Finns fancied the forbidden fruit
	- A top ten of Finnish cinema's intoxicating screen moments

Illicit Spirits Flowed During Prohibition

– What's the difference between spirits and prohibition? Spirits are 96 percent madness, but prohibition is 100 percent madness. This old anecdote aptly describes the era which ended 70 years ago in the Finnish history. During this period drinking alcohol was prohibited by law, and the Finns hit the bottle more often than ever before.

Prohibition came into force in 1919 after persistent work done by the temperance movement. However, according to statistics, when prohibition came into effect, Finns drank less alcohol than they had during the preceding one hundred years – under 0.1 litres of pure alcohol per person per year.

Prohibition was a joke already at its birth. It never obtained the authority of law in the eyes of the Finns and breaking it was never considered to be a grave matter. People mocked the ban on booze and even the authorities occasionally closed their eyes to the illicit bottles.

The spirits didn't reach the hands of the urban consumers without effort. The liquor came to Finland by waterways. The mother ships carrying the spirits stopped outside the limit of territorial waters to wait for a motor boat which tugged along a container called a “torpedo”.

For the inland markets the spirits were transported by car, horse carriage or even on foot. The canisters were hidden under the car's false bottom or they were used as substitutes for the back seats. One could also hide a canister in a suitcase or a backpack.

Prohibition Repealed by Referendum

The smugglers, the owners of speakeasies, and the home distillers of moonshine lightning were finally put out of business after thirteen years of successful trading.

Prohibition had turned out to be ridiculously artificial, and the state, suffering from the depression, was in need of the tax money that could be made by legalising the sale of alcohol. The customs bureau estimated that during the prohibition over 10 million litres of spirits had been smuggled into Finland annually, and the amount of home-distilled beverages can only be guessed.

Since the political will to repeal the law wasn't strong enough, the right to decide the issue was given to the people. The first referendum in the history of Finland was held in December 1931, and over 70 percent of the voters wanted to repeal prohibition.

The ever popular riddle in quizzes held in Finnish pubs was born when it was determined that alcohol should be legalised in Finland on the 5th of April, '32, at 10 A.M. The riddle goes as follows: Which event in the Finnish history was a countdown of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0?

Sources:
Kirkasta nuppiin ja kuppiin – Väkijuomain salakuljetus Espoossa 1919-1932, Espoon kaupunginmuseo 1997
Holipompelia – Siemauksia tamperelaisen alkoholikulttuurin historiasta. Jari Korkki – Jari Niemelä 1992
Änkyrä, tuiske, huppeli – muuttuva suomalainen humala. Matti Virtanen 1982

Temperance or Drunkenness: gems from the Finnish Film Archive's booze film collections at Kino-Palatsi on Friday, March 8 at 11.01 pm.

TEXT: Kirsi Siekkinen
TRANSLATION: Kari Hietaniemi
PICTURE: Anuliina Savolainen
UPDATED: Wednesday, 20-Mar-2002 16:00:50 EET

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