Public Policy, Alcohol

International Policy Differences

How a society views alcohol misuse (as a moral or health problem) tends to inform the types of public policies that are developed within that society to legislate the accessibility, marketing, taxation, and sale of alcoholic beverages, as well as the efforts that are placed into policing, preventing, and treating alcohol misuse. In societies with strong moral objections to the use of alcohol, national policies typically have [Page 727]little to no tolerance for alcohol. Policy is often formulated to control or punish alcohol use in these nations. Many Islamic majority nations, for example, forbid its use or have severe penalties, including capital punishment, for its misuse. At the other extreme of the continuum of public policies, nations in which alcohol use is strongly sanctioned by society generally have more lenient policies regarding the sale, use, and misuse of alcohol. Societies that view alcohol misuse as a health problem formulate policies that emphasize prevention and treatment instead of punishing alcohol's misuse.

Historical U.S. Public Policy

The history of U.S. public policy underscores national tensions regarding the place of alcohol in society. During the U.S. colonial period, alcohol consumption greatly exceeded the per-capita levels observed today, and its use tended to be less regulated. However, isolated settlements banned or highly restricted alcohol use, usually when prevailing religious beliefs were puritanical. During the colonization process, alcohol was often used to make up for the lack of potable water. In addition, the U.S. government sanctioned and encouraged the use of alcohol during treaty negotiations with indigenous peoples in order to gain advantages. In these ways, alcohol use and misuse followed the progress of settlers as they crossed the nation.

Organized prohibitionist movements, such as the Anti-Saloon League and Women's Christian Temperance Union, arose during the 19th century. By the middle part of the 19th century, 13 states had enacted prohibition laws that restricted alcohol sales and use, and in some areas, local governments began to enact drinking age laws to restrict access. Perhaps the most famous of the prohibitionists was Carry A. Nation, who garnered a reputation for vandalizing drinking establishments with a hatchet and using public ostracism as a method to discourage drinking among the citizenry. The results of these efforts peaked in the early 20th century with the enactment of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ushering in the period in U.S. history referred to as prohibition.

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