[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Sweden
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Sweden#Current...
The twist is probably based on the supposition that for selling to be illegal would mean endangering the the lives of sex workers, who (I assume, as the reasoning goes) are likely to be financially vulnerable. When selling is illegal, there is more risk for the person rendering the services.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/amnesty-inter...
> “If a customer is bad you need to manage it yourself to the end. You only call the police if you think you are going to die. If you call the police, you lose everything.”
> --Sex worker in Norway
> Amnesty International heard how some sex workers who have reported violence to the police in Norway have been evicted from their homes or deported as a result of engaging with the police.
> Under Norway’s laws, sex workers are at risk of forced evictions as their landlords can be prosecuted for renting property to them if they sell sex there.
> A representative of a Norwegian sex workers’ rights organization explained: “If landlords don’t evict, the police will launch a criminal case against them...The police are encouraging landlords to take the law into their own hands and enforce it themselves.”
> People who do sex work are also unable to work together for safety, or hire third party support like security, as this would likely qualify as ‘promotion of prostitution’ under the law.
That will always vary country to country - in the UK diacetylmorphine is medicine, despite being highest schedule. And poppy straw is class A just as fentanyl. Does that make it correct to say they are "literally equated"? That's absurd.
(Not saying there aren't very dumb things about the national anti-harm reduction approach, but the scheduling isn't exactly unique internationally, nor really an aspect of what makes the system a massive mess).
Sex work is not criminalized, as you yourself point out.
For instance, in many states, it is both a felony to steal something worth $300 and commit murder. No one on the planet would say they are equal. In the same way, I doubt there are any legislators in Sweden who say that cannibis and heroin are scientifically equal. They're just classified the same for legal purposes.
That doesn't match your analogy, where the two crimes - while both classified as felonies - have radically sentencing guidelines.
Nobody is. It's like saying stealing and murder shouldn't both be considered crimes because they're so different. Felonies are just crimes that are considered more serious than lower crimes (misdemeanors)--there are loads of grade and classifications within that spectrum. Felonies tied to monetary values are generally written when $X monetary value is a large amount. $300 could've easily been a full month's rent a few decades back, so it was written as a serious offense.
The problem is the law is incredibly slow to update with the times.