Britain is rethinking its strategy towards regulating a variety of vices, from gambling, to marijuana, to alcohol, to prostitution. In all of these areas, changes under consideraton are quite far-reaching, almost revolutionary. (A smaller change, concerning an issue raised here yesterday, is this week’s announcement by the British communications regulatory agency of its intention to curtail television alcohol advertising that might appeal to underage drinkers in a variety of ways.)
Revolutions in vice regulation are not uncommon. A Chicagoan who turned 100 years old today would have lived through times when heroin was legal, prostitution was legal, marijuana was legal, cigarettes were illegal, alcohol was illegal, novels like Lady Chatterly’s Lover were illegal, state lotteries were non-existent, out-of-wedlock sex that involved crossing state lines was illegal, etc. There is no reason to believe that our current legal line drawing in the vice world will prove any more stable.
Vice Squad has looked at some of the pressures for vice laws (here) or their associated punishments (here) to change.
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