The May 6, 1909 NYT has an interesting letter to the editor:

The only relief in sight from existing conditions [concerning the consumption of high-alcohol drinks such as "whisky, cocktails, and various other mixed drinks"], lies, in my opinion, in the imposition of a virtually prohibitive Governmental tax on all highly alcoholic liquors, whose increased cost would have a tendency to lessen their use by the masses. This would have the effect of an increased consumption of milder beverages like beer and wine and would mitigate the evil. To abolish it is impossible.

You can prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks by law, but you cannot prevent their use, even if you make their use a crime.

On the one hand the author wishes to impose prohibitive taxation to alter behavior - looking for a substitution effect - but ignores the possible "scale" effect that individuals might drink more beer or wine in order to obtain the same level of "bliss" that the harder liquors provide.

The author then argues that prohibitions will not work - as the country will so ably prove over the next twenty odd years in the case of alcohol and is still proving today in the context of illicit drugs.

However, what is the difference between prohibitive taxation and prohibition? Granted, when facing two bad choices of taxation versus prohibition, taxation might be marginally more efficient (from society's point of view) as evading a tax is more likely to be penalized with a monetary fine whereas violating a prohibition is more likely to lead to incarceration and the associated social costs of that incarceration.

Both policies increase the expected and actual costs of consumption from the point of view of the consumer, and as such will price at least some individuals out of the market for the good - perhaps driving individuals to substitute goods. However, there is an additional cost to such policies because in both cases sime consumers, in their quest to obtain an arbitrarily expensive or banned product, face increased risk of consuming an adulterated product, the so-called "bathtub gin" problem, which might prove more dangerous than the original "sin."

When open markets are closed, whether through taxation or prohibition, many of the self-reienforcing mechanisms that consumers take for granted are likewise lost. Under-appreciated elements of the open market such as contestability (that is, the threat of entry and competition), reputation, self-imposed quality and innovation, and, ultimately, the threat of legal action for maltreatment of consumers, are all lost when either prohibitive taxation or prohibition is employed.

The letter writer makes a plea against prohibition, something that might be gaining more traction in today's world, but makes the mistake of assuming that behavior of the masses can be materially and permanently manipulated through arbitrary taxation. Unfortunately, this philosophy is alive and well in our modern world.