“The people who were determined to get drunk would have been drunkards with out prohibition as well”
Maybe, but also it could turn regular drinkers into drunks, for the obvious reason that if you’re gonna break the law you wanna make it worth your while. Aside from inexperience and the general idiocy of youth, this is a big reason why high school drinking parties tend to come with puke and alchohol poisoning, whereas people who can drink whenever they want don’t attach soecial importance to any random might of drinking.
Also, the very fact of illegality is a draw for some. The greater the taboo the greater the desire, as they say. Which isn’t universally true, but applies here. Outlawing certain things almost guarantees you’re going to make a fad of them.
Anyway, alchohol consumption did go up for certain classes. That is a fact. Prohibition was not effective across the board.
Anyway, alchohol consumption did go up for certain classes.
Which classes?
The lower classes saw alcohol consumption go down. It went down in the middle classes as well. If it went up anywhere it would have been in "trust fund babies" of the time who thought it was fun to thumb their noses at the law.
But it is hard to see how they could have drunk more. They were mostly sots already.
When you read about that time you see people of that class were not having a glass or three but they were putting away three to five bottles a night.
And they were a tiny part of the population.