DRY EDGES: THE GLOBAL PUSH TO BAN ALCOHOL

From zealous temperance crusades to modern Islamist edicts, prohibition’s architects wield faith, politics, and public health mandates to outlaw the world’s oldest recreational vice.

Harsh crackdowns on bars and brewers are no relics of 1920s America—they’re today’s law.
Deep-pocketed lobbyists, firebrand clerics, and public-health hawks now unite under a single banner: eradicate alcohol.

Across continents, these prohibitionists harness religious doctrine, social-welfare rhetoric, and crime-statistics to justify state-enforced sobriety. Their goal: total abstinence by law, not choice.

Historical Temperance: The Original Dry Masters

In 19th-century America, the Anti-Saloon League (ASL) perfected prohibition lobbying, forging alliances with suffragists, industrial titans, and even the KKK to secure the 18th Amendment. Under Wayne Wheeler’s “Wheelerism,” the ASL weaponized media to sway voter opinion, making Prohibition the era’s most potent single-issue campaign.

Women’s activist networks like Pauline Sabin’s Women’s Organization on National Prohibition Reform morphed from home-protection advocates into repeal agitators—ironically powering both enactment and repeal of U.S. Prohibition.