The Gin Craze of the eighteenth century became the focal point for a wide range of only marginally-related social anxieties, transforming a problem into a crisis.

Evidence

Binge drinking and moral panics: historical parallels? (History & Policy)

Categorization

  • corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
  • XREF: connects to: Folktales can escalate into moral panics in troubled times. — Lynley Hood, A City Possessed, 77; The Gin Craze was a social, economic and political crisis intensified by underlying cultural anxieties concerning both gender and poverty. — Beyond Drunkenness: Structural Poverty and Political Neglect during the 18th century Gin Craze; The Gin Craze was a moral panic about working-class women drinking gin. — Gin Craze: the moral panic about ‘mother’s ruin’ still demonises women