Prohibit Prohibition

Someone replied to a blog of mine recently by saying that we should not use green taxes but simply ban cars and ban car advertising – prohibition is the answer.

I do not go along with this. I think regulation has an important role but extreme regulation like prohibition can produce as many problems as they solve and have unintended consequences. “Never” is too strong a word in nearly all cases. Life is too complicated for these absolutes. Some prohibitions seem, on the face of it, to be on safe ground, for example, “Do not kill”. But it does not take much thought to find instances where killing might be acceptable.

“No 4×4s in towns” seems a reasonable rule. But what is a town? When does a farm become a hamlet, a hamlet a village and a village a town? What is a 4×4? 4×4 means all four wheels are powered (or can be). There are many 4×4s that look like ordinary saloons – they do not have an off-road look at all. So do we mean “no off-road vehicles in towns”?

What about cars like the Toyota Rav4? It looks like an off-roader but it only has two-wheel drive (although there is a more expensive four wheel drive version). So although it can go off road, as can most cars, it can also get stuck in the mud because it has not got four powered wheels. Okay 4×4s look daft in Chelsea but 4×4s are good in snow. Doesn’t it snow in Chelsea?

Remember when the Americans banned alcohol in the twenties? Not only did liquor become very strong, but gang crime rapidly spread across the country. Before recreational drugs were banned in Britain drug related crime was hardly heard of. Now drug crime is a major drain on our society. Spliffs were mild in the sixties – rather like a bitter shandy – now a spliff is like drinking a bottle of vodka. Making drugs illegal makes them stronger.