To Forbid The Practice Of Making Selling Or Using

Understanding Statutory Prohibitions: How Laws Actually Stop Things From Happening

The phrase "to forbid the practice of making, selling or using" shows up in legislation all the time, but most people reading statutes never stop to think about what it actually means in practice. It's not magic wording. It's a standard legislative device for creating a complete prohibition, and understanding how it operates is important if you're dealing with compliance work or need to interpret what a statute actually covers. This formulation is the standard way UK Parliament drafts comprehensive bans. You see it in the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, the Firearms Act 1968, various regulations under the Medicines Act 1968, and countless statutory instruments. The structure is deliberate: by forbidding all three stages — making, selling, and using — the legislation closes every possible loophole. If it only said "selling," someone could argue that merely possessing or manufacturing was legal. The three-pronged approach removes that argument. I worked on a compliance project a few years back where we had to interpret a local statutory instrument that used this exact phrasing around certain controlled equipment. The instrument forbade the practice of making, selling, or using equipment of a particular description. Our initial reading was straightforward, but then we hit the edge case: someone had modified legal equipment by attaching an aftermarket component that pushed it into the prohibited category. They weren't making the original device, weren't selling it, and weren't technically "using" it in its prohibited configuration. The argument held up in tribunal. The regulation didn't explicitly cover modification or assembly from parts.

The workaround was to go upstream to the parent Act, which contained a broader prohibition on possession and adaptation of controlled articles. We cited that alongside the specific instrument, and the case went our way. My recommendation when you encounter this kind of drafting is to always check the enabling Act, not just the instrument itself. The detail you need is often two layers up.

What The Three Stages Actually Cover

The tripartite structure of making, selling, and using breaks down more precisely than most people assume. "Making" includes designing, manufacturing, assembling, importing, and in some statutes even possessing the means to produce a prohibited item. "Selling" has been interpreted broadly by courts to include offering for sale, exposing for sale, distributing, and in certain contexts simply having goods in your possession for commercial purposes. "Using" is the narrowest of the three but still covers actual operation, deployment, and in many regulatory contexts, permitting someone else to use the prohibited item on your premises or under your authority. One thing beginners miss is that these definitions shift depending on the statute. The same word — "use" — means something different in a firearms context than it does in a medicines regulatory context. In firearms law, even carrying a prohibited weapon can amount to "using" it in some interpretations. In medicines law, "using" typically requires active administration or application. Always check the definitions section of the specific Act you're working with.

How These Prohibitions Are Enforced in Practice

A prohibition on paper means very little without enforcement mechanisms. The real question isn't what the statute says — it's how regulators actually pursue cases. Enforcement typically falls to trading standards, the police, or sector-specific regulators like the MHRA for medicines or the HSE for safety equipment. Each has different priorities, resources, and prosecutorial approaches. In my experience, the most common enforcement gap isn't in the law itself but in the definition of the prohibited item. Statutes describe prohibited articles by category or characteristic, and those descriptions are almost always narrower than the policy intent. A classic example: a regulation banning "devices designed to restrict airflow" would clearly cover smoke machines used in a certain way, but might not explicitly cover a modified ventilation fan that achieves the same result through a different mechanism. Courts tend to interpret the statutory language literally, not purposively, unless the parent Act explicitly directs them to do so. This is why I always advise people to read the actual text of the prohibition carefully before assuming something falls within it. The policy intent and the legal scope are often different things.

Common Pitfalls When Dealing With These Prohibitions

There are a few recurring mistakes I see in compliance and legal work. The first is assuming that because something is forbidden, all related activity is also forbidden. It isn't. Possession isn't always prohibited. Advertising isn't always prohibited. Transporting isn't always prohibited. Each needs to be examined separately within the specific statute. The second mistake is treating the prohibition as static. These things change. A statutory instrument that forbids making, selling, or using a particular device today might be amended tomorrow to add "possessing" to the list, or to broaden the definition of the device itself. Always check the latest version. The UK legislation website has amendments, but they don't always surface cleanly in search results. The third is overlooking delegated legislation. The main Act might set the framework, but the actual detailed prohibition is often in a statutory instrument made under the Act's powers. Those instruments can be more restrictive than the parent legislation. I've seen situations where someone believed their activity was fine because the Act didn't explicitly prohibit it, only to find the SI layered on top of additional restrictions that changed the entire landscape.

When The Prohibition Doesn't Work

Let me be blunt about the limitations. A statutory prohibition on making, selling, or using something does not stop that thing from happening. It makes it a criminal offence, which carries penalties, but enforcement is resource-dependent. For high-value or high-demand prohibited items, the black market simply adapts. The prohibition shifts the activity rather than eliminating it. There's also the jurisdictional problem. A UK statute prohibits making, selling, or using within the UK. It doesn't reach overseas manufacturers or online vendors operating from jurisdictions with different legal frameworks. I've dealt with cases where the prohibited item was manufactured abroad, sold through an overseas website, and delivered via postal services. The prohibition technically applied, but prosecution required coordination with international agencies and depended entirely on the evidence available to UK authorities. If you're looking at this from a policy perspective, the takeaway is that statutory prohibitions are one tool among many. They work best for low-complexity, high-enforceability scenarios. They work poorly for diffuse, transnational, or rapidly evolving situations. In those cases, a combination of import controls, platform liability rules, and international cooperation tends to be more effective than relying solely on the prohibition itself.

Practical Steps If You Need To Determine Whether Something Falls Under A Prohibition

Start with the exact statutory language. Read the definitions section. Check whether the prohibited item matches the description in the statute. Look at theSI or secondary legislation for any expanded definitions. Then consider whether your specific activity — making, selling, or using — falls within the operative provisions. Don't assume. Don't rely on summaries or guidance notes. They're helpful, but they're not the law. If you're still uncertain after that, you need specialist legal advice. These prohibitions have been litigated to varying degrees, and case law can fill gaps that the statute leaves open. But that's a separate question from what the written law says on its face.