The war on murder costs millions and millions every year and yet people are still murdering, its obviously not working and insane to continue to spend money on the issue.

An absurd example but the logic is the same. The issue should not be how much, or how many, but what would be the cost of changing to society. I do not have a good answer for that, and neither does anyone. Perhaps it would be best if they were legal, I don't know for sure, but I do know that expense of enforcement alone isn't the only way to look at it.

Still doesn't explain why you included that in your first post. Its not relevant to the conversation.

The WoD should be reorganized. Pot should be legalized, buy I see no absolutely benefit to legalizing PCP or ecstasy. Some currently illegal drugs would be extremely dangerous even with regulation.

In the states where marijuana has been decriminalized, there is no evidence that it has resulted in greater number of users or greater use of harder drugs.

There is evidence that it has resulted in saving $millions for police and prosecutors to be put to better use.

I doubt you'd find anyone that really thought mj shouldn't be legal. It's the other stuff where people differ.

Why no ecstasy? It really isn't dangerous, unless you binge it. It's in the market with no regulation right now (besides being illegal), and that only adds to any danger it may have, IMHO (you never know what chemicals are actually in street pills, etc).

We're right it is an absurd example. Unless you think drug abuse and murder should be dealt with by similar methods?

If not I fail to see how the "logic is the same."

My first post? Are you getting threads confussed or simply not reading the same thread as I am?

At any rate- you stated "I'd be for 100% drug legalization but only in a libertarian government." And now you wonder why I addressed it in my post?

The cost to our civil liberties has been enormous. This is the most pressing problem with the WOD, as I see it. Some of these issues might crossover into prostitution as well... For a good (but long) read, check out this paper over at CATO: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-180.html

Not to mention, if your in the whole "America needs to spread democracy" bandwagon, the WOD is quite antithetical to that goal. We start arms races with the drug lords and basically turn them into warlords, who tend to be forces of oppression for anyone who isnt a part of their cartel.

Prostitution should be legal, provided that women enter it voluntarily and without compulsion or instances of human trafficking.

Ok, I'll be very clear.

The argument in favor of drug legalization often focuses on the costs involved, the people in prison, etc.

I am saying that just because its expensive it doesn't mean there isn't a valid reason for it that makes it worth the expense.

Murder trials and investigations are expensive too. I'm not equating drugs with murder, and I don't know how to explain this any clearer.

Your first response to me on this subject. You use a complete red herring as an example when I mention libertarianism and wonder why it has no place here? Not funding the police and army and borrowing from china? You might as well have typed random letters for all it had to do with what I am addressing.

Its quite simple for me here. You can make all drugs 100% legal for all I care as long as its the users total and sole responsibility. Not societies. Once its societies expense then society can start making laws against them.

Maybe MJ would be fine if it were legal, I think smoking it is amazingly stupid but I think smoking in general is amazingly stupid, and I don't have a problem with tobacco being legal, but we are talking the war on drugs, and thats more than MJ.

Dude, you're harshing my mellow....

Seriously, though, you're going to come down like that on legalization of drugs? Drug use is a victimless act unless you criminalize it. What possible reason could there be to have marijuana be illegal when alcohol is legal, cigarettes are legal, caffeine and sugar are legal...?

As far as I can see, the biggest danger of making marijuana legal is that we'd see a sudden spike in sales of Allman Brothers records, and the pizza delivery industry could begin to rival the military-industrial complex....

Random letters?

Alright.

Again you stated:

"I'd be for 100% drug legalization but only in a libertarian government."

I pointed out there are many different takes on political philosophies such as libertarianism, liberalism, conservatisms etc...

You then stated:

"This has pretty much nothing to do with Libertarianism. You can still fund the military and the police and be a Libertarian, its not about no taxes, its about not using taxes to redistribute wealth and buy votes. Its about having the government do the minimum required for the state to function."

And I provided a link to a definition of differing philosophies of Libertarianism and asked-

"who decides what is the "minimum required for the state to function?"


Without responding to that question you state:

The war on murder costs millions and millions every year and yet people are still murdering, its obviously not working and insane to continue to spend money on the issue.

An absurd example but the logic is the same. The issue should not be how much, or how many, but what would be the cost of changing to society. I do not have a good answer for that, and neither does anyone. Perhaps it would be best if they were legal, I don't know for sure, but I do know that expense of enforcement alone isn't the only way to look at it.


And now you claim I'm using a red herring? If you say so.

I don't think making prostitution illegal will stop it. It's been around for a very long time and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Maybe a better solution would be treating prostitution like any other line of work. Giving the workers rights like forming unions, working a maximum of hours (Or customers) per day.
Making sure brothels treat their employees with respect (As any other company should).

Also, make sure those wanting to quit their job will get help doing so.

Just a thought.

I think it should be legal.
As long as all parties are consenting, I don't see a problem with it.
I also think it would be somewhat safer for the prostitutes.

I pretty much feel the same way. Actually, I feel exactly the same way.

I don't think it's just women objecting though...I think it's also the Christian right (in general).

Ecstacy test results: http://www.ecstasydata.org/results.php

X is "supposed to" be pure MDMA, although it's common for it to be mixed with meth. Look at those test results. Of 23 pills, only 14 have any MDMA in them. 6 are pure MDMA, two are meth bombs and one is a meth bomb with caffeine, one is loaded with MDMA analogs and some novocaine, one is Benadryl, ketamine, and MDMA, and the rest are split between MDMA analogs, random pharmaceuticals, and a couple of generic Advil.

Can you really say that people who take those wouldn't be better off getting something pure rather than all that crap?

The illegality of prostitution, drugs, anti-social behaviour, etc, etc, are positions of morality where a section of society has tried and utterly failed to convince the mass of the population that they shouldn't engage in a certain kind of behaviour.

The illegality doesn't stop the behaviour, in fact it can and does act contrary to the interests of those who instantiated the laws as a means of social control. See the drug laws as an example; illegality creates a vastly overpriced marketplace with enormous profits to be gained solely because of the laws and their enforcement. The laws against drug use thus directly lead to MORE involvement in the drug trade by individuals who wish to enrich themselves no matter the risk - especially in those societies which exalt those who take risks to gain material wealth.

You can't really expect people not to break patronising, moralising, high-handed laws and cash in on such a situation when the rewards for doing so can be enormous.

Prurient sex laws create an atmosphere of fetishism which stimulates demand for the object of the fetish/prurience. See porn in the UK as a prime example of this (UK: number one consumers of internet pornography per browser)

What a person wants to do with their body, how they want sell it, what they want to put in it and in what manner should always be regulated in the _basic_ interest of rationalising harm to society but they should never be made illegal.

Laws stop no crimes from being committed, and make criminals of only those unfortunate enough to be caught while without sufficient opportunity or resources to cheat the system of enforcement.

maybe i should have said 'game' instead of 'cheat'.

They shouldn't be taking it at all. MDMA is fucking dangerous even if it's perfectly pure.

I'm not willing to compromise when it comes to poison.

My short answer is that yes, we should legalize the hell out of it.

I've long been in favor of legalizing both prostitution and marijuana. There are models of each in other countries that work (to varying degrees), and I'm pretty sure they could be adapted to the good ol' US of America.

I bet there'd be a lot of vehement, noisy, ugly opposition. I also bet you could tax the shit out of both and still not quell the demand much. I bet that gigantic spike in tax revenue would shut some people right the fuck up, too.

The adjustment phase would be painful, to put it mildly. However, I think both could be made to work here.

I'll cease discussing the sticky-icky now though, since this thread is about hobangin' and hookers.

And that's a great reason for you to not take it (and for me, for that matter). That doesn't mean I care even in the slightest if someone else deliberately chooses to ingest poison to get high. That's their deal-as long as I don't have to pay to take care of them.

1) Drug education in schools is absolutely abhorrent. Until I know that every moron teenager or aging raver is aware of how dangerous ecstasy is, there's no reason for me to think they're aware of all the risks.
2) Attempting suicide is illegal.

Yes, doing something with the intent to kill yourself is illegal (though, given this response and my previous response, my feeling on that should be pretty clear). Which is great, but we're not talking about people trying to kill themselves. We're talking about people who take a risk to take drugs in order to get high.

There's a risk if you sky-dive that you might die. Is sky-diving supposed to be illegal like drugs (poisons) because they both carry a risk of death and therefore constitute "attempting suicide"?

"How dangerous ecstacy is"

250 ecstasy-related deaths in the uk over a 5 year period.

Ecstasy-related means it was either mentioned during an investigation into the death or found in the blood during screening. It does not necessarily mean ecstasy was the cause of death or even a contributing factor.

Numbers of users in the UK

long story short, it adds up to millions of users, many habitual. Rates of death that low are exceptional for any pharmaceutical, let alone one produced outside of a statutory regulatory framework.

Hansard figures put the annual number of deaths where Ecstasy is the cause in low single figures. Even less than those attributed to viagra, which is again used by millions of people legally and illegally in the UK, though it is produced in a standard industrial fashion. i.e. regulated.

A recent documentary which ranked 20 substances taken for recreational purposes in the UK placed Ecstasy at number 19, which Alcohol at 5 and Tobacco at 7. (The rankings being made by medical doctors and scientists - trying to remember the title... Damn Alcohol. )

For the record, I have never taken and do not intend to take ecstasy. I find my unconditional love in others and mushrooms.

People on ecstasy are morons. Back when I worked for parole and probation I took a train from Portland to Seattle to see the Stones in concert. The whole way their my then wife and I listen to the people across from us loudly discuss some insane story about crooked real estate deals and how best to cheat her husband out of the money on the deals. As the train pulled into Seattle I stood up and the lady asked me "Hey, you know where to score some "X?"... "Umm, can't say I do." Moments later we're standing in line for a cab, she approached again. "Hey, where you guys going?, want to share a cab?" As my wife was saying "No"- I opened my wallet to see if we needed a trip to the ATM before catching a cab. The lady's eyes locked on my badge and suddenly looked like someone hit her in the head with a 2X4. She quickly walked away without saying another word.

Later that night we saw her hanging on to completely different guy. She walks up to us and explained "Hey, sorry about asking you if you knew where I could get some "X", I really just wanted it because it makes me want to dance and have sex all night."

Yeah, now we felt better about her.

You will note I'm not really strongly arguing they should remain illegal, and I've admitted I don't know what the long term effects would be of it. I just know that for some people these drugs will utterly destroy their lives making them worthless piles of shit. Thats fine with me, you have the right to be a pile of shit, many people accomplish this without drug use, what I don't want to see is the government spending money when you voluntarily turn your life to shit. It will be their choice, and if they want out it will be either them or private charities footing the bill.

Well it would be an amazing boon to Afghanistan, and could only help Columbia, but I'm sure you can see the argument against it. This would just be a nice bonus IF in fact good would come out of legalization. If it makes addiction issues worse, then it really can't factor into the decision.

Horizon. A pretty well respected documentary series that's been going since methusulah was a nipper.

Is alcohol worse than ecstasy?

So if E was legal, the death rates could very possibly rise.

Death comes to us all. It is not a reason for banning anything so benign as ecstasy - though I agree with the guy who said ecstasy is usually used by wankers.

Around 10-12 people per day are killed on the roads in the UK, which has the lowest rates of road traffic accidents in Europe. That's not seen as a reason to ban cars... we allow their use and demand that strict rules are applied to that use.

Illegal = abdication of responsibility by society
Legal = potentially regulated use and harm reduction

The hysteria surrounding any substance which alters consciousness and not encouraged or tolerated by those who consider themselves the moral elites, is entirely caused by the skewed information which is pushed onto the rest of society.

ECSTASY IS A KILLER!

well yes, but so is.... yadda yadda yadda... you know the argument.

Also: In the regulations surrounding prostitution, I say they must all be hot and I get to be the judge of this.

Viva la prostitucion!

(i've ne'er used such a service through an honest transaction; only through the purchasing of presents and dinner.)

Harm reduction? From post #57:

On what do you base that assertion?

Deaths directly caused by the substance? Lives wrecked by addiction? Medical conditions directly attributable?

And how do you back up the idea of disproportionate danger compared to other drugs, both legal and illegal?

ALL drugs can kill people. ALL substances can kill people.

In fact, the most famous case of death-by-ecstasy in the british media is Leah Betts.

A girl who in reality, not mediamyth, drank so much water that the concentration of electrolytes in her body became so low as to damage her body beyond repair, causing coma and then death.

7 litres in 90 minutes.

No dancing, no hot club, she was sat with friends in a living room.

Ban water.

I'll leave this with my point on the "Drug Problem".

It has never been possible to legislate drug use away to nothing, even in countries with incredibly repressive enforcement regimes. You can only reduce the harm that drugs do by trusting people's judgements, educating them and allowing them to exercise their own choice responsibly.

The price in human lives destroyed or lost through tainted drugs, wars of control, wars of enforcement, lack of regulation in supply and ignorance/lack of proper information to consumers of drugs is only, in reality, set against the moral repugnance of certain types of people who object to mind-altering substances.

Who is more likely to sell an ecstasy tablet to a child? A street drug dealer or a licensed, educated and legal pharmacist?

Are street-prepared substances likely to be more or less harmful than licensed and legal pharmaceuticals?

'Immoral' behaviour cannot be legislated into non-existence.

I'll go through that tomorrow and refute every part, not in absolute terms, but in relative terms to many other drugs and substances which are quite legal.

Also, NIDA is part of the US government - long known as a champion of truth and fairness in relation to problems of morality and drugs.

Those arguments would be fallacies.

A, which is illegal, has x effect
B, which is legal, has x effect.
Therefore, x is not dangerous.

I think the point is "x" is not dangerous relative to many other legal substances. Its not a fallacy, its pointing out something hypocritical and inconsistent with our own policy.

It became enemy number one, because rich and middle class kids started doing it in droves. Senators and sheriffs sons and daughters. No one usually cares about stopping a drug until it starts creeping out of the ghetto. The war on ecstasy was a class thing, but it wasn't because the drug was overly dangerous.

I have class in two minutes, so I can't get it all, but the commonly cited neurotoxicity studies, especially the ones suggesting that MDMA causes Olney's lesions in humans, are horribly flawed both in sample size and controls. The one that caused the big scare about X and "holes in the brain" turned out to be conducted with massive doses of meth, not MDMA.

Should prostitution be illegal?

It looks like the concept of the super-delegate has provided a viable work-around. There's always the US House and Senate.

It should be mandatory for everyone.

So do you think any of that is reason enough to prevent adults from determining if they want to put it in their own bodies? I mean, come on, of course a government agency is only going to talk about the negative effects. They never talk about the positive effects of drugs. That's why drug "education" is such a joke. All right, children, now someone is going to tell you all the bad things about these substances... that millions of people choose to use and we really have no idea why. Anyone with a thinking cap on can clearly see there's something else going on here.

It seems to me that alcohol can cause organ failure, brain damage, and death too, and much closer to the effective dose than many drugs, and the only difference is that you know it's going to be pure because it's legal and regulated. Of course, during alcohol prohibition, plenty of people died from toxins in poorly distilled moonshine as well, and the official government line was probably to stop drinking illegal alcohol. Fortunately once the Depression hit, everyone came to their senses...

The way I see it, there are a few (American) factors to consider:

1. In the Land of the Free, the basic idea is that if it does not harm a secular society, it should probably be legal. As far as I can tell, prostitution in certain Nevada counties works fine, they're safe, and there's a serious lack of pimps shooting other pimps so, using this as evidence, prostitution poses no serious threat to anyone. The girls are tested weekly (from what I remember) and condoms are a must, so it's a pretty secure business.

2. The government likes money. Unfortunately, they also love spending said money. So, taxes are great and since prostitution is a business, it could be taxed if legalized and that would be just dandy.

3. Kind of like gay rights, a lot of people are opposed to prostitution from a moral, often religious standpoint. The problem with making things personal like this is that this is a secular country and therefore nothing should be judged based on religious principles (even though this happens anyway), and simple logic dictates that decisions based on personal feelings cannot represent a whole and should be thrown out or revised for mass consumption. With moral and religious points of view thrown out, prostitution poses no threat.

4. Sex is good. No matter what any soccer mom might tell their poor little church-going spawn, sex makes for a less pissed off person. You know that office worker who sits across the hall staring blankly into his monitor? If he could just get a little tang, he probably wouldn't come in tomorrow and blow your smug head off. Just FYI.

5. This country needs more jobs, and we all knew the attractive blonde who could never possibly get a job and who would/did end up in a trailer park, jobless, pumping out little bastards. If she had job, she would be helping the economy and herself, and her her little bastards.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but as you might be able to tell, I support the legalization.

EDIT: I just realized this debate has gone in a slightly different direction, oops.

nope...

Welcome to Oz. It *is* legal here and I'm pretty sure all 6 of these are included, as well as (just about) mandatory condom usage too. From a 'safety' perspective, I'd hazard a guess that you are much more likely to come away from a visit with a prostitute with a much lower chance of catching something than from some random pickup in a bar...