If you think drugs should be legalised..

They’re not connected in my mind.i don’t really get threads that just go

IF THINK X THEN Y. EXPLAIN WHY YOU DISAGREE

I think the record in Portugal speaks for itself. Treat addiction as a health issue, decriminalise possession for personal use, go after the importers and the dealers, make sure rehab and detox are easily accessible and on offer the moment someone is arrested for possession. Treaeeting addiction as a moral issue has never worked.

With sex work it's much more complex.

It’s another one of those where it’ll happen anyway.

So why not make it as safe as possible?

For every person saying pot is harmless there seems to be a nutter with a knife claiming the voices in their head made then do it, so no, I don't think it should be legalised.
Both are and should remain illegal

I think both should be legalised. The Netherlands functions much better as a country than we do

You're asking about two big issues here.

Re prostitution & kerb crawling - I believe we should adopt the Nordic Model: criminalise pimps and buyers of sex, but prostitutes should are not criminals.

Re drugs. I don't believe in blanket decriminalisation, no. I think there are very good arguments for decriminalising some drugs, like cannabis (the one thing that gives me pause is not wanting to breathe it in on the streets or because a neighbour is smoking it).

Professionals from the criminal justice system, like police, seem to overwhelmingly believe that criminalising many drugs is the wrong approach and that we'd achieve much more in the fight against them by doing something drastic like decriminalisation. However uncomfortable it makes me, I think we should listen to them and give it serious thought.

Decriminalising and controlling the means of production and trade also means that we can levy taxes and I think we could raise some serious money that way - money which our country really needs.

I'd also be interested in exploring whether decriminalisation would enable us to create safer versions of the drugs (not just uncorrupted versions) and better explore medicinal uses (eg cannabis).

But the fact that I think it could lead to some really interesting and beneficial opportunities, doesn't mean I'm in favour of rushing into any sort of decriminalisation. It would need to be very carefully thought through, with a great deal of regulation (something many in business & finance oppose). So...not simple and not clear cut.

Where I live in the UK it is legalised. I think legalising it would mean less exploited and trafficked people, as they could legitimately report it without fear of repercussions.

Sex work is inherently exploitative in a way which would not be true of a regulated drug market. Imo.

This is worth a read in terms of understanding the issue.

https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight

Yes, in a way I do.

Solicitation being illegal means everything is forced to happen behind closed doors and thus leads to poor work conditions and treatment for the women.

I don’t think it makes sense to compare the two things here really because they are separate issues and should be treated as such.

I’m not really sure that I would be up for legalising drugs- not sure how the model would work in practice, presumable they wouldn’t be free and so a lot of the same issues would still arise with people who can’t afford them etc. I can see the benefits, but not sure it’s enough to make me pro-legalisation.

Legalise it for 12 months let Darwin take care of things then re criminalise it i predict a lot of the people in charge will be the biggest users

Not sure. Need to think more so will be reading responses and may shift my views several times!

But my instinct is drugs are a public health issue so there isnt inherent exploitation in drugs.

And prostitution im floating around even regulated much safer prostitution is still inherently exploitative

A lot of the criminality around drugs comes from the fact they’re illegal. If you had weed farms, proper factory set up for pills etc, then you would remove a lot of the issues. There would be traceability. There might be an issue with other drugs that rely on foreign production, but that’s the same with a lot of trade. I don’t think people taking recreational drugs is on the same level as exploiting women. Some people are addicts, but that’s true of alcohol which is legal.

Yes both should be legalised.

Prohibition of drugs doesn’t work and causes the unnecessary deaths of vulnerable people.

The issue that most people have is that they assume that drug taking is a moral issue. It isn’t. Drug legislation is a moral issue, that has been used for years to marginalise vulnerable groups of people and to target groups of people based on their ethnicity.

I was offering a different argument about the reason for legalising drugs. Don't have a go at me!

I think the point is that if you legalise drugs, you can regulate them and their production. Alcohol is a drug, and is regulated.