prohibition and cirrhosis

a comment was made in today's pharmacology lecture-

"US alcohol prohibition reduced rates of liver cirrhosis, and therefore was good for public health in this particular instance."

i think because none of use had ever looked into this question combined with the fact that it seemed so intuitive, we all took it as fact. however i was interested in seeing whether any data exist to support this claim.

national board of economic research published a paper, Alcohol Prohibition and Cirrhosis, by Dills and Miron, in 2003. The paper examined death rates in the context of state and federal prohibitions. All the cirrhosis death rates declined during the prohibition period by 10-20%, they caution concluding this solely to prohibition for the following reasons:

-there have been substantial fluctuations in cirrhosis death rates comparable to the ones seen during prohibition, outside of periods of prohibition

-cirrhosis did not increase to pre-prohibition levels upon repeal

-cirrhosis levels had declined by the time prohibition began, allow little time for this effect

you decide!