W.A. Bogart is the published author/editor of 8 books including Permit but Discourage: Regulating Excessive Consumption (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), Regulating Obesity?: Government, Society, and Questions of Public Health (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), and Off the Street: Legalizing Drugs (A J. Patrick Boyer Book, Dundurn Press, 2016).


Published Books

Off the Street
Legalizing Drugs

W.A. Bogart

A J. Patrick Boyer Book (November 12, 2016)

Bogart‘s book is a comprehensive road map to ending the war on drugs, presented with a welcome degree of intelligence and eloquence in a public debate more commonly dominated by emotion and polarized viewpoints.
— Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst, Transform
Pulling no punches, this is an unvarnished look at illegal drug use and what we should be doing about it. Its recommendations are hard-hitting and thought-provoking. They deserve a close look. Governments, take note.
— Paula Mallea, author of The War on Drugs: A Failed Experiment
Bill Bogart … makes his case in a manner that is clear and compelling.… If we’re to make informed decisions after the failed war on drugs, this eye-opening appeal for a change in public policy is for every concerned citizen’s bedside table.
— Fiona Reid, B.A., C.M., D.C.L., Actor
The book should be a must-read for legislators, law enforcement personnel, and law students in both Canada and the U.S. Indeed, it is so straight forward and well written that it will also be educational for interested laypersons.
— Neil Vidmar, Russell M. Robinson II Professor of Law, Duke Law School
Off the Street … moves beyond political platitudes and succeeds in addressing the tough issues that are involved … [with] legalizing drugs and the challenges that lie ahead as we head down this path.
— Adam Dodek, author of The Canadian Constitution

Regulating Obesity?
Government, Society, and Questions of Health

W.A. Bogart

Oxford University Press (December 5, 2013)

Obesity might not have a particularly obvious relationship with the law, but University of Windsor law professor Bill Bogart is making a compelling case that regulation has a role to play in addressing the issue in a more humane manner.
— Glenn Kauth, Law Times
A worthy successor to the author’s 2010 monograph, Permit But Discourage: Regulating Excessive Consumption. Bogart, argues that laws aimed at promoting healthier lifestyles by encouraging weight loss have mostly failed. Instead of preventing obesity, these laws have merely fueled prejudice against fat people.
— Jim Chen, Jurisdynamics
This book should be lauded for doing what a lot of sociolegal and policy scholars do not do - bridge the gap between the fields of law and policy... I also encourage all law and policy scholars to consider reading it because the author explores the interplay of law, policy, and society in new, creative, and innovative ways.
— Aaron J. Ley, Department of Political Science, University of Rhode Island, Law and Politics Book Review
Bogart achieves what he set out to do - showing law to be ‘a powerful but limited tool for addressing behaviour’ that achieves only some of what people expect of it. He strips away the false simplicity of the obesity problem, and reveals the complexity that lies beneath.
— Sas Ansari, Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Permit But Discourage
Regulating Excessive Consumption

W.A. Bogart

Oxford University Press (November 3, 2010)

Permit But Discourage is an engagingly written examination of a hugely important question: How can laws best be used to protect individuals and societies against out-of-control consumption of such things as alcohol, junk foods, sodas, and other unhealthy indulgences, without doing more harm than good? The book clearly and compellingly argues for a mix of laws that permit consumption but discourage excesses, and for finding that mix through trial and error. This fascinating book is a must read for anyone who cares about promoting health as well as human rights in a market-driven economy.
— Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University
W.A. Bogart provides a masterful treatment of an extremely complex issue: What role can law play in limiting or discouraging rather than forbidding behavior? How can law regulate indulgences? Can it help control gambling and drug abuse, what a person eats, how much a person drinks or recreates, discourage activities such as smoking? Using the concept of normativity as a central framing device to account for decisions to consume, Bogart succeeds in providing new insights on the limits of the law as a mechanism of control. Permit But Discourage: Regulating Excessive Consumption is an important book for anyone concerned about what law can and cannot do.
— Herbert M. Kritzer Marvin J. Sonosky Chair of Law and Public Policy University of Minnesota Law School

Good Government? Good Citizens?: Courts, Politics, and Markets in a Changing Canada
(University of British Columbia Press, Law and Society Series, 2005)

Consequences: The Impact of Law and its Complexity
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002)

Courts and Country: The Limits of Litigation and the Social and Political Life of Canada
(Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1994)

Co-authored and Co-edited Books

Access to Justice for a New Century: The Way Forward
(Toronto: Law Society of Upper Canada/Irwin Law, 2005)

The Civil Litigation Process, 5th ed
(Toronto: Emond-Montgomery, 1999)