Pubdate: Mon, 13 Jan 2014
Source: Macon Telegraph (GA)
Copyright: 2014 The Macon Telegraph Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.macontelegraph.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/667
Author: John Wayne Dobson

LEGALIZATION

In the 1820s and '30s, a wave of religious revivalism swept the 
United States, leading to calls for temperance until Maine passed the 
first state Prohibition law in 1846. By 1906, a new wave of attacks 
began on the sale of liquor. After the United States entered World 
War I, President Woodrow Wilson instituted a temporary wartime 
prohibition, and by October 1919, Congress had passed the National 
Prohibition Act. The Great Depression magnified the tempting 
potential revenue that liquor represented, and Franklin Delano 
Roosevelt's election spelled the end for Prohibition. All states had 
abandoned the ban by 1966.

The coming wave of retail stores selling marijuana will generate tax 
dollars, just like alcohol and tobacco. The federal government has a 
sordid history of demonstrating its lack of principles, an eagerness 
to do anything for a buck and not wanting to "kill the cow -- just to 
milk it." Ending prohibition and demonizing unbanned tobacco are but 
chapters of this legacy.

According to those who keep track of such things, there have been 800 
cases of authentic, transforming revivals in the last 15 years, and 
only two were in North America. The tremendous spiritual movements 
led by the likes of Dwight L. Moody, Ira Sankey, William Booth, 
Charles Spurgeon, Hudson Taylor largely ended with Prohibition. We 
all will see what added dearth the new legalization brings.

- -- John Wayne Dobson

Macon
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom