ABC’s overreach on hemp mirrors failed Prohibition, punishing businesses, ignoring freedom, and enforcing stricter rules than alcohol ever faced.
When the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board unveiled its proposed rules for consumable hemp products, it was déjà vu for anyone who’s watched the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission create a morass of regulations that, on their face, seemed an illegal overreach. The ABC has now taken a law already bloated with contradictions and moral panic and added another layer of red tape that goes far beyond what House Bill 445 actually requires.
HB445 itself is a Frankenstein creation, cobbled together in haste and hysteria. It was sold as a measure to “protect the children,” which, in Alabama politics, is the catchall excuse for any law that strips adults of their freedom of choice. The irony is that the same teenagers lawmakers claim to be shielding are better at finding loopholes and workarounds than the men and women who pass these laws. A 14-year-old with a smartphone can find what he wants faster than a legislative committee can write its next “emergency fix.”
This is not the first time we have tried to legislate away freedom. The Prohibition era was supposed to make America safer, healthier and more virtuous. Instead, it bred corruption, fueled organized crime, and turned ordinary citizens into outlaws for enjoying a drink. Supporters like the evangelist Billy Sunday thundered that “the reign of tears is over” and promised that prisons would be turned into factories. President Herbert Hoover called Prohibition “a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.”
Yet history proved them wrong. The experiment collapsed under the weight of its own absurdity, leading critics like H.L. Mencken to note with typical bite that “Prohibition has not only failed in its promises, but has added to the sum of human misery.”