The original Voluntary Committee of Lawyers (VCL) was founded in 1927 to bring about the

repeal of prohibition The repeal of Prohibition in the United States was accomplished with the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 5, 1933. Background In 1919, the requisite number of state legislatures ratified the Eig ...

and the

Volstead Act The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress, designed to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment (ratified January 1919), which established the prohibition of alcoholic d ...

. The VCL provided legal support for the

Association Against the Prohibition Amendment The Association Against the Prohibition Amendment was established in 1918 and became a leading organization working for the repeal of prohibition in the United States. It was the first group created to fight Prohibition, also known as the 18th Ame ...

, an umbrella organization that opposed prohibition. With its urging, the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

called for repeal in 1928. Under the leadership of Joseph H. Choate, Jr., lawyers in every state were actively involved in working to bring about repeal, which occurred in 1933. At that time, the VCL closed its books and ceased to exist.David M. Fahey, Jon S. Miller, eds., ''Alcohol and Drugs in North America: A Historical Encyclopedia'' ( ABC-CLIO, 2013), , pp. 735-736
Excerpts available
at

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

Modern incarnation

A modern version of the Voluntary Committee of Lawyers was incorporated in 1996, established through its founding committee, including former U.S. Attorneys General

Elliot Richardson Elliot Lee Richardson (July 20, 1920December 31, 1999) was an American lawyer and public servant who was a member of the cabinet of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. As U.S. Attorney General, he was a prominent figure in the Watergate ...

and

Nicholas Katzenbach Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach (January 17, 1922 – May 8, 2012) was an American lawyer who served as United States Attorney General during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. He previously served as United States Deputy Attorney General u ...

, former American Bar Association President George Bushnell, former federal judge

A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. Aloysius Leon Higginbotham Jr. (February 25, 1928 – December 14, 1998) was an American civil rights, civil rights advocate, historian, presidential adviser, and United States federal judge, federal court judge. From 1990 to 1991, he served as ...

and labor lawyer

Theodore W. Kheel Theodore Woodrow Kheel (May 9, 1914 – November 12, 2010) was an American attorney and labor mediator who played a key role in reaching resolutions of long-simmering labor disputes between managements and unions and resulting strikes in New ...

. The modern VCL was inspired by the earlier group of the same name, but focused on the modern war on drugs.Robert Hirshon
"Legalizing Marijuana: An Issue That Just Won't Go Away"

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

, April 20, 2010.

References

External links

* * Prohibition in the United States 1927 establishments in the United Kingdom Organizations established in 1927 Organizations disestablished in 1933 Organizations established in 1996 Political organizations based in the United States Legal organizations based in the United States 1933 disestablishments in the United States {{US-org-stub