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RE: Should we allow drugs and prostitution?
Portugal didn't actually legalize drugs, rather they chose to decriminalize them. More specifically, any drug possession lower than what would be considered enough for a 10 day supply is downgraded from a criminal offense to an administrative one. This law was sufficient to dramatically reduce the need for anti-drug enforcement on the streets while still maintaining criminal penalties for trafficking. Because trafficking in its own right carries with it all sorts of externalities that increase other types of crimes, I think it makes the most sense to decriminalize drug usage to free up resources for controlling other criminal behaviors tied to trafficking.
Hi @faustiantimes, thanks for clarifying what Portugal actually did.
If drugs usage is decriminalized but not legalized, many opportunities are missed - such as quality control and transferring revenue from criminal to legal (taxable) flows.
It is interesting to note that, while drugs usage is more easily decriminalized than drug trading, the situation with prostitution is often the opposite - in some countries it is illegal to use prostitution while it is not illegal to offer it.