From the incident with Vincent Van Gogh’s ear and the ‘Absinthe Murder’ trial, absinthe became frowned upon early in the 20th century. There was a lot of discussion as to how dangerous drinking absinthe really is. A lot of people believed that the drink could make people go crazy and that it needed to be removed from the world completely. Soon after the fright, various countries banned absinthe completely.
Banned Countries
It all started in 1905when Belgium banned absinthe completely. Two years later, Switzerland surprising followed the movement. In 1912, the United States of America also banned absinthe. The next year, Italy did so as well. In another shocker, absinthe was banned in France in the year 1915. Even during the banning process, some countries decided that they felt that absinthe was a safe drink to consume. Portugal, Czechoslovakia, and Spain are three prime examples of countries that continued to produce the absinthe drink even during the ban with other countries.
Was the Ban Fair?
A lot of people continued to dispute if the ban of absinthe was actually fair or not. The ingredients in absinthe were shown to have some issues after various studies but not to the extent that it should be made illegal. Instead of bootleggers smuggling bottles of absinthe in between countries, things changed recently.
As recent as just last year, the laws started to change and absinthe is slowly being allowed back in various countries. All of Europe has already opened their doors to the absinthe drink again by unbanning it. However, the countries that did unban the drink also added certain restrictions as well. Since there were beliefs that absinthe was unhealthy because of the thujone content, the restriction was that the thujone content was limited. Different countries set the limit at different amounts but it was still the beginning of the revival of the “Green Fairy” drink. |
