11 ms·

What a stupendously stupid idea. Street-prostitution (street-walking) is the most dangerous form of prostitution by far. If you want to decriminalise sex work,

What a stupendously stupid idea. Street-prostitution (street-walking) is the most dangerous form of prostitution by far. If you want to decriminalise sex work, then decriminalise sex work. In Australia (at least in Victoria) brothels are legal but street-walking certainly isn't. It is a magnet for all sorts of crime and just unsightly to have on the streets.

Swenrekcah 4y ago
It’s similar to why using drugs shouldn’t be a crime. It is society’s job to make sure people don’t become heroin addicts but we shouldn’t persecute those that do.
- Flatcircle 4y ago
  Drugs should absolutely be illegal. This concept that some Nordic countries made all drugs legal and everything was great, is so naive. It's so freshman year of college. Making drugs illegal is a major deterrent to doing drugs. Simple as that.
  - Swenrekcah 4y ago
    It’s a deterrent for some people sure, me included. But it doesn’t make them magically disappear, that’s just naive. There will be a demand and there will be people fulfilling the demand. It’s much better to have the fulfillers regulated instead of it being a source of money and power for criminal organisations. Just look at how well prohibition worked in the US.
  - upsidesinclude 4y ago
    Doing drugs isn't really a problem. Having a problem with drugs is a problem made worse by prosecution of the problem. Half of the US is on some form of amphetamine from middle school onwards. We don't have an issue with people taking drugs. We want them to take the right drugs and pay the right companies for them. You might have a problem with 'drugs' but that's politics.
    - frumper 4y ago
      I'd agree with your premise that having a problem with drugs is the problem, but it's naive to treat all drugs are the same. There are some drugs that have outsized negative impacts on society. Also, what amphetamine is half the US on? Sounds a bit much like hyperbole.
      - upsidesinclude 4y ago
        Ritalin, Adderall or any of the other attention correction prescribed drugs
  - voldacar 4y ago
    It's not clear to me that I should be punished for doing something that doesn't harm or affect others simply because they dislike it. It even seems a bit unreasonable, to be honest.
    - IshKebab 4y ago
      It does harm and affect others though. Depending on the drug & circumstances. But you can't just pretend that heroin users just carry on their lives like normal without negatively affecting anyone else.
      - vidarh 4y ago
        Most heroin users with access to cheap medical grade heroin (medical grade heroin is cheap - we know this because it's in use in healthcare; e.g. the UK NHS prescribes it under the generic name diamorphine for a variety of uses, including post-op pain - in hospital only - in some cases) are perfectly able to carry on with their lives - and hold down jobs. With heroin as with most drugs the criminalisation is what is causing most - not all - of the harm.
      - dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
        To repeat the oldest point in the book.. should we ban alcohol too then? Or does that not affect people depending on the circumstances?
        IshKebab 4y ago
        No because it isn't as addictive or harmful as other drugs. Yes it depends on the circumstances, but harder drugs are more likely to cause harm. Yes I know about the David Nutt report. It's not remotely objective.
        dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
        I draw the line at heroin in my personal usage too, so we're not of completely different minds. By your logic where should the line be drawn then? Genuine question. Is LSD fine? Ritalin? Coke? Meth?
  - emilsedgh 4y ago
    Would you mind providing some supporting arguments?
  - dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
    > This concept that some Nordic countries made all drugs legal and everything was great Nordic countries are actually rather (in)famously known in Europe as having strict drug laws. > Making drugs illegal is a major deterrent to doing drugs. Obviously, but people still do so many drugs, and the numbers are increasing. This is despite relatively very few countries actually even decriminalizing (_not_ legalizing) drugs. From my own experience living in the Netherlands, weed being legal means tourists come to smoke it, but a lot of the Dutch are just completely uninterested, including teenagers. If you had given me easy to access cheap weed at 16 I would've been blazing all day, but I didn't come from a place where it's legal. Dutch teenagers did. Second order effects such as perception of drugs are a thing that must be considered as well.
  - red_trumpet 4y ago
    In germany, using drugs is not illegal. Ownling, trading and producing drugs is illegal, though.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    No Nordic countries have made all drugs legal. If anything the nordic countries are behind the curve on decriminalisation and legalisation. As for it being a deterrent, it may be for some, but the measure should not be drug use but harm, and what is abundantly clear is that criminalisation drives up crime, and causes substantial harm up to and including large numbers of deaths. Keeping drugs illegal given the evidence we have of the harm it causes is deeply immoral.
  - PickledHotdog 4y ago
    Ah yes, that would explain the enormous raft of benefits that Portugal came into when it decriminalised drug use for personal amounts and would explain why the Prohibition Era was so wildly successful and free from downsides Which drugs do you draw the line at? Coffee? Alcohol? Nicotine?
- mantas 4y ago
  The problem is when society tries to do it's job, someone comes up saying that you shouldn't moralise for a legal activity. A tight society with a strict moral code (and it's enforcement in... communal style) would need no police and laws.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    Look up and read “Meditations on Moloch”, and learn why this is absolutely not true. Also, we did vigilantism. It’s really, really bad.
    - mantas 4y ago
      Exactly. Law with law making mechanism with safeguards is here for a reason. Yet many people want to go back to medieval style. Probably hoping they'd be the strong side.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  > It is society’s job to make sure people don’t become heroin addicts but we shouldn’t persecute those that do. Then society is asked to fork over a lot of resources to rehabilitate addicts as it is their responsibility for them getting addicted. Criminalization of hard drug use in that case is simply an attempt to save money. The current fentanyl epidemic in drug decriminalized Seattle is an example of how messed up decriminalization can get. The resulting society costs (including a rise in property and violent crime) then lead to a backlash on decriminalization and we should be back to square one shortly in an election or two.
  - Swenrekcah 4y ago
    I absolutely consider rehabilitation to be like healthcare and as such should be provided at little or no cost. There can be private options of course as well as public. I’m not familiar with what you refer to in Canada. In any case I absolutely don’t want hard drugs to be legalised and marketed like alcohol, I’m talking about something like clinics providing for free in proper doses for those that come seeking. It’s fine to have harsh penalties for those that try to supply outside of that.
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      Seattle is in the USA. Drug rehabilitation costs for fentanyl are very costly and most of those people aren’t coming back even with those resources. They are simply gone. Rehab isn’t free, and I don’t think we can afford it on a large scale. People eventually have to take responsibility for their decisions, and the no coming back aspect is definitely a deterrent (whenever we encounter a person in crisis, which sadly is often these days, I make a point of telling my 5 year old that this is where drugs get you).
      - Swenrekcah 4y ago
        It indeed is, I’m not sure how I messed that one up! Regarding the cost, of course that should be taken into consideration but I don’t understand how it can be that expensive. Or rather, I understand how it can be but there is no good reason for it to be. The state has all means to commission drug manufacturers to provide it cheaply for this purpose. It is in fact very important that there exists no monetary incentive for any industry to sell drugs to these clinics. Regarding people not coming back, that is incredibly tragic, yet it’s still better to keep them “contained” rather than leaving them to procure their next fix on their own by any means necessary.
- bluescrn 4y ago
  But these days, we apparently can't trust 'society' to make responsible choices about anything. Instead we're supposed to trust ever-bigger governments (controlled by ever-bigger corporate interests) to make those choices for us, and restrict those scary dangerous freedoms that people once had.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    No, we can’t. If there’s one thing that’s proven true throughout history, it’s that enforced laws are the only things that can reign in the small percentage of bad actors that impact society as a whole. Unless we want vigilantism. Which we really do not.
feet 4y ago
Most Americans either don't care or can't comprehend anything different, most of them can't see past their own mose
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  To be fair Americans have really big moses.
  - noisy_boy 4y ago
    You mean to say they are big on Moses.
  - feet 4y ago
    Oh man what a typo

Swenrekcah 4y ago

It’s similar to why using drugs shouldn’t be a crime. It is society’s job to make sure people don’t become heroin addicts but we shouldn’t persecute those that do.

Flatcircle 4y ago
Drugs should absolutely be illegal. This concept that some Nordic countries made all drugs legal and everything was great, is so naive. It's so freshman year of college. Making drugs illegal is a major deterrent to doing drugs. Simple as that.
- Swenrekcah 4y ago
  It’s a deterrent for some people sure, me included. But it doesn’t make them magically disappear, that’s just naive. There will be a demand and there will be people fulfilling the demand. It’s much better to have the fulfillers regulated instead of it being a source of money and power for criminal organisations. Just look at how well prohibition worked in the US.
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
  Doing drugs isn't really a problem. Having a problem with drugs is a problem made worse by prosecution of the problem. Half of the US is on some form of amphetamine from middle school onwards. We don't have an issue with people taking drugs. We want them to take the right drugs and pay the right companies for them. You might have a problem with 'drugs' but that's politics.
  - frumper 4y ago
    I'd agree with your premise that having a problem with drugs is the problem, but it's naive to treat all drugs are the same. There are some drugs that have outsized negative impacts on society. Also, what amphetamine is half the US on? Sounds a bit much like hyperbole.
    - upsidesinclude 4y ago
      Ritalin, Adderall or any of the other attention correction prescribed drugs
- voldacar 4y ago
  It's not clear to me that I should be punished for doing something that doesn't harm or affect others simply because they dislike it. It even seems a bit unreasonable, to be honest.
  - IshKebab 4y ago
    It does harm and affect others though. Depending on the drug & circumstances. But you can't just pretend that heroin users just carry on their lives like normal without negatively affecting anyone else.
    - vidarh 4y ago
      Most heroin users with access to cheap medical grade heroin (medical grade heroin is cheap - we know this because it's in use in healthcare; e.g. the UK NHS prescribes it under the generic name diamorphine for a variety of uses, including post-op pain - in hospital only - in some cases) are perfectly able to carry on with their lives - and hold down jobs. With heroin as with most drugs the criminalisation is what is causing most - not all - of the harm.
    - dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
      To repeat the oldest point in the book.. should we ban alcohol too then? Or does that not affect people depending on the circumstances?
      - IshKebab 4y ago
        No because it isn't as addictive or harmful as other drugs. Yes it depends on the circumstances, but harder drugs are more likely to cause harm. Yes I know about the David Nutt report. It's not remotely objective.
        dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
        I draw the line at heroin in my personal usage too, so we're not of completely different minds. By your logic where should the line be drawn then? Genuine question. Is LSD fine? Ritalin? Coke? Meth?
- emilsedgh 4y ago
  Would you mind providing some supporting arguments?
- dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
  > This concept that some Nordic countries made all drugs legal and everything was great Nordic countries are actually rather (in)famously known in Europe as having strict drug laws. > Making drugs illegal is a major deterrent to doing drugs. Obviously, but people still do so many drugs, and the numbers are increasing. This is despite relatively very few countries actually even decriminalizing (_not_ legalizing) drugs. From my own experience living in the Netherlands, weed being legal means tourists come to smoke it, but a lot of the Dutch are just completely uninterested, including teenagers. If you had given me easy to access cheap weed at 16 I would've been blazing all day, but I didn't come from a place where it's legal. Dutch teenagers did. Second order effects such as perception of drugs are a thing that must be considered as well.
- red_trumpet 4y ago
  In germany, using drugs is not illegal. Ownling, trading and producing drugs is illegal, though.
- vidarh 4y ago
  No Nordic countries have made all drugs legal. If anything the nordic countries are behind the curve on decriminalisation and legalisation. As for it being a deterrent, it may be for some, but the measure should not be drug use but harm, and what is abundantly clear is that criminalisation drives up crime, and causes substantial harm up to and including large numbers of deaths. Keeping drugs illegal given the evidence we have of the harm it causes is deeply immoral.
- PickledHotdog 4y ago
  Ah yes, that would explain the enormous raft of benefits that Portugal came into when it decriminalised drug use for personal amounts and would explain why the Prohibition Era was so wildly successful and free from downsides Which drugs do you draw the line at? Coffee? Alcohol? Nicotine?
mantas 4y ago
The problem is when society tries to do it's job, someone comes up saying that you shouldn't moralise for a legal activity. A tight society with a strict moral code (and it's enforcement in... communal style) would need no police and laws.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Look up and read “Meditations on Moloch”, and learn why this is absolutely not true. Also, we did vigilantism. It’s really, really bad.
  - mantas 4y ago
    Exactly. Law with law making mechanism with safeguards is here for a reason. Yet many people want to go back to medieval style. Probably hoping they'd be the strong side.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
> It is society’s job to make sure people don’t become heroin addicts but we shouldn’t persecute those that do. Then society is asked to fork over a lot of resources to rehabilitate addicts as it is their responsibility for them getting addicted. Criminalization of hard drug use in that case is simply an attempt to save money. The current fentanyl epidemic in drug decriminalized Seattle is an example of how messed up decriminalization can get. The resulting society costs (including a rise in property and violent crime) then lead to a backlash on decriminalization and we should be back to square one shortly in an election or two.
- Swenrekcah 4y ago
  I absolutely consider rehabilitation to be like healthcare and as such should be provided at little or no cost. There can be private options of course as well as public. I’m not familiar with what you refer to in Canada. In any case I absolutely don’t want hard drugs to be legalised and marketed like alcohol, I’m talking about something like clinics providing for free in proper doses for those that come seeking. It’s fine to have harsh penalties for those that try to supply outside of that.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    Seattle is in the USA. Drug rehabilitation costs for fentanyl are very costly and most of those people aren’t coming back even with those resources. They are simply gone. Rehab isn’t free, and I don’t think we can afford it on a large scale. People eventually have to take responsibility for their decisions, and the no coming back aspect is definitely a deterrent (whenever we encounter a person in crisis, which sadly is often these days, I make a point of telling my 5 year old that this is where drugs get you).
    - Swenrekcah 4y ago
      It indeed is, I’m not sure how I messed that one up! Regarding the cost, of course that should be taken into consideration but I don’t understand how it can be that expensive. Or rather, I understand how it can be but there is no good reason for it to be. The state has all means to commission drug manufacturers to provide it cheaply for this purpose. It is in fact very important that there exists no monetary incentive for any industry to sell drugs to these clinics. Regarding people not coming back, that is incredibly tragic, yet it’s still better to keep them “contained” rather than leaving them to procure their next fix on their own by any means necessary.
bluescrn 4y ago
But these days, we apparently can't trust 'society' to make responsible choices about anything. Instead we're supposed to trust ever-bigger governments (controlled by ever-bigger corporate interests) to make those choices for us, and restrict those scary dangerous freedoms that people once had.
- falcolas 4y ago
  No, we can’t. If there’s one thing that’s proven true throughout history, it’s that enforced laws are the only things that can reign in the small percentage of bad actors that impact society as a whole. Unless we want vigilantism. Which we really do not.

feet 4y ago

Most Americans either don't care or can't comprehend anything different, most of them can't see past their own mose

fnordpiglet 4y ago
To be fair Americans have really big moses.
- noisy_boy 4y ago
  You mean to say they are big on Moses.
- feet 4y ago
  Oh man what a typo