1920s: From 1920 to 1933, the sale of alcohol is prohibited in the United States. The aim is to reduce crime and other social problems and improve health. However, although alcohol consumption does decrease, crime and corruption around alcohol increase. Public officials are bribed by gangsters to overlook illegal brewing and selling of alcohol.

Today: Advocates for the legalization of marijuana use arguments drawn from the experience of Prohibition. They claim that banning marijuana leads to drug trafficking which benefits organized crime; that the illegal sale of marijuana is linked to violence and terrorism; and that it presents huge costs to the taxpayer for law enforcement.

1920s: In Tennessee in 1925, a law known as the Butler Law is passed banning the teaching of the theory of evolution in public schools. In the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925, the state, aided by fundamentalist and Bible expert William...