Forbidden_Fruit

Forbidden Fruit Various activities, such as drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, and using psy- choactive drugs, have been prohibited by governments at various times. Os- tensible motives for the prohibitions have included helping people to lead “good” lives (in the opinion of the lawmakers) by keeping them from temptation, and preventing behavior that harms society as a whole. Evidently lawmakers have assumed that if they prohibit an activity deemed harmful, then the harm individuals do to them- selves and to society will decrease—corruption aside, why else would they impose such prohibitions' Let us examine the evidence for their assumption. If it is incorrect, if indeed prohibiting an activity causes it to increase rather than decrease, then the whole prohibitionist program is called into serious question. My thesis is that because reducing only the harmful types or aspects of certain behaviors is difficult, governments often resort to prohibiting all types or aspects of the behavior, both the harmful and the benign. Such flat prohibition often leads to an increase, rather than a decrease, of the harmful behavior. In reviewing the literature on the effects of such laws, one repeatedly sees a curious pattern. Although conventional wisdom presumes that a prohibitory law will have the desired effect and lawmakers act in accordance with such “wisdom,” Page 2 T HE I NDEPENDENT R EVIEW 442 ✦ D W I G H T F I prohibition, crime, states, gun, teen, smoking, consumption, reduce, rates, laws, cigarette, rate, percent, however, ads, prices, increase, homicide, control, cigarettes, been, alcohol, study, reducing, prohibiting, pornography, others, increased, found, effect, although, studies, speed, prohibited, prohibit, page