[slowmovintarget]

For prostitution the U.S. ought to follow the Swiss (I think) model: to sell is legal, to buy is criminal, for the reason that the buyer inherently victimizes the seller.

Drugs? I suppose some form of regulation would be better. Governments get scary when they attempt to legislate morality. Drug use is immoral (IMO), but perhaps it shouldn't be illegal.

[oldmanjay]

>for the reason that the buyer inherently victimizes the seller

you'll have to explain here, because it seems to me that under a legal regime, a prostitute making a clear decision to sell sex is no more a victim than the owner of a convenience store deciding to sell slurpees.

[mikepurvis]

It's contentious— there is certainly a class of sex worker who is empowered and fully in control of the economic transaction being carried out. But there are also many, many who are trapped and not making their own decisions, especially when drugs are part of the picture.

[harshreality]

Ban an entire market because sometimes the sources of labor are repugnant?

What percentage of the market has to be drugged-out sex slaves (often imported from some other countries, if the horror stories are true) before it's acceptable to shut down the whole market by criminalizing it?

Does criminalizing the market help those drug-addicted sex slaves, or does it make their situation worse?

[dragonwriter]

Criminalizing the market us why its run by the same groups that run the illegal drug trade and why the people working in it often feel they have no recourse against abuse -- it is, in other words, the reason why there are drugged out sex slaves. If it was legal, well-regulated, with effective workplace protections, the character would be radically different.

[dmm]

Lots and lots of women enter prostitution when they are <18yo, many of them manipulated by older men(pimps).

[nkozyra]

And that should/would remain a crime. By legalizing the 'profession' you open it up to more scrutiny.

Prostitution is illegal as a matter of public health, codified by religious texts. It doesn't jibe well with the notion of individual liberty, nor does the personal use of drugs, defended also as a matte of "public health."

These types of laws (cascading down to the less oppressive blue laws) are attempts to create a unified morality. The problem is fares poorly with human behavior, hence the inevitable creation of black markets.

[harshreality]

> For prostitution the U.S. ought to follow the Swiss (I think) model: to sell is legal, to buy is criminal, for the reason that the buyer inherently victimizes the seller.

Is there evidence that the Nordic model (of prostitution laws - go after buyers, not sellers) accomplishes anything, or is it a feel-good law that at first glance looks like it has the right law enforcement incentives (don't punish the sex workers), but doesn't deliver on making sex workers safer or improving their lives?

http://reason.com/blog/2014/06/04/criminalizing-sex-work-cli...

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/02/25/european-parlia...

[slowmovintarget]

From "The Nordic Model" paper:

>> Since the introduction of the law, street prostitution has decreased (while increasing dramatically in Sweden’s neighbors) and Sweden has become an undesirable destination for pimps and traffickers. In addition, the new law has influenced attitudes regarding the purchase of sex: from 1996 (before the law) until 2008, the number of male sex buyers decreased from 13.6% to 7.9%.

[mtinkerhess]

Do you drink coffee? Wine? Smoke cigarettes? Take Aspirin? Are those immoral? Sure, some drugs are worse for the user than other drugs, but you could make the same argument for eating sugary foods or not exercising enough. A bad idea, probably, but not immoral.