Prohibitionism is a

legal philosophy Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature of law and law's relationship to other systems of norms, especially ethics and political philosophy. It asks questions like "What is law?", "What are the criteria for legal val ...

and political theory often used in

lobbying In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying, which ...

which holds that citizens will abstain from actions if the actions are typed as unlawful (i.e. prohibited) and the prohibitions are enforced by law enforcement.C Canty, A Sutton. ''Strategies for community-based drug law enforcement: From prohibition to harm reduction''; in T Stockwell, PJ Gruenewald, JW Toumbourou, WLoxley W, eds. ''Preventing Harmful Substance Use: The Evidence Base for Policy and Practice.'' New York: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2005. pp. 225-236. This philosophy has been the basis for many acts of

statutory law Statutory law or statute law is written law passed by a body of legislature. This is opposed to oral or customary law; or regulatory law promulgated by the executive or common law of the judiciary. Statutes may originate with national, stat ...

throughout history, most notably when a large group of a given population disapproves of and/or feels threatened by an activity in which a smaller group of that population engages, and seeks to render that activity legally prohibited.

Examples

Acts of prohibition have included prohibitions on types of clothing (and prohibitions on lack of clothing), prohibitions on

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...

and exotic dancing, the

prohibition of drugs The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent the recreational use of certain intoxicating substances. While some drugs are illegal to possess, many governments regulate the ...

(for example, alcohol prohibition and

cannabis prohibition The legality of cannabis for medical and recreational use varies by country, in terms of its possession, distribution, and cultivation, and (in regards to medical) how it can be consumed and what medical conditions it can be used for. These ...

), prohibitions on tobacco smoking, and gun prohibition. Indeed, the period of Prohibition in the United States between 1920 and 1933 due to the Eighteenth Amendment and the

Volstead Act The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress, designed to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment (ratified January 1919), which established the prohibition of alcoholic d ...

often is referred to simply as "

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...

", as is the "

War on Drugs The war on drugs is a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States.Cockburn and St. Clair, 1 ...

" that succeeded it.

Criticism

The success of a measure of prohibitionism has been criticized as often depending too much upon effective enforcement of the relevant legislation. Some people have argued this is because the majority of the targets of prohibitionism are in the category of

victimless crime A victimless crime is an illegal act that typically either directly involves only the perpetrator or occurs between consenting adults. Because it is consensual in nature, whether there involves a victim is a matter of debate. Definitions of vi ...

, where they claim the harm that comes from the crime is non-existent, questionable, or only to the person who performs the act and even then the magnitude of the harm being relatively small. Under this interpretation enforcement becomes a conflict between violation of statue and violation of free will. Since the acts prohibited often are enjoyable, enforcement is often the most harmful choice to the individual. This sometimes results in laws which rarely are enforced by anybody who does not have a financial or personal motivation to do so. The difficulty of enforcing prohibitionist laws also criticized as resulting in selective enforcement, wherein the enforcers select the people they wish to prosecute based on other criteria, resulting in discrimination based on races, culture, nationality, or financial status. For example, American philosopher

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...

has criticized drug prohibition as being a technique of social control of the "so-called dangerous classes".Noam Chomsky, "On the War on Drugs", ''Week Online'', DRCNet, February 8, 2002
/ref> Prohibitionism based laws have the added problem of calling attention to the behavior that they are attempting to prohibit. This can make the behavior interesting and exciting, and cause its popularity to increase. This is essentially in relation with the Streisand effect.

Notes

External links

Peter Cohen, ''Re-thinking drug control policy – Historical perspectives and conceptual tools'', United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1993
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070527192717/http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VJX-4834NV6-1&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2003&_alid=515922818&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=6106&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=dc2e357fd02e909e7ebeb54f3d867221 Harry G. Levine, "Global drug prohibition: its uses and crises", ''International Journal of Drug Policy'', 14(2): 145–153, April 2003] (journal article)
Should cannabis be taxed and regulated?
(journal article)
Learning from history: a review of David Bewley-Taylor's The United States and International Drug Control, 1909–1997
(journal article)
Shifting the main purposes of drug control: from suppression to regulation of use

Setting goals for drug policy: harm or use reduction?

Prohibition, pragmatism and drug policy repatriationChallenging the UN drug control conventions: problems and possibilities
{{Authority control Alcohol law Social conflict Drug control law Law enforcement in the United States Philosophy of law Political science terminology Political theories Prohibition Tobacco control

Examples

Criticism

See also

Notes

External links