RE: Prostitution, Decriminalisation and Access To A Better Healthcare
It is surprising to me how little our policymakers (and I presume the general public) has learned about past efforts to ban and criminalize behavior that largely only affects those who choose to partake in it. In the U.S. prohibition was a huge boon to organized crime, yet we still criminalize a lot of drugs, instead of regulating them, bringing them out in the open, and treating drug abuse as a public health problem. There are recent stories here of friends shooting up drugs, one dying from an overdose and the other then being held responsible for their friends death! And yet the pharmaceutical companies who pushed opioids and the doctors who overprescribed them walk away with massive profits. Our war on some drugs has decimated generations of African-Americans by throwing people in jail over small amounts of drugs. Criminalizing prostitution pushes it to the underground where participants are subject to abuse from both criminals and law enforcement. Despite all of the damage caused by these policies, in the U.S. people get up in arms (literally) at the suggestion of banning high capacity gun magazines--something that can and does affect those who choose not to buy them. But even here, our best bet may be regulation, instead of criminalization: stricter background checks, mental health screenings, licensing, storage laws, and background checks on ammo purchases have shown some evidence of reducing crime without an outright ban.
That was quite unfortunate.
You were right. Instead of forbidding, we should consider decriminalising so that we can impose a certain law or a necessary act to control the damage done by said, behaviour. Thanks for the insightful review.
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