I’m writing in response to the Jan. 16 article “A Toast to Prohibition: One Hundred Years Ago, ‘Dry January’ Was the Law.” While it is shocking to consider that our American government outright banned the sale of alcohol 100 years ago, it should be equally important to remember the means by which alcohol was banned: the U.S. Constitution.

Our government has been unable to pass the Equal Rights Amendment for 50 years. It should be absolutely unconscionable that the Constitution was amended not once, but twice, to create, and then undo, an authoritarian alcohol ban, while worthwhile ideas sit unheard for years.

We utilize no rhyme or reason as to when the Constitution is a holy, unchanging scroll, and when its meaning is akin to notes on a napkin. How can a Constitution that espouses the idea that states should serve as experimental grounds for changes in policy also justify a nationwide ban on alcohol? How can the same government bound by the Constitution actively harm state policy experiments through an uncompromising cannabis ban?

In Pittsburgh, over twice as many black residents are arrested than white residents for cannabis possession, even though the two groups use it at the same rate. As a student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, I witness firsthand how cannabis criminalization can ruin lives and drain government resources. Our nation witnessed 100 years ago that Prohibition did not work and quick change can happen, so why have we not learned our lesson?

Alexander Keller
West Oakland

First Published: January 26, 2020, 5:00 a.m.