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Article: Forbidden Fruit: When Prohibition Increases the Harm It Is Supposed to Reduce.
- Article from:
- Independent Review
- Article date:
- December 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Independent Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Various activities, such as drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, and using psychoactive drugs, have been prohibited by governments at various times. Ostensible 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 themselves 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 ...