During Prohibition, Americans had to demand the right to drink beer
During the dreary dry days of Prohibition, some Americans were prepared to go to any lengths to get a beer. Not least the nation’s doctors – not for themselves, of course, but for their patients, some of whom were in desperate need of a drink. Faced with restrictions on medicinal whisky and a ban on prescribing beer, even doctors who never touched the stuff and didn’t believe there were any benefits from booze joined the battle for “medical beer”. Many didn’t care about the beer: this fight was about a doctor’s right to decide what was best for their patients
ON 26 September 1922, New Yorker John Davin launched his campaign for election to Congress. Davin was no politician, but a doctor who had practised in the city for 40 years and was at the very top of his profession. That profession now faced a threat so grave that Davin and like-minded doctors felt compelled to put their case before the people. They formed a new political party, the Medical Rights League, and declared Davin their candidate in the forthcoming election. What did they stand for? Beer, or more precisely, a doctor’s right to prescribe it.
In January 1920, Prohibition had become law. The aim was to transform a nation of drinkers and gamblers into one of hard-working, law-abiding, teetotal citizens. It was now illegal to make, sell or buy a drink “for beverage purposes” that contained more than 0.5 per cent alcohol. An exception was made for medicinal alcohol, but with strict conditions. Doctors could prescribe “liquor” when “necessary…
