Alcohol and marijuana: The xenophobic origins of prohibition

Prohibition of alcohol by adoption of the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1920 was a xenophobic measure, as much as a temperance movement, according to Last Call, a book by Daniel Okrent.

In Prohibition Life: Politics, Loopholes, and Bathtub Gin, National Public Radio's Terry Gross interviews Okrent. This is a fascinating story, and both the tra…