The Norwegian Alcohol Prohibition; A Failure

Abstract

The Norwegian alcohol prohibition included fortified wine from 1917 to 1923 and liquor from 1917 to 1927. Attempts have been made, both by researchers and activists, to ‘rehabilitate’ the prohibition. These attempts are self-contradictory, given that the ban on alcohol was lifted. One central argument in the debate concerns foreign pressure: It is claimed that the ban could have lasted had the ‘wine countries’ (France, Spain, and Portugal) been willing to buy Norwegian fish even though Norway refused to import their alcohol. This question can obviously not be answered with any certainty. However, pressure from abroad was not the only difficulty that prompted the lifting of the ban. The article argues that the prohibition generated several ‘internal’ problems, like organized crime, black economy, ‘untraditional’ policing methods, and negligence of social issues other than alcohol consumption.

Keywords:

• Alcohol
• Moonshine
• Prohibition
• Organized crime
• Smuggling

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for the assistance of Senior Adviser Barbara R. Helgaker in translating this into English.

Sources

The archives of the Norwegian Ministry of Justice, Customs and Ministry of Finance. Copies of reports and official letters from local police offices and customs offices included in the archives. Proceedings of the Norwegian Parliament and Parliamentary reports. Professional journals for pharmacists, doctors, police service, and customs. Temperance movement's journal and Norwegian national newspapers.

Notes

¹ Menneskevennen (Friend of the People, publication of the Norwegian Temperance Association) no. 5. 1925.

² Klaus Sletten, leder i Norigs Ungdomslag (Leader for Norwegian Youth League). Cited in Fuglum 1995:124.

³ Folket (The People), 6 April 1922.

⁴ Statistisk Sentralbyrå (Statistics Norway) Oversikt (Overview) 1917–1918.

⁵ Rusdrikkontrollen. Svar på deptets rundskriv, 1919–1920 (Control of alcoholic beverages. Reply to government circular). Justisdepartementets Politikontor (Ministry of Justice—Police Office).

⁶ Ot. Prp. (Government proposition paper) no. 17, 1924, page 75.

⁷ Brev fra politimesteren i Helgoland til fylkesmannen i Nordland (Letter from chief of police in Helgoland to county governor in Nordland), 10 November 1919. Rusdrikkontrollen. Svar på deptets rundskriv. 1919–1920 (Control of alcoholic beverages. Reply to government circular). Justisdepartementets Politikontor (Ministry of Justice—Police Office).

⁸ Tidens Tegn (Sign of the Times), 24 October 1919.

⁹ Distriktskontrollør (District controller) Qvams PM 20. June 1923. Rusdrikkontrollen. PM-er og en del statistikk m- 1925. Justisdepartementets Politikontor (Control of alcoholic beverages and statistics 1925. Ministry of Justice—Police Office).

¹⁰ Norsk Tolltidende (Norwegian Customs Journal), September 1925.

¹¹ Høyrerepresentant (og kjøpmann) (Conservative representative and tradesman) Ivar Lykke. Odelstinget 25, June 1918.

¹² Aftenposten (Norwegian national newspaper), no. 610, 4 December 1918.

¹³ Tidsskrift for Den norske Lægeforening (Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association), 1917, page 931.

¹⁴ Norges Apotekerforenings Tidsskrift (Journal of the Norwegian Pharmacy Association), 1917, page 336.

¹⁵ Norges Apotekerforenings Tidsskrift (Journal of the Norwegian Pharmacy Association), 1919, page 67.

¹⁶ Stortingsmelding (Government White Paper), no. 19, 1929, page 5.

¹⁷ Stortingsmelding (Government White Paper), no. 19, 1929, page 11.

¹⁸ Dagbladet (Norwegian newspaper), 7 March 1919.

¹⁹ Aftenposten (Norwegian national newspaper), no. 119, 6 March 1923.

²⁰ Norges Rederforbund til Utenriksdepartementet (Norwegian Shipowners Association to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) 19, December 1924. Cassette 546. Handelsdepartementet. Kontoret for navigasjon og maskinistvesenet (Ministry for Trade and Industry, Office for navigation and marine engineering).

²² Oppsummerende notat, jnr. 5207–30 P. Justisdepartementets Politikontor (Summary from Ministry of Justice—Police Office).

²¹ PM Høsten (autumn) 1923, Jnr. 3601–3900. 1923. Finans og tolldepartementet. 1 tollkontor (Ministry of Finance and Customs, 1 Customs Office).

²³ PM 14 December 1928. Rusdrikkontrollen. Diverse II, 1926–28. Justisdepartementet. Politikontoret. (Control of alcoholic beverages. Misc. II 1926–28 Ministry of Justice—Police Office).

²⁴ In his doctoral thesis, Olav Nærland Hamran (2005) distances himself from the hypothesis of historian Ellen Schrumpf (2003), that Norwegian alcohol policies after the prohibition were dominated by the temperance movement and therefore represented a continuity. The alcohol policy's moderation project, which was the foundation for the new alcohol policy, had very little to do with traditional temperance issues and was initiated by other groups. The vision of a total prohibition belonged to the past. Temperance supporters were side-lined, irritable and isolated. Hamran has a more convincing body of data than Schrumpf, whose book is more a study of the literature than research. However, Hamran's moderation hypothesis does not alter the picture of Norwegian alcohol policy as very restrictive, seen in a European perspective. One could also ask—somewhat contrary to the facts—whether the 1930s' alcohol policies could have been more ‘liberal’ had the temperance movement not still been a force to reckon with, though more indirectly than before. A total of 533,084 women and men voted for lifting the prohibition in 1926 and 423,031 for continued prohibition. These last figures speak for themselves (Johansen 2005).