Excellent article, thank you. When I was young, I was briefly a sex worker in New York City, and I experienced directly how toxic criminalization is, for all the reasons you lay out so well.

I would add, for those people who are afraid of the social consequences of decriminalization, that we have only to look to nations where decriminalization has already taken place. None of the fears pushed by vocal opponents of decriminalization have come to pass in those places.

There is no downside.