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CLASSIC: Prohibition, Prescriptions and the Rise of 'Medicinal' Booze · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for tuning in.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: We are returning with a classic episode. This is about.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: This is about a period in US history that always
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: amazed us. Noel, you and I talk about this often.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Prohibition doesn't really work for anything.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of like the streisand effect.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you really want people talking about your business, you
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: should tell them to buzz off.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: We looked back in twenty nineteen at the National Prohibition
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Act of the United States. So from nineteen twenty to
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three, the US was technically a dry country
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: because this Act made it illegal to manufacture, sell, or
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: transport alcohol. But there were a lot of loopholes, and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: they got so ridiculous they did.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: And I'm certain that in the episode, I bring up
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: the classic I Love Lucy episode where she shills for
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: a company called Vita Meta Veggamin that is basically just
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: a bunch of booze.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Well, let's find out together. Thank you again, folks, will
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: roll the tape. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: The actor, vaudeville performer, cowboy and humorist Will Rogers once
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: famously said that the American people will vote dry so
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: long as they are able to stagger to the polls,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: voting dry meaning voting against legalized alcohol. Welcome to the show.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I'm Ben.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: My name is No.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: That's really funny, Ben. That's a very good little loaded it.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: What do you call it?
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Is like a pun a turn of phrase, I mean,
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: uh yeah, sort of a sort of a double message.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: It's like a hidden meaning. Voting dry to me would
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: mean voting sober. But as long as they can stumble
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: the poles applying voting drunk.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: There's a lot going on there. There's a lot of stuff.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of meaning. We got to unpack them.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: That that has to do with today's story, because, as
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: we know, voting also has a history of drunkenness. Remember
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: we did an episode about when people used to booze
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: people up and at the polls and then keep them
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: then keep them hostage, the weird little you know, speakeasy
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: booze dungeons. We're not talking about that today, exactly. We
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: are talking about h prohibition and a particular exception that
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: was made for drinking alcohol during that time.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Right right, And speaking of exceptional people and circumstances, let's
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: give a shout out to our super producer Casey Pegram Casey,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: just for the record to establish all three of us
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: are not Teetotaler's right.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's correct. I'll have a drink now.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: And again I mean I'm no, no, definitely not. I
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: love that expression though, teetotaler, teetotaler.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: It's fun to say, and it sounds like a test
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: for people who have been drinking exactly if you pronounce
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: it correctly.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: But yes, yes, no, you're right.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Nowadays, when we think of prohibition, we think of you know,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: al Capone, we think of some of us think of
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: the origin of some race cars. But this was a
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: very serious problem for thirteen years. The National Prohibition Act,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: otherwise known as the Volsted Act, attempted to keep people
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: in the United States from drinking, transporting, even making any
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: intoxicating beverage.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: How that worked, though, Ben, how'd that work? Percent abstinence?
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Oh boy? Yeah, right, complete success.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna move this microphone because oh yeah, I like
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: making icntact with you.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Can we keep that part in? Of course, it's some
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Monday morning guys, it really is.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: But no, I mean, I'm I'm obviously being a little
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: sarcastic because as we know when you when you make people,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: when you tell people they can't do something, they just
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: want to do it even more, don't they.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. It's it's one of
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the hallmarks of you as a parent. No. Reverse psychology
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: is one of the hallmarks of any social dynamic.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Right, absolutely.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: And I mean I have learned that anytime I tell
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: my kid not to do something, or scold her about
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: doing something, I can see the little glint in her
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: eye of it, just the itch that she's got a scratch,
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: she's got to do that thing. If I tell her
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: not to play the drums on the dinner table with cutlery,
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: then the moment I look away, she starts like kind
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: of just itching to tap that fork on the table.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: It's little paradidtal really, Yeah, exactly, No, And it's the
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: same with human nature in general. People don't like being
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: told they can and can't do, especially when it's something
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: they've done freely for a long time.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's easier to prevent someone from beginning a habit
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: or thing that and it's much more difficult to get
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: them to stop after they have already acclimated to it.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: And that's why Prohibition was a spoiler alert, ridiculous historians
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: not completely successful. From nineteen twenty to nineteen thirty three,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Uncle Sam gave it the old College try, But very
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: very quickly doctors and politicians realized that some exceptions had
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to apply. This could not be an absolutist rule because
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: you know, as you said, well, there were already people
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: very well acquainted with drinking. Some of these people had
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: become dependent on alcohol, so they would have painful physiological
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: withdrawal systems if they weren't able to have access to
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: that substance.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: That's right, yeah, I mean the shape, the dts, that
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: stuff is real.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: If you are absolutely addicted to alcohol, you can experience hallucinations,
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: all kinds of very disruptive things that can cause you
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: to not go about your normal existence.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: And that's why. According to Daniel Okrint, the author of
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Last Call, The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, some fifteen
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: thousand doctors applied for permits during the first six months
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: of the Volstead Act. These permits would allow them to
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: prescribe alcohol, but not just like a I don't know,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: like a regular medicinal alcohol. It allowed them to prescribe
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: specific types of alcohol, right.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, rye whiskey scotch. Also, I believe there were some
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: clear ones on the list.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Too, right, Oh yeah, I mean, why would you go
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: to a doctor's office if you don't leave with a
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: prescription for gin?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? That applies in the in
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: the modern day.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: Probably jin is interesting too, because I always think of
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: jin as being sort of an herbal type tasting booze.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: It's probably the closest thing to like what you might
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: have drunk for medicine anyway.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Right right, with a juniper berry base. Right, So already
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: we can see the opportunity for corruption, right That lingers
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: here because sure a lot of doctors during this time
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: were prescribing alcohol with nothing other than medicinal interest at hand.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: But also you can't walk away from the money because
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: there wasn't much federal oversight of these doctors. You're a doctor,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: You write prescriptions as long as it's not illegal. You
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: can write prescriptions for whatever you want, whenever you want.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: But there was illegal not if you had the permit.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: I see, got it?
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: You know, this reminds me of very obvious parallel in
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: our modern day with marijuana proit and that tide kind
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: of turning there was a while where it was a
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: little easier maybe than it should have been, to get
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: a medical marijuana card or prescription, and that was the
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: case with this situation as well. It became there's a
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: great story about Winston Churchill, a case study kind of
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: where he got hit by a car while doing a
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: lecture at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and he got
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: a cut on his forehead, and he bruised his chest
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: and had a sprained shoulder, and he was prescribed kind
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: of carte blanche access to alcohol, where he had a
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: doctor's note more so than a prescription signed by doctor
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: Otto C. Pickart, that said, this is to certify that
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: the post accident convalescence of the Honorable Winston S. Churchill
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: necessitates the use of alcoholic spirits, especially at meal times.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: The quantity is naturally indefinite, but the minimum requirements would
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: be two hundred and fifty cubic centimeters. And then there's
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: a handwritten note on the top under this guy's letterhead,
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: this doctor from New York, saying keep on hand.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: So basically this was just a get out of jail.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Free car for Winston Churchill to be able to drink
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: as he typically did, which we know Churchill was fond
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: of his spirits.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I love the phrase they're naturally indefinite. He was walking
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: around with this doctor's note on his person whenever he
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: wanted to buy alcohol, and whenever. I don't think this
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: would happen very often because it's Winston Churchill, but whenever,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: maybe an authority figure stopped him and said, hey, you,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: you absolute lush. Put this down. You're supposed to be
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: in charge of the country.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: And this doctor's note from Churchill is dated January twenty sixth,
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: nineteen thirty two, which, as we know, was on the
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: tail end of prohibition, which wrapped up in nineteen thirty three.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: In earnest but by this point, according to a fantastic
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: Atlas Obscure article by Paula Masia, the doctors were becoming
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: much more like the modern day equivalent of marijuana dispensaries
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: than they were doctor's offices, where they were stocked with
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: every type of booze you could imagine. They were almost
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: more like an off the books liquor store than even
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: a doctor's office. Because they were cleaning up doing this,
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: they were able to make good money and have a
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: legal loophole out of prohibition.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, as you find in a great article on How
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works by Michelle Constantinovski. Pretty much right after prohibition
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: began and doctors realized they could get these permits, they
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: also realized that alcohol was a useful treatment for no
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: less than twenty seven separate medical conditions. This included stuff
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: like cancer, incurable cancer, anxiety, but it also included diabetes,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: snake bites, and even lactation problems. So you're a nursing
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: mother and you're having issues lactating, you know what, you
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: need some of Grandpa's leg medicine, which is a weird
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I think Tennessee term for whiskey.
• 11:05
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• 11:07
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• 11:12
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• 11:15
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• 11:16
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• 11:18
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• 11:20
  Speaker 3: with like xxx on it, you know, yeah, and then
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: ridiculous history written really small on the bottom.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm fine with that.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, I have no problem with us advertising alcohol
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: as long as it's our own fake alcohol exactly.
• 11:32
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• 11:34
  Speaker 3: today's topic. Have you seen the amazing Casey on the
• 11:37
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• 11:41
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• 11:44
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• 11:46
  Speaker 2: stop what you're doing.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: You can go to our website Ridiculous hisstoryshow dot com,
• 11:51
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• 11:59
  Speaker 1: which I pulled it up because I love I love
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: looking at this. We we've revealed this on air, right
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: that Casey used to be a child model. Okay, so,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: uh so Casey, can you tell us about how this
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• 12:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well, there was, you know, kind of a grassroots
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• 12:20
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• 12:42
  Speaker 3: Casey on the case.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: We are exploring the story of prohibition, and as you
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: would pointed out, man, there are quite a few modern
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: parallel especially when we talk about the purpose for a
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: prescribed substance. So this medicinal alcohol, sort of like medicinal marijuana,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: becomes a popular loophole. Funny thing is, before Prohibition was
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: in effect, doctors knew the score. They knew that alcohol
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: was not medicine. But during Prohibition, the American Medical Association
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: or AMA changed its opinion. And the weird thing is
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that the US Treasury Department backed them up. They authorized
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: doctors to write prescriptions for alcohol, and they were given
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the doctors were given these government prescription forms to prescribe quote,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: medicinal whiskey at pharmacies. But this was so corrupt and
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: was so open to abuse, because we're not just talking
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: about people stealing prescription pads. We're talking about people making
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: counterfeit prescription pads and then using that to pass around
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: with their friends. And let's just point out that the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: pharmacies did not ask as many questions as they should have.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, certainly not, certainly not.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: And it's like I said, with the whole comparison to
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: the modern day marijuana prescriptions, you could kind of just.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Go in and say you had it.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: Got to the point eventually, as a pretty recently where
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: you can kind of just say you have a little
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: back pain, or you have maybe you got an eye twitch.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's about all it takes.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: And you have a seat on a couch, talk to
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: somebody behind a desk, answer these few questions. You know
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: what they're looking for, so you just give it to them,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: give them what they want, and they don't really ask
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: any questions. They certainly don't run any tests or require
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: any real burden of proof. And that was exactly the
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: case with these with these these pharmacies giving out these booze.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Prescriptions a vague sense of unease, that's right, walking in
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: and saying I don't trust my elbows and there's nothing
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: I could do about it.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Well, the funny thing is like, isn't that why people
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: drink in the first place, to combat the elbows, to
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: combat with that vague sense of honeyes about life right
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: in the world.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: So this leads us to an interesting story because we're
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: emphasizing the role of the doctors, but we haven't talked
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: a lot about the pharmacist. And the pharmacist are part
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: of this supply chain. Historians have suspicions about one famous pharmacist,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Charles Walgreen.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Of the Walgreen Walgreens.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, of the Walgreen Walgreens, the very same. Throughout the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, the Walgreens pharmacy change encountered tremendous growth. They
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: expanded from twenty stores to five hundred and twenty five.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: For a long time, people would credit the introduction of
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: the milkshake to the pharmacy's success, but it sounds like
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: alcohol may have played a more prominent role. In an interview,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Charles Walgreen Junior said that while his father worried about
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: the danger of stores catching fire, he always wanted the
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: fire department to get in and out as quickly as possible,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: because whenever they came in, the fire department would steal
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: a case of liquor from the back.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: Yikes.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: So this we know that there was a lot of
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: money to be had. I mean, organized crime had a
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: bonanza with this, right.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, sure, you got your al capones. You got
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: your bootlegging Tommy gun Totin gangsters, you know, running those
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: speakeasies and all the flapper girls and all that thing.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: You know, this is the they were high times underground.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: But I didn't really realize that this was happening above
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: ground as well, completely legally, and that Walgreens played a
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: huge part in that.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's an.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Article on vinepaar dot com called the seventy five billion
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: dollar business that was built selling whiskey during Prohibition legally
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: by Emily Bell, and it shows a fantastic shot of
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: a behind the counter situation at Walgreens would have looked
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: like and that you know, you've got your apothecary type
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: bottles and you know things with their little plastic you know,
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: glass stoppers in it, but a lot of it is
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: right up booze.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: That's right. This was a business.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Every ten days, patients could pay about three dollars for
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: a prescription and another three or four dollars to have
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: it filled, and they would get about a pint of booze.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: And that's not necessarily beer, of course, this was again
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: medicinal liquor. So ultimately, according to Okrant, the guy I
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier in last call. According to him, what this
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: really functioned as was a new revenue stream for physicians
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and pharmacists. You know, every ten days you're getting three bucks,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the pharmacies getting three or four bucks, and multiply that
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: out by the number of patients you have. Not to
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: put too dark a spin on it, but similar circumstances
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: have occurred recently in the last few years, not just
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: with marijuana, but with opioids. The so called is tough
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: for my Tennessee accent, the so called pill mills.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, where again, it doesn't take much burden of
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: proof to get a doctor to prescribe you whatever you
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: tickles your fancy as far as heavy opioid drugs are concerned.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: And there's also the whole idea of doctor shopping. If
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: you've got multiple pill mill situations, you can go from
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: one to the other and have none of them really
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: know about each other, and you can just be kind
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: of swimming in this stuff. And that is one of
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: the reasons, aside from laxness and utter irresponsibility on the
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: part of big pharma, that caused the opioid epidemic that
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: is such a huge problem in our country.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: And we see the same sort of federal level corruption
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: in the turn of the century Prohibition days. There's a
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: great example about you remember the Great Gatsby, right, I
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: have Scott Fistory.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So there's a real life guy named George Remis
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: who inspired the Great Gatsby, and he figured out how
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to play the system. He thought medicinal whisky. He was
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: a bang up business model. So he bought a ton
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: of distilleries which had these storage areas full of whisky
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: that could not be sold. So he bought pharmacies for
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the express purpose of distributing this whiskey. And then he
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: bribed the Feds to allow more and more whiskey to
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: sort of what they call it in retail stores shrinkage.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Allowed whiskey to disappear from the official record, and so
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: in a very short amount of time he made quite
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: a bit of money. And let's get back to those justifications,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: because there is one great example from the Atlas Obscure
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: article he mentioned earlier. In Providence, Rhode Island, one physician
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: prescribed whiskey for a single condition debility, and debility just
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: beans by the way, physical weakness, just feeling down.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: It's sort of like a lighter version of being debilitated.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: I guess just my.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Debility, but I'm going to bring debility back. So legally speaking,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: these physicians could get their licenses revoked if they were
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: found to be distributing medicinal liquor for anything less than
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: medical purposes. However, what that really translated to, if we're
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: being honest, is they were either super blatant about what
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: they were doing or they didn't bribe the right people.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Only about one hundred and seventy doctors per year ever
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: had their licenses revoked.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: And here's the thing.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, it really wasn't as it progressed throughout prohibition.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: It really was not just a flash in the pan
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: or like the exception to the rule.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: It kind of became the rule.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: And I don't I don't know, but I don't know
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: if you can tell me this, but I did get
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: a sense that the Winston Churchill example was.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Kind of how it was.
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: It was a little bit more something that was available
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: to the privileged or people that had act access to
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: doctors that would work with them.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you had the money, you could play ball,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So this is still this
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: is still a time where there's a lot of institutionalized racism,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: there's class warfare, you know, it's it's the Gilded Age,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the Roaring twenties of inequality. This stuff was not necessarily
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: cheap for the average person, but it was still a
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: big business. Physicians wrote and estimated eleven million prescriptions per year,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and the Prohibition Commissioner John F. Kramer cited anecdotally one
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: doctor who wrote four hundred and seventy five prescriptions for
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: whiskey in one day.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Jeez. Yeah.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: And I believe the rough estimate of the number of
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: prescriptions written throughout this period when prohibition was the law
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: of the land was around eleven million prescriptions. So while
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: it certainly wasn't available to everybody, it was a to
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: quite a few individuals that knew how to milk this
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: particular loophole. And as we know, this was just one
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: of several loopholes.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: We already talked about in the past, the hilarious practice
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: of selling concentrated grape juice with very specific instructions on
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: what not to do, because if you obeyed these instructions,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: you would accidentally make wine and you should turn that
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: into the authorities. If you happen to accidentally take these
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: like three or four steps, So everybody was lying to
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: themselves as individuals, as communities, as a nation, and the
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: numbers spoke for themselves. Upper crust Americans would take advantage
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: of French champagne, which was imported for medicinal use, so
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: much so that imports skyrocketed by three hundred and thirty
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: two percent in nineteen twenty alone. People who still had
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the drive to drink but maybe not the scratch to
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: go to the pharmacy would make alcohol for themselves, using
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: corn syrup to make moonshine. The moonshine would be counterfeited
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: or adulterated and supplied to speakeasies, which used to be cool.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Speakeasies aren't really that cool anymore, right am I old
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: speakeasy is are cool. Yeah, when's the last time you
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: went to a cool speakeasy? Oh?
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: I went to? I don't know. I mean, what makes
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: what makes a Speakeasy's? There's the basement, right, it's like.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: The whole story of you know, the whole dogg and
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: pony show business of like you have to go to
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: apecerfic thing, you know, a password.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Seek phone booth or something like that. Yeah, I think
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: that's fun. But people told me it's corny now maybe so,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying I'm like the arbiter of cool or anything,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: but I did go to I think it was considered
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: a speakeasy a couple months ago in New York, and
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: it was like a Japanese themed one, and all the
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: drinks were like match up powder and like different Japanese whiskies,
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: and it was good.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: I think other thing that makes the speak easyest speakeasy
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: is that it's very expensive. Dare I say over price?
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Dare you dare?
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: Because can you imagine in prohibition era? You know, it
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: was basically that wasn't basically it was an illegal enterprise,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: so of course the markup was probably nuts.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you couldn't get it right, and you might not
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: know exactly what you're buying if you haven't checked it
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: out before. Check out our previous episode on the US
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: government's plan to poison the heck out of.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Hundreds of people. That'll show them.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, through adulterating the alcohol that was being sold illegally,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: this was not sustainable. There were other exceptions that we
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: should list to be fair. There were religious exemptions. You know,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: if you were a priest administering communion or or a rabbi,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: you had you had the ability to create your own
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: alcohol or obtain it for use in religious services. But
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: these things were not as big of a business as
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: the medical loophole, which seems like a no brain you
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: know what. I know, this is a history show, but
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I predict this kind of loophole will come up again.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Whatever the next substance our nation attempts to prohibit is,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: we will find ourselves in a situation where someone says,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I need a prescription for my debility, for my general honease,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: and nothing but quaaludes will help.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. That's what I call it. That's where
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: the quail comes from. And coeludes because it's for quelling.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: That just generalized unease facts. These are facts.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: So as we know, prohibition ultimately came to an end.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: The twenty first Amendment was ratified in nineteen thirty three,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: ending the era of illegal booze and ending the financial
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: windfall for a lot of pharmacies and a lot of doctors.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: And going back to what we said at the top
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: about reverse psychology, Oxford University Press noted that alcohol enthusiasts
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: actually drank more liquor during prohibition than before prohibition.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: And is that itch man telling you that? Tell me?
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: You tell me what I can't do, Now I'm gonna do.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna double down and say, oh I can do it,
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: and I will.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: An alcoholic consumption pre prohibition, so pre nineteen twenty had
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: been trending toward beer, you know what I mean, Like
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: you get off work, you have a couple of beers
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: with your buddies, right, and then you go home to
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: dinner or you cook something. I don't know, but during
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: the era of prohibition, seventy five percent of all alcoholic
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: beverages were liquor. Because now people they didn't just drink more,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: went for the hard stuff because why risk of getting
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: on the wrong side of the law over. You know
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: a Miller Light or what's a what's another beer? I
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: don't want to just named Miller Light. There are other beers.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: There's a Miller High, Miller highlighte the Champagne.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: Of beers, the Champagne of beers. I believe Miller makes
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: other products as well.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I heard the phrase for Budweiser. I heard the phrase,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: you know bud light. We all know bud light. But
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I heard someone describe regular Budweiser as bud heavy, which
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: sounds about right, but it seems like an awkward phrase.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: But now, if you are listening to this, we hope
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: that you enjoy the freedom to have a boozy cocktail,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: a nice cold beer, a glass of wine to your
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: heart's content, as long as you are responsible about it.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: And hey, maybe maybe we end today's show on a
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: question about modern prohibition. Do you believe that there are
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: examples of prohibition working or is prohibition inherently doomed to
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: fail due to you that reverse psychology trick that we
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: were talking about earlier, or is it just a matter
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: of what is most profitable for the government and the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: companies involved.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Let us know.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: You can find us on our Facebook page, where we
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: are ridiculous historians. You can find us on Twitter. You
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: can find our show on Instagram. But wait, as Billy
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Mays was want to say, there's more. You can find
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: my co host and I on our own personal instagrams.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Turns out we have lives. It's weird.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: We're not just locked in the shipping container twenty four
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: hours a day. And although we as a decent percentage
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: of the day, I am at Embryonic Insider.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: And I am at Ben Bollen big thanks to our
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: super producer, Casey Pegram. Again, if you thought that we
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: were just blowing smoke about this.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Casey on the case T shirt, we really like.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: We're over the moon about it, and we have had
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: a pretty tough time not mentioning this on previous episodes
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: because we didn't want anyone to know about it until.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: It hit the store. Right, that's accurate.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Casey is adorable, little dickens, and it really has the
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: appearance of some kind of eighties noir la detective kind
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: of thing, whereas this very stark black and white image
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: of young Casey and the text looks like dirty dancing
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: or something like that.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: It's pretty fantastic.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: And his face is all power move, very pensive, very
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: power move. A lot going on behind those deep baby
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: blue eyes. All you can't tell. I don't know what
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: color are your eyes, Casey, They.
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: Are blue, all right, nailed the images black and white.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Yes you'd never know.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Well that will have to wait for the next T shirt,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: but yeah, do check it out. We're ordering some for ourselves,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: which Casey apologies.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: An advanced effect.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: It's weird in the meantime, we'd also like to thank
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed our track. You'd like to think
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: our research associate Gabe and you know what, while we're
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: while we're handing out thank yous, like their booze prescriptions
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: during prohibition.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: That should be a thing that needs to take off.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: We need to make that happen. Oh, handing out things?
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, just just that as an expression sort of
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: like selling selling. I could sell something to a man.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: I could sell a catchup popsicle to a man in
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: white gloves. This idea of like Willy nilly, just giving
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: things away, passing stuff out like booze prescriptions during prohibition.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Helps the rhymes, right, I like it.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I would like to think what was that band who
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: did level terrorists apart?
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Again?
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: That was a Joy Division, Joy Division. I'd like to
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: thank Joy Division. I quite enjoy that song.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: I would like to think a New Order who I
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: kind of prefer Hot Take No, I know right, oh wow, yeah.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: No, I'm not picking battles of the bands. I'm just
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: saying I like that song. There's a surprisingly wide variety
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: of covers of that song as well. But I'd also
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: like to.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: Think, you know, Ben, I accept your thanks with an
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: open heart, and I shoot it back at you care
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: Bears style, nice, nice, nice care bears too. Scared the
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: heck out, are you kidding? That green face in the book,
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: And that was some devil worship stuff, my friend. The
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: way she like basically bewitched that young boy, the young
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: wizard's assistant. She bewitched him and kind of like lured
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: him into her creepy caravan. And yeah, no, no, thank.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: You made him evil. He had debility, he sure did, Ben,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: you sure did. We'll see you next time, folks.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.