The Lucrative Business of Prescribing Booze During Prohibition

(via Atlas Obscura) 15,000 doctors applied for permits during the first six months of Prohibition, which began in 1920 and lasted through 1933. Buying alcohol during this time was illegal.  Yet due to a lack of federal oversight, pharmacists and physicians easily turned what was meant as a concession into a loophole. By prescribing access to pharmacies stocked like liquor stores, it allowed them to become wealthy by selling a way out of Prohibition.