While Graham County appears to be the outlier as the only county in North Carolina prohibiting alcohol sales, a total of 18 million Americans also live in dry counties.
Regarded by some, such as Wayne Curtis of The Daily Beast, as a “feral anachronism, like phone booths and video stores” – in the American south, at least – prohibition is a topic that did not end in 1933 with the repeal of the nationwide constitutional ban on alcohol.
Setting aside questions regarding the economic impact of prohibition as well as the possible increase in methamphetamine use that tends to occur in dry counties, one seemingly simple question remains: do people drink less in dry counties?
Early steps
The 18th amendment prohibiting the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcohol took effect in 1920, but the journey toward prohibition began in the 1770s, as some newly-minted Americans sought to forge a brave new, alcohol-free nation.
However, these early anti-alcohol sentiments were greatly outweighed by the drinking public, as most men drank hard cider and beer with every meal. Alcohol was considered a much safer beverage than water, which often came from contaminated wells, streams and rivers.
For most adults, beer, cider, and wine were a part of daily life. It was a tradition carried down from the Puritans, who brought 10,000 gallons of beer, 120 casks of malt for brewing and 12 gallons of gin on their journey to the New World.
By the early 1800s, however, increased crop yields of corn and grain made hard liquor more common and more affordable. In 1830, Americans consumed the equivalent of 88 bottles of whiskey per adult per year, an amount more than three times current consumption rates. This was a sea change from previous drinking habits, as Americans shifted from drinking mildly intoxicating drinks with their meals to near daily imbibing of “ardent spirits.”
Push for a ban
The first organized anti-alcohol movement soon followed, as the Protestant Great Awakening brought the anti-slavery and anti-alcohol causes together.
“If we could but make the world sober, we would have no slavery,” said the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. “All great reforms go together.”
Through the rest of the 19th century, various temperance movements fought to ban alcohol, but they had one point in common: blaming the failures of society – such as poverty, domestic violence and prostitution – solely on the consumption of alcohol.
The movement’s success rose and fell with the political climate. By the late 1800s, the cause was enmeshed with the push for women’s suffrage. Both movements would finally see success in 1920.
The aftermath
Though prohibition is now largely considered a failure, at least at first, most Americans attempted to follow the law. Alcohol consumption plummeted and even after the repeal of the 18th amendment 13 years later, Americans continued to drink at lower rates than they did prior to 1920. For a decade, alcohol consumption stayed at half of pre-Prohibition rates and Americans took another thirty years to return to the drinking habits of the early 20th century.
So, if the goal of Prohibition was to ban all drinking, it deserves its reputation as a miserable failure. However, if Prohibition aimed to merely reduce drinking, it was a success, one that lasted longer than Prohibition itself.
“Prohibition did work in lowering per capita consumption,” wrote Jack S. Blocker, Jr. of the American Journal of Public Health. “That is, it was partly successful as a public health innovation.”
The effects of drinking also showed tangible declines with deaths, due to cirrhosis of the liver declining by 10-20 percent during and immediately after Prohibition.
Prohibition today
Modern incarnations of prohibition – such as the dry county – sometimes have similar effects.
A study of dry vs. wet counties in Mississippi found that drinking rates were highest in counties where alcohol was most accessible. Kate Rogers of The Clarion-Ledger summed up the study’s results in one sentence: “People generally drink less in dry counties.”
Yet drinking less does not mean drinking smarter. In the dry counties of Texas, drunk-driving accidents occur three times as often as in Texas counties where alcohol is legal. Texas in not an anomaly in this regard. Across the south, the rates of DUI/DWI arrests are consistently higher than in neighboring wet municipalities.
Incidents of binge-drinking in dry counties tends to be higher, as well.
“Nobody went to a speakeasy to have one beer,” said David Hanson of SUNY Potsdam. “You went to have 10 beers.”
Hanson, who spent his career studying drinking habits across the globe, sums up his scholarship in one concise sentence: “Prohibition destroys moderation.”
Mark Twain, sometimes known as “the drunken father of American literature,” regarded temperance in a similar if predictable light.
“It is the prohibition that makes anything precious,” Twain said.
Prohibition can reduce the overall consumption of alcohol, but it might be at the cost of higher rates of drunk-driving accidents, DWI arrests and binge-drinking.