Pubdate: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 Source: Daily Telegraph (Australia) Copyright: News Limited 2000 Contact: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ Author: Andy Smoother PROHIBITION HAS NEVER WORKED After reading Swedish MP Malou Lindholm's comments that our needle-exchange programs should be closed because they encourage drug use (Daily Telegraph, June 14). I ask: where is the evidence? I thought we had the lowest HIV-AIDS rate in the world because of needle exchanges, with no evidence of increased use because of it. Come to think of it, where is the evidence that prohibition has ever done anything but increase drug use in any country, any time? Apparently Sweden is the only country in the world where prohibition of drugs has worked, but all we have heard from Ms Lindholm is the same old prohibitionist rhetoric about getting tough on drugs and a clearly ill-informed comment about our needle exchanges. The US spends 10 times as much on the drug war as Australia per head of population and has, unless you believe Major Brian Watters, the worst drug problem in the world, with teenage heroin use skyrocketing. Are we expected to believe that the Swedes, with similar policies as espoused by Ms Lindholm are achieving the opposite results? Andy Smoother, Roselands - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D