“Laws prohibiting consensual deviant exchanges damage the public’s respect for law.”

This is a comment by Andrew on the post “Open Thread: Should Drugs Be Legalized?“

“The argument for the legalization of “victimless crimes” including drug use, the sex trade, and polygamy (among others) can be summarized by these 7 points. These were pulled from my ‘Sociology of Deviance’ textbook (cross listed as a Criminal Justice class), ‘Images of Deviance and Social Control.’ You can pick your reason, but this is the generally accepted set of reasons within Sociological and Criminological circles. There are others, but they are based on extrapolations of this list. Being labeled a felon or spending more than 3 years in prison significantly increases the likelihood of reoffending, for instance, which is based on principles 4, 6, and 7.

Laws prohibiting consensual deviant exchanges are essentially unenforceable.
Laws prohibiting consensual deviant exchanges lead to discriminatory enforcement patterns.
Laws prohibiting consensual deviant exchanges encourage deviant behavior on the part of social control agents.
Laws prohibiting consensual deviant exchanges may increase secondary deviance.
Laws prohibiting consensual deviant exchanges are extremely costly to enforce.
Laws prohibiting consensual deviant exchanges support organized crime.
Laws prohibiting consensual deviant exchanges damage the public’s respect for law.”