Pubdate: Wed, 14 Mar 2001
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Copyright: 2001 The Sydney Morning Herald
Contact:  GPO Box 3771, Sydney NSW 2001
Fax: 61-(0)2-9282 3492
Website: http://www.smh.com.au/
Forum: http://forums.fairfax.com.au/
Author: Dr Michael Dawson
Note: Headline supplied by newshawk

NO LAW CAN STOP DRUG DEPENDENCE

Clinical psychologist Ross Colquhoun's arguments (Letters, March 13) 
supporting the current prohibition of heroin are exactly those used 
during the 1930s to support the continued prohibition of alcohol.

Sure, no-one denies that there were less alcoholics as a result of 
the prohibition of alcohol early this century. The problem with 
prohibition was that the small gains in the reduction of the use of 
alcohol came at great cost to society in terms of crime, deaths from 
adulterated grog and corruption of police and public officials. The 
community finally realised that prohibition of alcohol caused more 
harm than good and forced politicians to repeal the relevant laws.

A sad fact is that there will always be people who become dependent 
on drugs, be it alcohol, heroin or something else, and no law will 
ever change that.

An even sadder fact is that there will always be people prepared to 
profit from those who become drug-dependent without any regard of the 
cost to the community as a whole. However, changes to the laws 
regarding use of illicit drugs would certainly change that.

Dr Michael Dawson, University of Technology, Sydney, Sydney, March 13.
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