cker

To my view, prostitution seems like it could/should be legal, but I would have a question about social benefits: if a woman loses her job and her unemployment et c. are contingent on her taking any job that's available, could that mean she might have to do prostitution as a "job" to keep her benefits? That's kind of a straw-man argument, but the notion bears though. How do you handle the management of the public health risks? How do you regulate it, if at all? What level of advertising do you allow - advertising tobacco is regulated, what about sex work? What about the inevitable picket-lines and intimidation from the more hardcore religious opponentes - theyre not going away, even if legalized prostitution is in place. In the US, though, the conversation will never get to that point because prostitution is morally offensive to a large chunk of the voting population, mainly for religious reasons. It seems to be okay to trade sexual favors for lavish spending, though; perhaps it's okay if you're using the barter system.

One conern that needs to be considered regarding legalization of certain self-administered pharmaceutical enhancements is, again, the social effect. I think marijuana should be, in some way, legalized. It's a fair question to ask what the social implications of legal weed would be - it's another intoxicant with which people can distract themselves. Consider the impact of alcohol abuse on employment, domestic situations, et c. Does it become an age-enabled right-to-buy or a licensed privelege? My hunch is that we'd see some slice of the population use for a little while - probably a bigger slice than anyone thinks - basically indulging in dissipative behavior... then it would calm down. The Netherlands has substantially lower marijuana usage than the US, despite the legalized status of cannabis in that country (at least according to drugfacts.org). In my opinion we need a rational drug policy, and if we're going to ban weed because it's harmful then tobacco should be taken off the market - it is FAR more harmful to public health. I've got no numbesr to back it up but I suspect the dollar-cost of tobacco in terms of healthcare, lost workforce, et c. is higher than any of us think.

But again - some people have a moral/religious dislike of certain intoxicants (seems like for most of that population, beer has become OK). I recall my parents hiding their drinking from the church people when it was pretty clear almost everyone drank there - but were intent on not acknowledging it in public.