BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Legalization does not ensure that prostitutes won't continue to work with "pimps".

The legalization of the ‘Bunny Ranch’ in Nevada did not prevent the majority of prostitutes from continuing to work outside of the licensed brothel, and remain dependent on pimps. This is because brothels are more expensive environments for prostitutes to work and clients to visit. Rent, health checks, and security, are some of the costs which make it uneconomic for some prostitutes to be employed in brothels. In Britain, where prostitution is virtually prohibited, some prostitutes use private apartments, whilst others work on the street. Legalisation of prostitution does not remove the street market, or the dangers associated with it. The dangerous street environment is generated by simple economics, not legal controls.
Prostitution is a victimless crime

Assuming that problems of violence, abuse, and sexually transmitted disease can be resolved with sufficient government regulation (and it should be mentioned that these are not the reason why prostitution is illegal), then who is the victim in prostitution? The prostitute that enjoys here profession (some do, some don't, but room must be left in the law for those that enjoy it)? The customer that is willing to pay for sex? Society at large? Whose rights have been violated? The problem is that it is very difficult or subjective to determine a specific victim, which is an important part of determining that a crime has been committed.
Prostitutes/clients no more victimized than other workers/consumers.

There are many dangers related to all kinds of legal professions. A person working in a factory risks dismemberment, chemical burns, and in some cases even death. A consumer of any product similarly risks injury due to defective parts or shoddy construction. In everything we do we are choosing a level of risk that is acceptable. The risk of a client catching an STD is known, and the client is willing to take that risk. To use that as a basis for victimization would be silly when you could catch e-coli from a bag of spinach.
Governments should not set moral standards on prostitution

Alison J. Murray, PhD, lecturer at the University of Sydney, in the chapter "Debt-Bondage and Trafficking: Don't Believe the Hype" of the 1998 book "Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance and Redefinition": "Blanket statements about prostitution and the exploitation of women are propaganda from a political agenda which seeks to control the way people think and behave. The situations which the anti-traffickers rail against, insofar as they do exist, are a result of economic, political and gender inequalities which should be our central cause for concern. The vast range of sex industries and contexts requires an understanding of diversity and difference and a realization that prohibition and unitary 'moral values' are part of the problem, not the solution."
Pimping, kidnapping, sex trade are not inherent to prostitution.

The process of pimping and kidnapping can and should be illegal regardless of the legality of prostitution. We must remember that at one time people were kidnapped from their homes and transported across the ocean to work on farms, yet none would state that farming should be illegal. Further, these activities occur because prostitution is illegal and vilified. Were that not so, more women would likely choose the profession and activities such as kidnapping would become less profitable.
Prostitution is not a victimless crime

The victim in prostitution is more indirect than in many crimes, but exists nevertheless. The victims are prostitutes, customers, and society at large. Prostitutes are victims in the sense that they are often forced into the industry by sex trade, pimps, or by poverty. They often do not make a choice to engage in the industry, and are, implicitly, forced in various ways to sell their bodies as commodities. This can be traumatizing. The social costs are also very large, first due to the degradation of our moral standards that would attempt to uphold sex as something sacred, by the exacerbation of a "woman-hating" culture, and by the creation of an environment that increases the risks of the transmission of STDs such as HIV/AIDS, which is the cause of many social problems.
Prostitutes do not have a genuine choice

They are often encouraged to work in prostitution before they are old enough to make a reasoned decision. Many have their reasoning impaired by an unhappy family background or previous sexual abuse. They may be compelled to enter prostitution by circumstances beyond their control, such as substance addiction or the necessity to provide for a family. In many other cases prostitutes choose their profession solely for their own financial survival. This would be the case with an underage runaway from an abusive home with no other way to survive. So, in this sense, prostitutes may be "coerced" by their circumstances into their line of work. Most prostitutes are not educated well, and they have troubles finding a job due to their lack of intellectual ability. In addition, since they are typically female, they may suffer an additional disadvantage in finding physical work in society.
Many libertarian feminists consider that prostitution reflects the independence and dominance of modern women.

The majority of prostitutes are women. Once the dangers of abuse from male clients and pimps are removed, the capacity of women to control the sexual responses of men in a financially beneficial relationship is liberating. Furthermore, many campaigners for the rights of prostitutes note that the hours are relatively short, the work well-remunerated, and the services they offer are ones that other women are compelled to provide without charge.
Women in general are the victims of prostitution.

It is not difficult to decipher who the victims of prostitution are. just about everybody involved in this debate has assumed that prostitute denotes 'woman' and inform their arguments with this preconception. Is this because women choose to sell their bodies and men do not? Despite intellectual reasoning and rhetoric, we all know that it is primarily women who are exploited; we all subconsciously know through an understanding of the cultural history we've inherited -patriarchy- that it is women who do and will suffer. In general, therefore, the female gender suffers from the existence of prostitution. This inequality makes the suffering particularly egregious.
Prostitution driven by a non-voluntary patriarchal culture.

The "choice" to be a prostitute is anchored in this culture and can never be free of it. Choosing prostitution is not grounded in the simplicity of individual choice, like the choice between a cheeseburger or a chicken burger at a fast food joint. More has to be considered, the ethics are complex. For instance, How do you imagine prostitutes in Mexico City differ from those in LA? At the other end of the scale: Are prostitutes in Mexico City free to travel to Los Angeles and become prostitutes? Who chooses to subject themselves to the sexual whims and desires of ten strangers a night by choice?
Prostitution's destructiveness outweighs upholding freedoms.

Presently, prostitution is overwhelmingly characterized by and directly contributes to human trafficking, oppression, economic coercion and other forms of abuse rather than the affirmation of personal freedom and self-determination. The detriment of the first exceeds the latter's social priority. Because we can not be indifferent to the consequences of others' behavior, and prostitution as it now exists is, apart from its own legal status, indistinguishable from fomenting socially abominable acts, prostitution must be illegal.
In the short term it might eliminate drug dealers on our streets but do any of us really think that whatever multinational corporation ends of cornering the drug market will have a problem trading with the existing cartels

That are paying their people pennies a day and pass the savings on to us? Corporations have proven that they have no problems trading for blood diamonds, Nigerian oil or United Fruit I doubt they would have any problem dealing with Pablo Escavar. What we would instead be doing is giving the existing gangs in third world countries an air legitimacy to hur there citizens. Even the present gangs could still survive moving into the rising demand for harsher drugs like heroin or cocaine. The preset drug dealers would also almost certainly find a niche market bootlegging to get around these high taxes that would be placed on the product.
The state can tax the sale of legalized drugs and use the revenue for treatment programs

- The global drug industry is massive, cited by some sources as in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Currently, governments do not obtain any revenue from the blackmarket trade in drugs, and treatment is difficult to justify as it appears to be spending ordinary taxpayers’ money on junkies. But, if drug-use is legalized, governments could tax the sale of drugs and use the revenue to advance treatment and fight consumption.
Drugs can have a beneficial mind-expanding capacity.

Many drugs are used by philosophically inclined individuals for the purpose of expanding their minds and better understanding and seeing the world around them. Hallucinogenic drugs such as peyote and psilocybin-containing mushrooms are commonly cited by users as deepening their understanding of the surrounding world. Given the complexity of the world humans live in, and the very limited ability of our natural senses to perceive this reality, it is not unreasonable to claim that drugs can have a beneficial effect in opening the eyes of humans to this greater reality. In any case, who is to claim that such drugs don't have a beneficial effect in this way? It seems to be a subjective matter that makes it impossible for a government to claim that drug-consumption is always immoral. Rather, the morality of drug-use seems to depend largely on the intentions of the drug-user.
It is unfair to tax one product differently than another.

Taxing one product, such as recreational drugs, differently than another product, such as prescription drugs, places an unfair burden on one segment of consumers. It could be claimed that drug users have the right to not pay the tax simply by not purchasing the drugs, but this gets away from the fact that citizens should be treated equally under the law. People have the right to choose what they consume. The use of taxes to control behaviour is wrong and it is not the role of the government to decide how its citizens should behave. It is for the citizens to decide what acceptable behaviour is and for the government to implement those limitations while also not restricting basic rights. It is also important to note that imbalanced taxes show favouritism to one segment of producers vs. another. Naturally, people favour less expensive products over more expensive ones, which means that government can create unnatural market conditions that favour products that are taxed less.
Many things are harmful to individuals, but aren't made illegal.

The legal drugs tobacco and alcohol have a devastating consequence on society, and yet they are legal. How then can many other drugs be illegal on the basis that they are bad for society? This would appear to be an arbitrary application of this criterion, especially when the scientific evidence strongly suggests that some of the illegal drugs (e.g. cannabis, MDMA ('ecstasy') and psilocybin mushrooms) are actually less dangerous than tobacco or alcohol.
Legalization would change drug consumption from a criminal to a health issue

- Drug consumption is principally an activity that is bad for the consumer's health, like eating fatty foods. It is in the consumer's health interests to cut-back or quite. Therefore, the state should be involved in helping individuals quite, opposed to punishing them with criminal convictions. If the state directs more resources to helping individuals break their addiction opposed to fighting the "war on drugs", consumption can be more effectively reduced. If the state focuses on helping individuals quite as opposed to punishing them into quiting, the long-term effect on reducing consumption will be greater.
Individuals have the right to control their bodies and consume drugs

Individuals have sovereignty over their own bodies and should be free to make choices which affect them and not other individuals. Since the pleasure gained from drugs and the extent to which this weighs against potential risks is fundamentally subjective, it is not up to the state to legislate in this area. Rather than pouring wasted resources into attempting to suppress drug use, the state would be better off running information campaigns to educate people about the risks and consequences of taking different types of drugs.
Legalization enables measurement of abuser populations.

Under prohibition no proper studies can be done because we can't take proper measurements of the supply side, we don't know who is using what. Knowing what is gonig on ins the first basic requirement for reducing the potential for harm. It is only by legalising drugs that the supply side can be properly controlled and regulated. This would mean selling drugs in known quantities and known purity levels from licenced venues by accountable people. Under a legal regime we could have such measures as age limits for sales.
Legalization of drugs will remove the rebellious glamor of it

- Teenagers are often attracted to rebellious activities as their freedoms as individuals are expanded and the as the control of parents recedes. Much research indicates that placing limitations on teenage activities may actually produce the unintended result, encouraging the teenager to rebelliously disobey and break the limitations. Similarly, placing legal limitations on the consumption of marijuana may actually motivate teenagers to consumer the drug as a glamorous act of rebellion. This is flushed out by statistics suggesting that cannabis use in the UK has actually declined since its classification was lowered from ‘B’ to ‘C’.
By legalizing drugs, the state can regulate the sale

- Those who want to use drugs will take them whether they are legal or not. Therefore, by legalizing drugs, a government can help regulate the sale of drugs to control the environment of the transaction and ensure that the harmful effects of drug use are minimized. Government could, for example, make sure that the drugs begin sold are clean and not adulterated (“cut”) with other dangerous substances. This will minimise the risk to users.
Prohibition also costs lives.

Because the chances of any given drug user getting caught are miniscule (which means that the deterrent effect of the law is also marginal), there is a lucrative market to be supplied, which organised crime is happy to fill. As a result, we have well-funded, well armed gangsters fighting for territory in our cities, and large sums of money going to terrorist groups like the Taliban in Afghanistan, or FARC in Colombia. Anyone killed in the crossfire between drug dealer gangs, who only exist because of a drug's illegality, or killed by terrorist groups funded by drug money, is a victim of our drug laws, rather than drugs per se. If you are going to talk about morality, you have to be able to answer the question: how many innocent people are you prepared to see killed in order to enforce your moral viewpoint?
Legalizing drugs would eliminate an industry that drives gangs and criminal activities

- Price controls would mean that addicts would no longer have to steal to fund their habits, and a state-provided drug services would put dealers out of business, starving criminal gangs of their main source of funding. The hugely-costly but unsuccessful war on drugs could be ended, starving terrorists of the profits of drug production. As a result peace and development could be brought to unstable drug-producing states such as Colombia and Afghanistan.
There is no such thing as a safe drug (regulated by the state).

In practice this usually just means making drugs purer, and therefore perhaps more deadly and addictive. Many illegal drugs are closely related to potentially dangerous medicines, whose prescription is tightly restricted to trained professionals, but the proposition would effectively be allowing anyone to take anything they wished regardless of the known medical dangers. In addition, the offer of “purer” drugs will encourage many who are currently put off by the uncertain risks of drug taking to begin drug abuse. It also implicates governments in drug-taking by making them the guarantor of purity standards. Furthermore, the state can provide services like needle exchanges to minimise the secondary risks of drug use without legalising drugs themselves.
Attempting to alter with drug-use the God-given human state-of-mind is immoral.

Humans perceive the world how they do for a specific reason; God or nature determined it is the way human are supposed to perceive the world. To attempt to diverge from this natural, God-given perception of the world is to diverge from the intended course of human-perception. This divergence is morally repugnant. It is also symptomatic of a desire to pursue more than what God or nature has naturally given to us. This culture of "more, more, more" is morally wrong. We should be content with our natural mental state and have the discipline to eliminate eliminate any discontentment with that state-of-mind without resorting to drug-use.
An immoral drug-trade should be confined to criminal-agents rather than governments.

Technically speaking, legalizing drugs will reduce "crime" in the simple sense that drugs will no longer be illegal and selling drugs will no longer be a crime. But, this does not eliminate the immorality of drug consumption and of the drug trade. Rather, it would simply transfer the immorality from "criminals" to state-sanctioned agents. While it would reduce "crime", it would undermine the moral legitimacy of the state.
Hedonistic drug-use is morally repugnant.

Drugs are typically used because the "high" feels good or is pleasurable in some way. Such hedonism is morally repugnant largely because it is so base and too easily obtained. Deeper satisfaction in life can only be attained through discipline, intellect, and hard-work. The hedonistic experience involved in drug-use exists at the polar opposite side of the spectrum from these historic moral principles. Recognizing this, governments have a legitimate cause to illegalize drug use.
Bank tax will be passed on to consumers

Jeffrey Miron. "Bailing out the Banks Was Wrong, but New Tax Won't Make It Right." Investor's Business Daily. January 14, 2010: "The tax will not fall solely or even mainly on its desired political target, the shareholders and highly paid executives of large financial firms. The true burden of a tax often lands far from its intended target as the target attempts to shift the burden. [...] In this case, higher taxes mean higher costs and therefore higher prices, so customers (borrowers) will bear some of the burden of the tax."
Bank tax counter-acts expansionary effect of bailout

"The Bank Tax." Gregory Mankiw Blog. January 15, 2010: "One thing we have learned over the past couple years is that Washington is not going to let large financial institutions fail. The bailouts of the past will surely lead people to expect bailouts in the future. Bailouts are a specific type of subsidy--a contingent subsidy, but a subsidy nonetheless. [...] In the presence of a government subsidy, firms tend to over-expand beyond the point of economic efficiency. In particular, the expectation of a bailout when things go wrong will lead large financial institutions to grow too much and take on too much risk. [...] we can offset the effects of the subsidy with a tax. If well written, the new tax law would counteract the effects of the implicit subsidies from expected future bailouts."
Bank tax is not too great of a burden on banks

Peter Eavis. "Obama's gentle bank tax." Wall Street Journal. January 14, 2010: "Will Obama's bank tax be that taxing for the banks? [...] Let's say the administration wants to raise about $100 billion over 10 years by taxing market debt. Paying out $10 billion a year is no sweat for an industry that, according to Goldman Sachs, made $250 billion in earnings before taxes and loan-loss provisions last year. And it won't drive up their funding costs by much. Goldman estimates $5.5 trillion of nondeposit liabilities at large banks. To get to $100 billion in 10 years on that sum would mean the banks paying a manageable 0.2 percentage point extra a year."
Bank tax recoups taxpayer bailout of banks

Jill Schlesinger. "Bank Tax, TARP Tax: Obama's "We Want Our Money Back Fees." Huffington Post. January 14, 2010: "The rationale behind the tax/fee is basically this: the banks took us to the edge of the abyss because of their excessive risk-taking. Only massive amounts of emergency taxpayer money saved the system from total collapse. Although many of the big banks have already repaid TARP and in doing so, the government made money on those specific investments, there will still be money lost in the plan. The fee attempts to recoup those losses over the next years."
2010 bank tax will deter future risk-taking by banks

"Obama's bank tax will only work if there's a master plan in place." Telegraph. January 14, 2010: "The Obama bank levy is intended to do more than punish banks. It will, if it works, not only make banks pay retrospectively for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) but change their behaviour in the future. The message that state bail-outs will not be cost free should act as a deterrent and the favourable treatment of deposit-taking institutions is designed to make some sorts of business – those the government wishes to encourage – more desirable than others."
Bank tax recoups profits made on backs of taxpayers

Simon Nixon. "Windfalls Show That Bonus Tax Makes Sense." Wall Street Journal. October 20, 2009: "A windfall tax is blunt, arbitrary and something supporters of free markets usually instinctively avoid. Even so, following news that Goldman Sachs Group has already set aside a $16.7 billion bonus pool for 2009, the case for windfall taxes on banks that pay giant bonuses is becoming unanswerable. [...] This year's bank profits are windfalls in the purest sense. They aren't the due rewards for exceptional skill but gifts from taxpayers. Many banks are earning huge, risk-free profits borrowing from central banks at ultralow interest rates and lending back to governments at much-higher rates. If this giant, hidden subsidy was being used to support new lending, fair enough. Instead, it looks destined for bankers' pockets."
2010 bank tax will raise less revenue due to evasion

Jeffrey Miron. "Bailing out the Banks Was Wrong, but New Tax Won't Make It Right." Investor's Business Daily. January 14, 2010: "The proposed tax will also raise less revenue than promised, again because those subject to the tax will take steps to avoid it. Relocation overseas is one approach; accounting gimmickry is another. The net revenue raised may even be negative because the U.S. will not collect income or payroll taxes from those thrown out of work by an exodus of financial institutions."
Bank tax will not reduce risk-taking at banks

"Bank tax won't solve problems." Denver Post Editorial. January 14, 2010: "we question whether it will be structured fairly and if it truly will discourage the kinds of risky behavior that led to the financial crisis — and if that's even the proper role of this particular tax [...] Isn't it the role of regulation to expose and even prevent the use of the crazy derivatives that led to the recent credit crisis? It's clear that during this last crisis the markets were incapable of assessing the risk that financial institutions were taking. [...] Greater transparency and reporting requirements would give the markets the ability to analyze risks and set value accordingly. [...] We'd like to see more progress on those fronts rather than assessing taxes that very well could be passed on to consumers and shareholders."