Bureau of Prohibition
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
The United States Bureau of Prohibition, or Prohibition Service, was a part of the Federal Government of the United States formed in 1927 to enforce the National Prohibition Act of 1919. Commonly known as the Volstead Act, this enforced the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on the prohibition of the manufacture, sale, possession and consumption of alcohol. It was part of the Department of the Treasury.
Its personnel were called Prohibition Agents, and its most famous agent was Eliot Ness. The bureau was formed from personnel of the Alcohol Enforcement Office of the Internal Revenue Service (known as "Revenuers") who had enforced Prohibition up to this point. Following the end of Prohibition in 1933, many of its 400 agents returned to the departments from which they had come.
