On December 5, 1933, the Twenty-First Amendment was ratified, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment and ending national Prohibition. For nearly fourteen years, the federal government had banned the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcoholic beverages. Prohibition had reduced some alcohol consumption but also fueled organized crime, corruption, and illegal speakeasies. Economic pressures during the Great Depression and changing public attitudes brought growing support for repeal. Ratification returned alcohol regulation to the states and allowed legal breweries, distilleries, and taverns to reopen. The end of Prohibition remains one of the most dramatic policy reversals in U.S. constitutional history.
