The reverse is, generally speaking, the case with regards to selling drugs.
it's a matter of which party is thought to be more greatly victimized, in other words.
In New South Wales prostitution has always been legal, including street crawlers, and for the protection of the sellers it is illegal to be a pimp. The view being the women have agency but pimping is predatory
Nothing says pro women than using a term like this.
No it hasn't. It was made illegal in the early 1900s. Street-based sex work was decriminalised in 1979 (Prostitution Act 1979), and brothels were decriminalised in 1995 (Disorderly Houses Amendment Act 1995).
Maybe this applies to homeless street walkers. But the majority of prostitution I'm aware of (anecdotal, I know) is middle-class men who go to freelance call girls 10x wealthier than they are. The customer pays a several days' worth of his wages for 2h of fun. So I would say it can be argued that the purchaser is a bigger victim than the seller, considering the financial power dynamics.
And there are plenty of victims in drug dealing. People get killed all the time and lots of children will never see their parents outside of visiting them in jail due to mandatory min sentencing. In terms of race for federal convictions for trafficking and dealing it’s mostly blacks and Hispanics that do all the time to feed America’s drug addiction. There’s the whole drug mule thing where cartels prey on people to be drug mules.
Surveys? As in asking people what they've used, and maybe how much? I can think of some reasons why prestigious/party drugs are well-represented there and gutter drugs aren't.
It's safe to assume that most money in drugs is made on harmful use, if you define harmful use even remotely sensibly. This is the case for alcohol, tobacco and gambling, and although there is always going to be more uncertainty around illegal products, you can be pretty confident it's the case there too.
This is why legalization isn't an easy fix. People running businesses that are harmful to their significant customers, know it. These industries will still attract gangsters in the sense of people that are OK with profiting from spreading misery, only instead of risking prison for it, they can openly build relationships to other powerful people, participate in lobbying etc.
they assume the sex workers have no agency and give them no voice in these proposals, opinions and legislation.
“believe all women, except them”.
many workers are saying “labor rights and harm reduction” and that thinly veiled eradication and weighing differences based on power dynamics does.not.help.