingly.
With regard to American presidents and positions on alcohol abuse, it is mentioned that former US President Donald Trump, despite criticism from his opponents for quarrelsomeness and in the field of sexual scandals, does not abuse alcoholic beverages, including beer.
Trump’s stance on alcohol abuse stems from the fact that he lost his older brother Fred, who died at the age of 43 after suffering a heart attack due to excessive drinking.
In a statement to reporters in 2015, Trump described his older brother, whose life was ruined and killed by alcohol: “I had a brother, Fred. Awesome guy, handsome. The best example. Much better than me.”
Source: RT