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The war on prostitution (and sex) needs to end
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by JerryM | January 30, 2012 at 05:40 pm
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I don't agree with John Stossel about everything but I definately agree with him that the government must end the twin wars on drugs and prostitution. Of course prostitution that involves women forced into it is should and continue to be illegal but many sex workers enjoy the money they make. It's their decision. This is a column by John Stossel, written for Reason, on this subject.
"It's a free country."
That's a popular saying—and true in many ways. But for a free country, America does ban a lot of things that are perfectly peaceful and consensual. Why is that?
Here are some things you can't do in most states of the union: rent your body to someone for sex, sell your kidney, take recreational drugs. The list goes on. I'll discuss American prohibitions tonight at 8 and 11 p.m. Eastern time (and again on Friday at 10) on my Fox Business program.
The prohibitionists say their rules are necessary for either the public's or the particular individual's own good. I'm skeptical. I think of what Albert Camus said: "The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants." Prohibition is force. I prefer persuasion. Government force has nasty unintended consequences.
I would think that our experience with alcohol prohibition would have taught America a lesson. Nearly everyone agrees it was a disaster. It didn't stop people from drinking, but it created new and vicious strains of organized crime. Drug prohibition does that now.
The prohibitionists claim that today's drugs are far more dangerous than alcohol.
But is that true? Or is much of what you think you know ... wrong?
I believed the Drug Enforcement Administration's claim that drugs like crack and meth routinely addict people on first use.
But Jacob Sullum, who wrote Saying Yes, says, "If you look at the government's own data about patterns of drug use, it clearly is not true."
The data is remarkable: 8.5 million Americans have tried crack, but there are only 359,000 regular users. (The government defines "regular use" as using a drug at least once in the past 30 days.) More than 12 million tried meth, but only 314,000 still take it. The story is similar for heroin. Most people who try these "instantly additive drugs" do not get "hopelessly addicted." They give them up on their own.
As Sullum puts it: "The vast majority of people who use illegal drugs do not become heavy users, do not become addicts; it does not disrupt their lives. In fact, I would argue it enhances their lives. How do we know that? Because they use it."
But on the news, we constantly see people whose lives have been destroyed by drugs. Sullum says: "When you have prohibition, the most visible users are the ones who are most antisocial, most screwed up. They're the ones who come to the attention of the police. ... People who present themselves as experts on drug use because they come into contact with all these addicts have a very skewed perspective because they are seeing a biased sample. The people who are well adjusted, responsible users are invisible."
My prohibition show will also touch on prostitution. I want ratings—I admit it. Former prosecutor Wendy Murphy says prostitution is "sexual slavery."
I think calling it slavery is an insult to those who've suffered real slavery. Slavery is force. Prostitution is consensual. On my show, I'll let a former "sex worker" and the prosecutor fight it out."
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Jeff Lewis (not verified)at 01:40 on February 28th, 2012
Millions of USA government dollars are being spent to fight a crime that is extremely rare. The US government assumes that all prostitutes on Earth are sex trafficked slaves – Who are kidnapped and forced into having sex against their will. This is NOT true of MOST Prostitution.Here are some good websites about this:bebopper76.wordpress.com sextraffickingtruths.blogspot.com/ There is a lot of controversy over the numbers of adult woman who are forced sex slaves. The real factual answer is that no one knows. There is hard evidence that the sex slavery/sex trafficking issue continues to report false information and is greatly exaggerated by politicians, the media, and aid groups, feminist and religious organizations that receive funds from the government, The estimate of adult women who become new sex slaves ranges anywhere from 40 million a year to 5,000 per year all of which appear to be much too high. They have no evidence to back up these numbers, and no one questions them about it. Their sources have no sources, and are made up numbers. In fact if some of these numbers are to believed which have either not changed or have been increased each year for the past twenty years, all woman on earth would currently be sex slaves. Yet, very few real forced against their will sex slaves have been found.It is not easy for criminals to engage in this acitvity:Sex trafficking is illegal and the pentities are very severe. It is very difficult to force someone to be a sex slave, they would have to have 24 hour guards posted and be watched 365 days a year, 24 hours per day. Have the threat of violence if they refused, and have no one notice and complain to the authorities or police. They would need to hide from the general public yet still manage to see customers from the general public and not have the customers turn the traffickers in to the police. They would need to provide them with medical care, food, shelter, and have all their basic needs met. They would need to have the sex slaves put on a fake front that they enjoyed what they were doing, act flirtatious and do their job well. They would have to deal with the authorities looking for the missing women, and hide any money they may make, since it comes from illegal activity. They must do all of this while constantly trying to prevent the sex slaves from escaping and reporting them to the police. They would need to prevent the general public from reporting them into the police. This is extremely difficult to do, which makes this activity rare. These criminals would be breaking dozens of major laws not just one. Kidnapping itself is a serious crime. There are many laws against sex trafficking, sex slavery, kidnapping, sex abuse, rape, sexual harassment etc. If someone is behind it, they will be breaking many serious laws, be in big trouble, and will go to jail for many long years.The numbers and scale of this crime is exaggerated. The very nature of someone pulling off a kidnapping and forced sex for profit appears to be very difficult. Since it would be difficult this makes this crime rare. A key point is that on the sidelines the prostitutes themselves are not being listened to. They oppose laws against prostitution. But no one wants to listen to the prostitutes themselves. Only to the self appointed experts that make up numbers and stories many of which have never met a real forced sex slave or if they did it was only a few. The media and government never ask the prostitutes themselves what would help them in terms of laws.