Prohibition increased alcohol-related deaths and created a black-market of products so much worse than the regulated market before or after[0]. I would say that, in fact, prohibition did not work.
And neither does current drug prohibition. Fentanyl deaths are directly caused by the black-market supply of drugs in the US, and it isn't "decriminalized" cities like Portland that are leading these charts[1]. The current drug prohibition just means that the demand that will always exist is being supplied by mis-dosed poison instead of a well-regulated market like modern alcohol (and marijuana in some states).
Your article only counts alcohol-caused deaths. Indeed, it fails to account for domestic violence deaths. Although it's true that hundreds of alcoholics died, their children were spared their violent tendencies. One could argue that prohibition pushed the consequence of death on the guilty instead of the innocent, which, if we have to choose between the two, seems the appropriate direction.
So while a few hundred alcoholics died, many more children and women lived. Why is this even a debate? The data are so abundantly clear.
