Do we need laws that prevent us from running risks with our lives? If so, then perhaps laws are needed prohibiting the sale of c

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问题     Do we need laws that prevent us from running risks with our lives? If so, then perhaps laws are needed prohibiting the sale of cigarettes and alcoholic drinks. Both products have been known to kill people. The hazards of drinking too much alcohol are as bad or worse than the hazards of smoking too many cigarettes. All right then, let’s pass a law closing the liquor stores and the bars in this country. Let’s put an end once and for all to the ruinous disease from which as many as 10 million Americans currently suffer — alcoholism.
    But wait. We’ve already tried that. For 13 years, between 1920 and 1933, there were no liquor stores anywhere in the United States. They were shut down abolished by an amendment to the Constitution and by a law of Congress. After January 20, 1920, there was supposed to be no more manufacturing, selling, or transporting of "intoxicating liquors". Without any more liquor, people could not drink it. And if they did not drink it, how could they get drunk? There would be no more dangers to the public welfare from drunkenness and alcoholism. It was all very logical. And yet prohibition of liquor, beer, and wine did not work. Why?
    Because, law or no law, millions of people still liked to drink alcohol. And they were willing to take risks to get it. They were not about to change their tastes and habits just because of a change in the law. And gangs of liquor smugglers millions of gallons of the outlawed beverages across the Canadian and Mexican borders. Drinkers were likely to know of an illegal bar that served Mexican or Canadian liquor. Crime and drunkenness were both supposed to decline as a result of prohibition. Instead, people drank more alcohol than ever — often poisoned alcohol.
    On December 5, 1933, they removed Prohibition by approving the 21st Amendment to the Constitution.
When enacting the prohibition law, government officials assumed that______.

选项 A、every American would buy alcohol illegally
B、all criminal activities would cease
C、patrols of the Canadian border would halt the sale of alcohol
D、the social threat from drunkerness would decline

答案D

解析 细节推理题。根据题干中的关键词government officials assumed定位到原文第二段倒数第三句。原文中提到there would be no more dangers to the public welfare from drunkenness and alcoholism,可知应该不会有更多的由于酗酒和酒精中毒而引起的对公共福利的危害,而本段最后一句也提及禁酒并没有起作用,由此可知,这只是政府的一厢情愿,与题干中assume的意义一致。选项D中提及政府以为禁酒令的颁布会降低酗酒对于社会的危害,这与文中信息对应。故答案为D。
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