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prohibition

See: writ of prohibition .

Prohibition may also refer to the time during which alcohol sale and transportation in the United States was illegal. Beginning in the mid-19th century, various groups, such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union , pushed for the prohibition of alcohol at the state and federal level. Their efforts culminated in the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which banned the sale and transportation of alcohol in the United States, effective 1919. However, prohibition led to organized crime involved in bootlegging alcohol, and shortly after its passage, it became widely unpopular . Thus, in 1933, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution repealed the 18th Amendment, making the sale and transportation of alcohol in the United States legal once more, and making the 18th Amendment the only Amendment in the history of the Constitution to be repealed by subsequent Amendment.

[Last reviewed in September of 2020 by the Wex Definitions Team
]

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