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The same as it was in every other U.S. state: from 1920 to 1933. Prohibition was a national law; it was made the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (later repealed by the 21st Amendment).

Some states had enacted state prohibition laws on and off before it was made a national law, but as far as I know, New York was not one of them.

^^^wrong^^^

Prohibition started in Maine in 1851. Repealed in 1856. Kansas jumped on the bandwagon amending their State Constitution in 1881. Mugler v Kansas (1887) the SCOTUS found that State level prohibition laws were allowed by the freshly printed 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

New York repealed it's State laws related to prohibition in 1923. Yes, Federal law was still in force. It was about as effective in NY as the CSA's prohibition of cannabis is effective in California. That repeal also supplies the precedent that the States are using to pass their medical cannabis laws, and also will be used if a couple of the States decide to end the total stupidity of cannabis prohibition in the near future. There has been talk of the State of Washington challenging the Feds in their legislature, and put forth by one of their lawmakers.

I'm really going nuts trying to find how many States had drinking alcohol laws before the 18th Amendment was passed. I can state definitively that 46 of 48 States had criminalized cocaine and 29 of 48 had criminalized heroin when the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was passed in 1914. 46 of 48 was also the number of States that had criminalized cannabis when the unconstitutional Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed. Heck, I can even tell you that 21 States had criminalized smoking tobacco when the Volstead Act was passed but for the life of me can't find the number of States beyond one website claiming 65%. 65% of 48 States would have been 31.2 States so I'm penciling in 31 but I'd like to find some definitive source.

Prohibition started decades before the 18th Amendment was even a dirty thought in the collective mind of Congress.

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14y ago

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