The principle
On The Bob Zadek Show the phrase “victimless crime” names a libertarian principle rather than a settled legal category. Bob Zadek states it directly in a discussion of prostitution: from a libertarian perspective, in general there cannot be a crime if there isn’t any victim, and behavior that does not hurt anybody cannot be or should not be a crime America, The Most Sexually Hypocritical Nation on Earth (2014). He applies the same framing to drug policy, asking whether the decision to grow and to use marijuana is what the phrase often calls a victimless crime, and why one person’s use is anybody else’s business Legalizing Pot in California (2009).
The principle is presented as a starting point rather than a conclusion. Zadek describes libertarians as always seeming to start with a principle and then applying it to the issue at hand, in that case marijuana use Legalizing Pot in California (2009). In the prostitution episode he extends the reasoning to the act of criminalization itself: the only victim, he argues, is created when conduct that is not otherwise bad is made a crime, because the prostitute is denied a lawful activity and the right to earn money in a way she chooses America, The Most Sexually Hypocritical Nation on Earth (2014).
Marijuana and the harm question
The 2009 episode, on a California proposition to legalize marijuana, stages the concept against an opponent. John Lovell, a lobbyist retained to help defeat the measure, concedes the framing only to reject it: he asks what public good is served by adding another mind-altering substance when people make bad decisions that hurt other people, and calls that the core of the opposition Legalizing Pot in California (2009). He cites Alaska, which he says legalized marijuana from 1978 to 1990, and says use among children rose to 51 percent, double the national average, and highway fatalities went up, leading voters in 1990 to repeal what he calls a failed experiment Legalizing Pot in California (2009).
Zadek answers on freedom grounds. He argues that every prohibition denies people freedom of choice and tells them their private decision-making is not trusted, and he asks whether the state should deny the decision to do something wrong, extending the logic to sugar, trans fats, staying up late and loud music Legalizing Pot in California (2009). The exchange also touches federalism: Lovell defends the Federal Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988, saying the federal government has an interest in a safe workplace and that compliance is a condition precedent to obtaining federal contracts, while Zadek replies that the federal government’s interest in getting a good product is handled through its contracts Legalizing Pot in California (2009).
The 2010 episode supplies the phrase from the guest’s side. Gary Johnson says the goal is to bring about rational drug policy and to stop criminal prosecution of persons who commit really victimless, non-violent crime, and Zadek responds by seizing on the word: “Victimless, you said it exactly” A Better America (2010). Johnson also draws the boundary the principle implies, saying it will never be legal to smoke pot, become impaired, get behind the wheel of a car, or do harm to others A Better America (2010). He adds that the country has the highest incarceration rate in the world on a per capita basis, with 2.3 million people behind bars, and guesses that half of those cases involve drugs and half of those marijuana A Better America (2010).
Prostitution and the displacement of the victim
The 2014 episode with Maggie McNeill works the concept through prostitution. Zadek rejects the argument that the job is inherently dangerous and must therefore be criminalized, comparing it to fishing and to being a Navy SEAL and saying danger is simply a factor a rational person weighs in deciding whether to engage in an activity America, The Most Sexually Hypocritical Nation on Earth (2014). McNeill notes the inconsistency of people who want to crack down on prostitution while wanting women allowed to serve in combat, and argues that some anti-prostitution feminists are against sex itself, citing Sheila Jeffreys, an academic in Australia, as having gone on record saying that all penis-and-vagina sex is rape America, The Most Sexually Hypocritical Nation on Earth (2014).
The sharpest exchange concerns who counts as a victim. McNeill describes the move of saying there is a victim after all, such as the wife, and warns that if that displacement is allowed, the same logic would ban football, smoking or drinking because spouses or children are harmed; she notes that temperance propaganda before Prohibition rested on that reasoning