LEGALIZE POT AND PROSTITUTION AND KEEP POWER FROM THE CROOKS

It's Better To Regulate The Sex Trade And Protect Sex-trade Workers. And Pot? Laws Against It Are Useless

As pot and prostitution busts mount in British Columbia, one message becomes clear: We've legalized the wrong sin.

Throughout history, great crime syndicates have grown rich and powerful on three traditional sins: gambling, prostitution, and illicit substances. Or, more precisely, criminal elements become rich and powerful when strait-laced governments impose their morals on the rest of us and criminalize such victimless activities.

Of the three sins, the case for legalized gambling was the least urgent.

Illegal gambling had hardly spawned vast criminal networks. Governments sanctioned gambling for all the wrong reasons - as a tax grab in disguise - rather than in recognition of a fundamental principle: that people should be free to choose how to spend their own time and money.

Criminalization of drugs and prostitution has not merely failed its objective - prostitution is readily available to anyone armed with the Yellow Pages and the wit to spell m-a-s-s-a-g-e while a cornucopia of drugs can be had by each and every high school and university student in the nation - but it has created copious victims while funding rich criminal organizations.

Criminalization is a bankrupt policy that does far more harm than good. Two lines of reasoning support legalization of pot and prostitution: the utilitarian argument and the libertarian argument. The latter says the government should not restrict our freedom to choose, except for activities that harm others. Some oppose the libertarian argument on what can best be called transcendent grounds - "I know the mind of God, and God wants government to outlaw sin."

Not too long ago, many places had laws against adultery, not to mention sodomy. Yet, all major religions claim sin is part of the divine plan, usually to test individuals. So why do we want government to get in the way of the divine plan? It's kind of like taking tests out of the school system.

Others oppose the libertarian argument not because they believe God knows better, but because they believe the collective knows better.

Government-the-paternal-protector has got to stop people from doing things that are bad for them or the rest of us, and that comes back to the utilitarian argument. In the case of pot and prostitution, the argument falls flat on its face, particularly for prostitution. Illegal prostitution unnecessarily creates a large class of victims, the prostitutes - something well demonstrated by recent police busts of teenage Malaysian prostitutes in Richmond. Prostitutes live lives fraught with danger, both from violence and disease.

They seldom get to keep much of the money they earn. Canada's perverse laws provide incentives for pimps to recruit young girls and boys, and tie them into the criminal world, especially through drugs, to keep better control. That our laws create a class of pimps, and provide them incentives to harm young lives, is itself a crime. Yet these same laws do nothing to stop prostitution, as a walk down Vancouver's Richards Street shows.

What is the use of such laws? Better to regulate the sex trade and provide protection for sex workers. Laws against pot are equally useless - just breathe deeply the next time you stroll through Gastown or along Kits beach, and don't take an Olympic drug test for a couple of weeks afterwards. Criminalizing pot and prostitution corrupts society by criminalizing otherwise law-abiding citizens; it diverts law enforcement from more serious crimes and creates temptations for thousands of Canadians, from law enforcement officials to baggage handlers, to wink and accept a brown envelope.

But is the alternative worse? Would society go to pot with legalized pot and prostitution? Hardly. All that seems to happen is that criminals lose a rich source of funding - quickly tapped into by tax collectors, bureaucrats and regulators.

Victimless crimes, like prostitution, actually become more or less victimless. (No human activity is completely victimless, but that hardly justifies laws that seem only to maximize victimization.)

Many Canadians likely believe the Netherlands is a wild and crazy place, what with both prostitution and marijuana effectively legal. (The Amsterdam police did, however, crack down on bicycle delivery services for pot, presumably on the grounds that if you can't get down to your local coffee shop for a few more grams, it was probably time for bed.)

Yet, Dutch society may be the most conservative in Europe. The Dutch are world-leaders in the ratio of successful, long-lasting marriages. The peaceable law-abiding, family-oriented Dutch put paid to any argument that decriminalization will corrupt the morals of society. The Dutch simply believe people should be allowed to make their own choices. In fact, prostitution is legally available through much of continental Europe.

Of course, it's not quite this simple. If pot and prostitution were legalized, an appropriate tax and regulatory framework would have to be devised.

For example, government might use zoning laws to restrict prostitution to a particular area away from residential and business neighborhoods. To discourage use of pot and prostitution they could be highly taxed, but the burden must be calibrated so as not to drive these activities back underground.

While any change of regimes creates a host of short-term problems, in the long term - once appropriate policies are designed - legalization has no downside. We stop creating legal victims of victimless crime; we disrupt recruitment for criminal activity; we allow law enforcement to focus on serious crime; we cut off a rich source of funding for crime syndicates and criminals; and we create a new source of money for government.

It's time for Canadian governments to recognize Canadians are capable of making their own choices. Criminal laws against pot and prostitution hardly limit these activities. They merely criminalize Canadians for participating in activities that may be unpopular but involve free choices amongst all those involved.