The topic of this paper is alcohol. How effective has the legal prohibition of alcohol been in controlling crime? A recent Department of Justice Report (US Department of Justice) said that alcohol was a factor in 40% of all violent crimes and accounted for 40.9% of all traffic fatalities in the USA in the last decade. But these figures were 34% and 29%, respectively, lower than those of the previous decade. The Report further stated that arrests conducted for driving under the influence of alcohol correspondingly declined and attributed this to the establishment of the legal and uniform drinking age in the early 1980s. What are the current problems with alcohol today?