Rumors emerged of smuggling into newly dry Florida, which prompted the specific targeting of airplanes by the state legislature, which also encouraged newly-dry Ohio to follow suit.15 West Virginia and Michigan also engaged with the problem of aerial smuggling before the onset of federal Prohibition.16 Wisconsin saw the potential of the airplane as a flying saloon where imbibers could venture to avoid earthly laws and began their only legislative response.17 Federal concerns followed shortly thereafter, centered on reports of aerial trafficking across the lower Rio Grande.18 By June 1919, aerial narcotic smuggling had become a serious concern, and by May 1921 alien smuggling had been identified as such a significant problem on the southern border that the Bureau of Immigration had to initiate formal dialogues with the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics to evaluate countermeasures.19

Leading Canadian ace, Billy Bishop, gleefully provided "some hope for the must-havechampagners" when he stated, "if America really goes dry, I have no doubt airplanes will be used to smuggle liquor." He went on to voice a common perspective on the emerging question of aerial criminality - "aerial navigation on a great scale will make this artificial civilization of ours more complex and puzzling than ever … but time will bring remedies for every evil and the good the development of the new science will do more than counterbalance the harm."20 This trope of benefits outweighing the "unintended consequences" is consistent throughout Prohibition era assessments of the implications of aerial smuggling. They are also not exceptional as the same rhetoric applies to the application of military aviation generally, and the bombing of civilians specifically. It is also all too familiar to students of the twentieth century history of technology. Quantifying the extent and rapidity of growth in aerial smuggling is difficult. At the end of Prohibition, the Coast Guard Intelligence Division assessed that just in the illicit rum traffic between the Bahamas and the East Coast, between fifty and seventy aircraft were active, mostly land planes.