The Willis-Campbell Act was passed by Congress in 1921. It was during the second year of National Prohibition (1920-1933). The purpose of the law was to limit the right of physicians to prescribe medicinal alcohol to their patients.
The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution established National Prohibition. But the Amendment was very brief. It lacked specifics, such as a definition of alcoholic beverage, any exemptions for religious use, and so on. So the Volstead Act was passed to provide the details needed to enforce Prohibition.
U.S. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer was a Prohibitionist. Nevertheless, he had ruled that the the National Prohibition Act (known as the Volstead Act) did not limit the authority of physicians to prescribe alcohol for medicinal purposes. Proponents of Prohibition (‘drys’) saw this as a distressing loophole in the law.
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