Free US Law Dictionary

Prohibition

Prohibition of alcohol, often shortened to the term prohibition, also known as Dry Law, refers to a sumptuary law in a jurisdiction which prohibits alcohol. Typically, the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages is restricted or illegal. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the prohibition of alcohol was enforced. Usually the term as referred to a historical period is applied to countries of European culture. In the Muslim World, consumption of alcoholic beverages is forbidden according to Islamic Law.

In the early twentieth century, much of the impetus for the prohibition movement in the Nordic countries and North America came from Protestant wariness of alcohol.[1]

The first half of the 20th century saw periods of prohibition of alcoholic beverages in several countries:

• 1900 to 1948 in Prince Edward Island, and for shorter periods in other locations in Canada
• 1914 to 1925 in Russia and the Soviet Union
• 1915 to 1922 in Iceland (though beer was still prohibited until 1989)
• 1916 to 1927 in Norway (wine and beer also included in 1917)
• 1919 in Hungary (in the Hungarian Soviet Republic, March 21 to August 1; called szesztilalom)
• 1919 to 1932 in Finland (called kieltolaki)
• 1920 to 1933 in the United States