Re: I kid yea not!

Well I'm glad you mentioned that since I too believe you can't 'magic up' images from nowhere so making possession legal would imply making distribution and sharing legal too. Only a step away from allowing production perhaps, especially if the origins of creation can be obfuscated by manipulating the images.

No?

Regardless of my own position, I can perfectly see the intermediate stages. Drugs are again a good analogy. For many illegal drugs, possession of a certain amount is legal, but distribution, whether by sale or free sharing, is not. Even for prima facie legal drugs, many are sold with regulations and the possessor is not allowed to distribute them - distribution being limited to registered vendors or through the use of medical prescriptions. In North America, for instance, in many jurisdictions the sale of alcohol (or some kinds thereof) is a government monopoly, although possession is legal and consumption, except for the legal ages attached, is also legal.

I see no reason why possession of KP cannot be legalized without legalizing distribution (although I would probably not support such change). And I certainly see no reason why distribution cannot be legalized without legalizing sale or purchase, which destroys most of the arguments of many anti-KP lobbies (not yours, yours are generally speaking more "essential.") Why not, I ask here, a government monopoly? But even after all of this, I certainly see how can you legalize possession, or possession and distribution, or possession, distribution and sale, and not production. It is extremely lazy policing that which prosecutes the intermediaries or the final consumers of an illegal product, whether that is drugs, KP, extra large beverages, or Muhammad cartoons, and not the producers thereof. You know, it forces the police to actually follow tracks and find clues and do investigative work, just in order to locate the producers!

especially if the origins of creation can be obfuscated by manipulating the images.

Histograms reveal manipulation even in images that are well done to the naked eye. And if you mean creating blurs or black squares to cover identifiable details, well, that wouldn't happen if it was legal, would it? So police would have internal clues to follow!

Do you think we need the children to take a vote on this?

Should the women vote on whether they want to vote?

We pretty much know what it can entail from the testimonies of the victims - Masha Allen abused from the age of five - how much detail do you want. Her testimony is online.

We know what Masha endured. We also know that most images criminalized are not Masha's.