I would like to know the number of people in the United States who
drank alcohol during Prohibition (1920-1933) notwithstanding the legal
ban on drinking. The answer may be provided as (1) a percentage of the
US population or (2) a raw number of people over a certain time
period, whether weekly, monthly, or yearly. Citations can be to
credible online or offline resources.

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 21 Jul 2003 14:10 PDT

Statistics on the number of individuals who drank alcohol during
Prohibition do not seem to be available, as far as I can tell. One
online source says outright that information on this subject is
incomplete, due to the lack of standard data sources during this
period in history.

I have found several highly detailed articles which offer some hard
numbers regarding the per capita consumption of alcohol in the United
States before and after prohibition, with speculation about the
consumption of alcohol during prohibition. The articles do not,
however, give an estimate of the number of individuals involved, just
the consumption per individual. I'd be glad to provide links to these
articles if they would satisfy your needs.

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Clarification of Question by barak-ga on 22 Jul 2003 09:24 PDT

Thanks for your question.  I'm looking for a more specific number of
individuals than is given by a per capita consumption estimate.  I'd
be willing to entertain newspaper estimates or polling numbers, with
proper citation.