Legalized Prostitution in Vancouver?
Some people like to call Vancouver, British Columbia the Amsterdam of North America. Here’s why. Marijuana possession has been largely decriminalized in Canada and it is not entirely uncommon for hemp storefronts to sell marijuana under the counter.
It is also the first city in North America to set up safe injection sites for heroin addicts providing the privacy, sterile needles, and counseling that these folks need. No stats yet on whether or not the program is actually helping the addicted wean themselves off the nasty stuff.
The city is also known for its highly liberal attitudes on a variety of social issues from same-sex marriage to environmental protection to “anti-war” activism. Now one group in the city wants to take it to the next level.
What’s left you ask? The legalization of prostitution.
One group of sex trade workers have one approval from the provincial government to incorporate themselves as a “co-op” paving the way for the opening of a legal brothel in time for Vancouver’s hosting of the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Although brothels are illegal in Canada as is procuring, soliciting, or living off the earnings of prostitution, these laws have been recently challenged as unconstitutional. The co-op, to be called the West Coast Co-operative of Sex Industry Professionals, is hoping for an exemption from Parliament by demonstrating that it would be safer to allow prostitutes to work in a single building under their control rather than on the streets.
Something gives me a feeling that the current Conservative-led government won’t be particularly enthusiastic to support this. What do you think?
1 Comment
imagine, a city where it’s safe to go and shoot up but where you might get busted for transacting with a hooker! i wonder how a conservative government can reconcile what already is with what seems to be coming?
i have never understood criminalization of prostitution at all. between consenting (and disease-free) adults, it is simply a service. granted, a service not everyone would care to participate in — but then i don’t take karate lessons or high colonics, either.
the more the government gets out of the way of human beings trying to make nonviolent choices for themselves, the better off all of us will be. there, in vancouver, or here in nyc.