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Way back in my senior year of high school (around 2002), we had a debate project where everyone partnered up, picked a controversial topic, picked a side of the topic, and then researched and advocated for their side to the rest of the class, including a Q&A at the end, where the class could challenge their position.
To our surprise, the two hottest girls in our class picked prostitution as their topic, and advocated for it to be legalized. The teacher was also surprised, and curious enough to let them present their topic to the class.
We all thought they were joking with their topic, to get a rise out of all the horny boys. After all, as 17/18 year olds, our experience with prostitution came from movies or TV documentaries, where it was generally shown as a disgusting and degrading act; the last resort for a woman down on her luck.
But the girls’ presentation was incredibly well researched, with figures regarding the number of deaths, violent crime, drugs, and human trafficking involved in illegal prostitution, compared to Nevada’s legalized prostitution since the 1970s, which had practically no numbers to report.
They even did a deep dive into a brothel in Nevada, where the women were paid very well and treated kindly and fair and not like they’re just a piece of meat. Plus, they had regular checkups and practically free health care because of their profession. They even walked through the various services they provided, since some people (they serviced anyone, not just men) wanted other forms of intimacy instead of just sex. It was a safe and judgment-free environment, on both sides of the table, and the women employed there actually wanted to do the job, with the option to quit anytime. Unlike illegal prostitution, which removed the woman’s autonomy over her own body and placed her in dangerous situations, exposed to violence and drugs to barely make a living.
In the end, the girls did a fantastic job on their presentation and convinced a whole class of seniors that prostitution could be an honest and respectable position, and should be legalized. I’ve never looked at it the same way since.
Banning sex work is about as successful as banning drugs. All it usually does is lead to more misery for the sex workers. Which is entirely the intention, of course.
Let’s not forget the other side of the equation, a lot more people would try drugs if they weren’t illegal. Which is a good thing, because learning about them helps all of society.
My experience as an addict tells me more people trying drugs isn’t necessarily the best thing they can do for their lives IMHO.
I don’t know if it’s true that making drugs legal means more people try them. It might make sense in a certain sort of way but I’d like to see data before accepting it as truth.
As it seems to me, who hung around with a lot of drug users back in the day, as well as regular folks: most people who are interested in trying them can and will get their hands on it regardless of legality, sometimes easily. It’s about as low risk of a crime as there is. Those who aren’t interested, won’t, again regardless of legality. There will be edge cases where somebody will go “Ah what the hell, it’s legal now, why not” and toddle on over to their local dispensary for the first time but largely speaking anybody that wants to smoke weed or snort coke is probably already doing it.
Now what probably would change is the number of people on record using drugs, per capita, over the next few generations if it becomes normalized like alcohol has been. Which makes sense. But, counterpoint to that, in countries where they have legalized many drugs they still often have lower rates of severe addiction because they’ve generally also set up safety nets for those folks. Accessible medical care and available addiction treatment options will keep many drug users from hitting rock bottom, but we don’t really have that in the US so many users will often go unassisted in any way for ages and lose jobs and homes because of it, only getting “help” when it becomes forced upon them by the state (which is frequently not in any way helpful).
Anyway, I’m rambling, but tl;dr it’s definitely a multifaceted situation and blanket legalization probably isn’t a great move without accompanying medical and social support, which needs to happen anyway regardless of any moves for drug legalization. Gotta walk before we can run, unfortunately.
I think they should do the fuck they want
