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I had a discussion once with a woman who truly believed that legalization of prostitution would automagically create a brothel on virtually every urban street corner in the nation, dragging us down into Sodom-and-Gomorrah depredation until we were finally swallowed whole by Hell itself. Her ex-husband also happened to have cheated on her with a hooker, though.
And while legalizing certain drugs may relieve debts both domestic and abroad, it also opens the doors to every street corner hustler with two legs and a mouth. Take a walk around downtown Amsterdam and see if you're not propositioned for extasy, cocaine, and/or LSD about every fifteen minutes. All you have to do is sit down somewhere and let them come to you. It's disheartening. And the same thing would happen here. After all, if the rich American wants to smoke some pot, than maybe he's willing to try something else, enh?
While A-dam is often affectionally painted as a city full of laid-back, reasonable people who don't mind if you want to spark up a fatty or pay for sex, the reality behind their global postcard has some decidedly sharp edges and is populated by desperate foreigners, tacky neon signs, and an air of unsettling unpredictability.
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"The idea that money doesn't buy you happiness is a lie put about by the rich, to stop the poor from killing them." -- Michael Caine
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