https://www.cdc.gov/marijuana/data-statistics.htm
But then cocaine use is in the double digit millions as well. Drug use feels like a public health issue but drug supply is a law and order issue. Would decriminalizing the supply chain help much more than trying to enforce prohibition?
Same thing with prostitution. Human trafficking could be significantly reduced by legalizing prostitution. Government should not be involved in policing morals.
This sucks for the people who aren’t in desperate need for the money and instead have made a lifestyle choice to sell their kidneys / intimacy / children but the state can’t reasonably decide who does and does not need protection from exploitation at the point of use, so they either over-protect everyone or under-protect no one.
That’s the moral choice here — how much freedom are we willing to relinquish in order to protect the vulnerable from exploitation. It’s not about whether we consider the exploited act to be moral or not, at least from a rational point of view.
According to them, US alcohol prohibition was lobbied for, in some part, by the left, because they saw it as exploitation. We saw how that turned out.
The same thing happened in Russia, where the Bolsheviks banned alcohol for a period, under the same justification.
If a policy is known to lead to bad outcomes, it is not a moral policy, no matter the theory behind it.
The left has started to realize this. That's why they now advocate for decriminalization, public health campaigns, and mental health support.
The right question is what policies help people, and what policies hurt people. Morally charged judgements cloud our thinking.
I can easily argue that alcohol sales are predatory. They are often selling to alcoholics who are damaging their bodies. They contribute to drunk driving deaths and domestic violence. But there is no policy corollary or implication to me doing that.
*glances over at the IRS*
This is a terrible argument. In countries with weak rule of law it's probably the case that a similar proportion of of people engage in bribery (either paying or accepting them). By your logic is it also the case that "the law that’s wrong" on bribery?