A current supporter of the neo-prohibition movement publicly advocates the death penalty for DWI offenders. He clearly advocates increased penalties.

The DEATH PENALTY for drunks that kill innocent people will probably NOT be a deterrent, BUT, given a few years, we can kill enough drunks, that it might be half way safe to drive on the roads again.

There were more deaths last year in Virginia from DRUNK DRIVERS …. These DRUNKS are a menace and don’t care who they kill! Lets put as many of them to death (legally) as we can, to get them off the highways.

Kill an innocent when your Blood Alcohol is .15 or higher, YOU DIE! Kill an innocent during your 2nd DUI, YOU DIE! Or kill an innocent while you have a Blood Alcohol of .08 or higher, YOU DIE!

It’s time to start killing (legally) the people who are killing us while driving a vehicle on the highways. DEATH TO DRUNKS!1 (Emphases in original)

Prohibition Activists

During Prohibition (1920-1933) some activists made similarly harsh suggestions. Prohibitionists often urged strong steps for against those who didn’t follow the law.

One suggested that the government distribute poisoned alcohol beverages through bootleggers. (Those who sold illegal alcohol). She acknowledged that several hundred thousand people would die as a result. But she thought the cost well worth enforcing the law..

Others suggested these for those who drank.

• • Hung by the tongue beneath an airplane.
  • Exiled to concentration camps.
  • Excluded from all churches.
  • Forbidden to marry.
  • Tortured
  • Branded
  • Whipped
  • Sterilized
  • Tattooed
  • Placed in bottle-shaped cages in public squares.
  • Forced to swallow two ounces of caster oil
  • Executed, as well as their progeny to the fourth generation.²

Wheeler

Wayne Wheeler was the de facto head of the powerful Anti-Saloon League.

Many stressed education to bring about compliance. But Wheeler insisted on strict enforcement. Also “he desired the most severe penalties, the most aggressive policies even to calling out the Army and navy, the most relentless prosecution.”²

The Prohibition Bureau added poisons to industrial alcohol to prevent its us as a beverage. Wheeler opposed the use of nonpoisonous additives such as soap or other noxious but harmless substances. He argued that “the government is under no obligation to furnish people with alcohol that is drinkable when the Constitution prohibits it. The person who drinks this industrial alcohol…is a deliberate suicide.”³

Thompson

Prohibition agents were widely criticized for using excessive force. And it was against both persons and property. One of the most violent may have been agent William Harvey Thompson. Thompson’s career shows one of the many problems that led to increasing opposition to Prohibition.

Prohibitionists and neo-prohibitionists are often hateful and hostile toward those they oppose.