With prostitution, I think we must consider the different types and motivations.
A professional prostitute who services mostly businessmen and the better-off, who went into the business largely by choice, is an entirely different creature from one forced onto the streets by addiction, destitution, or a pimp. If prostitution were to be legalized, I don’t see much changing for the former: she continues to provide a service for which she is well-compensated, and can afford to pick and choose clients. However, a prostitute who walks the street for drug money probably would never bother with the necessary health and safety issues.
If I guess right, most prostitutes would fall into the latter category. They couldn’t afford to, or just wouldn’t, go through legal channels. There will still be a considerable amount of illegal prostitution no matter what the laws. I still think legalization is not a bad idea, though, as long as proper protections are firmly in place.
Although you are correct that excise taxes do not normally generate a lot if revenue, that is because most products that have excise taxes are easy to live without. When the boat you wanted to buy gets a huge excise tax, you don’t buy the boat. Good luck kicking your heroin habit for the same reason. I propose what I propose because I believe that it is not the government’s place to protect people from their own stupidity. It wouldn’t solve the drug problem at all, but it would benefit all members of society. The drug users could get drugs legally for the same price they are paying now and thus do not have to worry about be jailed for their hobby (if they steal to fund the hobby that is a totally different matter). All the non-drug users would be able to pay fewer taxes without having to cut government programs so they benefit as well. Supposedly, a lot of money is made every year from the illegal drug industry. Under this plan, most of the money would be going to the government instead of the drug lords. Prostitution is the same way. It would cost a similar price to what it does now, but the fact that it is legal means the “production costs” would be cheaper so that extra money would go to the government in the form of taxes. Sure STD’s would be spread, but it is not the government’s job to protect people from themselves. Paying for dinner and a movie just to get sex is no different than if you skipped the dinner and movie and just handed the woman the money for those two activities directly. If the government does not interfer in the former, why the latter?
If all people were the same type of libertarian you are, I suspect we would have the exact situation.
After all, you sound just like the current gov’t. I don’t see any libertarian thinking going on in your posts at all.
Government trying to shape people’s behavior. Additional power given to the government. Punitive taxes.
Very libertarian.
Most libertarians I know would consider that theft.
Oh…benefitting all members of society is now a libertarian motive or justification?
Last I checked individual freedoms were the basis for libertarianism.
Ahh…facism. Government control of industries. If drugs are legalizied, a libertarian would want this to become a BUSINESS oppurtunity, not a government revenue scheme.
My suggestion already has the compromise built in. I have spoken of libertarian ideals to many people and a large portion of them think that I am crazy for thinking that there should be little to no federal government. As such, I have stopped proposing the complete removal of drug laws (since I do not have faith that people will agree with me) and instead propose the exchanging of one law with a less obtrusive law. In this case, I get the libertarian ideal of legal drug use (although it has unfair taxes, but that is better than being jailed for drug use while still paying the same prices) and the other people that don’t think drugs should be legalized get lower taxes. We both gain and lose something. Compromise.
I consider the tax law to be less powerful than the criminal law, because the price for the drugs is the same either way. The price is a deterrent in both cases, but the jail time is only there when the criminal law is there. Overall, it would be easier to use drugs and I consider tax laws in general to be less powerful than criminal laws because they are less of a deterrent. More people will buy a car with a 50% mark up due to taxes than would buy a car that they would be arrested for possessing (in my opinion).
I am just selling my idea. I have already accepted that I cannot get exactly what I want, so I am settling for what I consider to be closer to my ideals. Rather than attacking me for not suggesting the true libertarian ideals, just ask if what I propose is better, in your opinion, than the way things are now. I consider this to a step in the libertarian direction. Perhaps you disagree. One step at a time my friend. I never said I wasn’t going to fight the tax once the laws were passed. I feel it will be easier to first convince people of this tax law and then wait a few generations until some of the social sting of drug use is gone and say that drug users are being discriminated against and the tax laws should be removed, than trying to convince people to get rid of the drug laws without the taxes. I am trying to get the individual’s sense of greed to overcome his sense of morality (assuming the individual thinks that drug use is immoral) and then, after the idea that drug use is immoral has mostly gone away, I will try to make the individual’s sense of fairness (that drug users shouldn’t have to pay unreasonable taxes) overcome his sense of greed. Doing both at once has failed in the past. I propose this as a better alternative (although telling my game plan essentially ruins it).
No one is getting the money as it is. Drugs are so expensive because there is such a huge cost in creation and transport because governments (especially the U.S. government) drive up the cost of creation and distribution and destroy a lot of the product and take the money they find. At least this way the American people benefit (although I admit that I would prefer no taxes at all, but it truly amazes me how many people are pro-taxes. I would think that everyone would give up their favorite government programs if it meant they would never have to pay taxes again {especially the people that vote since the poor that get back more than they give almost never vote}). Libertarian ideals are not shared by most of the people. I can’t understand why, but it is a fact I have accepted. Thus, I always disguise my libertarian ideas under a mask of compromise that will aid me in eventually helping to create the ideal libertarian government. One step at a time is the only way that will succeed. The people as a whole don’t like drastic change. Baby steps might succeed. Huge steps will not.
I don’t think price scares many people away from using drugs. For the people who are already addicted, you couldn’t raise the price high enough to make them decide to stop because of monetary reasons, and for people who aren’t addicted, they consider the drugs worth it. The $45 every other week I spend on pot greatly increases my quality of life. I’d pay twice that (and would probably have to if I didn’t live in Texas) with no qualms.
I found the OP interesting because in my state (NSW, Australia) a whole illegal industry has grown up around a legal product tobacco.
The various taxes imposed on legally manufactured tobacco products here (roughly 70% of the cost of a packet of 30 cigarettes is one form of tax or another) has created a vast black market for illegal tobacco.
The growers get a higher price for tobacco sold for illegal manufacture, the distributors get a stream of income free from government scrutiny and taxation, and the consumer gets the end product at a saving compared to the legitimate product.
Given the unlikelihood of currently illegal drugs qualifying for government subsidies were they to be legalised, and given the extreme likelihood of cost being kept deliberately high for a variety of reasons (profit to legal manufaturers and the desire on the part of governments not to be seen as encouraging drug use, to name two), I suspect that there would still remain a viable and thriving market for a number of currently illicit drugs, even if they were to be legalised.
I’ll see if I can find the article regarding our experience with illegal tobacco in online form - it makes fascinating reading as the problem has arisen pretty much as a result of astute opportunism in exploiting a situation relating to our government’s policy regarding a legal product (ie to apply huge punitive taxes to a legal product in the hope of reducing its usage without overly impacting on the revenue its use generates for the government).
Similar situation in England- cigarettes coast about £4 ($5.50) for 20 but are available in Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg for about a third of that.
It is estimated that 20% or more of all rolling tobacco is smuggled to avoid tax and up to 10% of ready rolled.
Many organisations that previously supplied cannabis and other illegal drugs have now moved into tobacco smuggling- less risk of discovery and punishment, and less severe punishment, for the same profits.
I should have also pointed out that the legalisation and regulation of prostitution in NSW has also failed to stamp out the “street walker” industry, and that a recent inquiry into our much vaunted legal casino found illegal activity to be rife.
Just as our our government policy on tobacco has created a new class of criminals (ie, the shop-keepers distributing the illegal product and the consumers purchasing it), loan sharks have moved into our legal casino and gained a new clientele who would never previously have had need of or access to their services.
Our government is about to open a legal heroin injecting room - does anyone seriously believe it won’t become a focal point for drug dealers and lead to “turf wars” as various dealers seek to establish an exclusive dealership in the immediate vicinity of the injecting room?
It seems to me that no matter the extent to which you legalise prostitution, drug use, or gambling, there will always be people who for one reason or another do not have access to legal forms of these behaviour or choose not to use those legal forms. That is also true in Australia in respect of legal pharmaceutical products - as long as there are people willing to pay considerably more than the market value of a number of drugs there is money to be made in trafficking those legal drugs in an illegal manner.
I think it is naive to assume that legalising an activity will necessarily eradicate the illegal industry in relation to that activity. The illegal activity will simply shift to whatever new opportunity to make money the legalisation itself creates, something which needs to be taken into account when a decision to change the status quo is being considered.
This link is to the main body of an article which appeared in Sunday’s paper relating to the thriving illegal tobacco industry in NSW. Unfortunately, the side article detailing the benefits to growers selling their crop for illegal distribution doesn’t seem to be available online.
I’ll try to find the summary of the report on illegal activity in our legal casino online too - that may take a little longer as newpaper articles are only available free of charge online for a fairly short time after they were published.
This is why the best answer is to have no laws regarding the personal use of drugs. After all, you can’t break a law if there are none. I can understand making it illegal to force someone else to take drugs, but there is no need to prevent people from using drugs themselves (although you could regulate the use of drugs while performing certain activities like driving, the way they do now with alcohol). If I thought I could get people to agree with this without first appealing to their sense of greed, I never would have suggested the tax to begin with.