No, this was in the 1990s when squatting was legal in the Netherlands (I only just learned from Wikipedia that it was, sadly, banned in 2010): Dutch squatting ban - Wikipedia
At the time I lived with them, squatters could legally take over control of an unoccupied space by sneaking in and putting a bed, table, and chair of their own in the space (based on court rulings that established this litmus test). I went along on one of their “occupations”, although this was not where I lived. They went in in the early morning, quickly but their lightweight “furniture” inside, and called a special division ol the police to come certify their legal status. Meanwhile the owner of the building and his two very preppy sons stood outside fuming, in stark contrast to the bearded, dreadlocked anarchists who were doing the squatting.
Thank you for fairly representing my views. I have no problem standing behind all of that, which was quoted appropriately.
:smack: You really are tremendously stupid. I can understand why Manda was loath to be taken for you!
It is, obviously, the human traffickers, not the sex workers themselves, who are the analogue to the weed dealers here (perhaps not to the street level dealers, but to those above them). Both the weed dealers and human traffickers are providing an illicit product/service that many people want and which in and of itself infringes on no one’s rights. But when these trades are made illegal and driven underground, they are managed by organized crime syndicates. And those syndicates engage in all kinds of nasty violence in the pursuit of their black market profits.
So if johns are morally culpable for funding a sex worker industry that engages in some degree of human trafficking (again, the experts cited by the Waves podcasters say the extent this is true has been exaggerated), then weed smokers in states where it is illegal are culpable for funding organized crime syndicates that smuggle and sell marijuana. There’s really no way around it. And I settle on “neither” rather than “both”.