On Monday, December 2, 2002, at 07:31 PM, Tom of Bunyon wrote:

>>
>> The US approach, Historically has been to have a very aggressive, zero
>> tolerance approach, yet, I believe it has the highest drug use (per
> person)
>> in the western world.  Clearly that approach doesn't work.
>
> I think the high use is because of it being really lucrative - which
> causes
> a huge recruitment effort by crooks to get new people hooked. If there
> was
> no way to make money off it, the recruitment would dry up and usage
> would
> fall off.

Close. Failure to legalize drugs (and, of course, controlling them in
the same manner as many of our other dangerous drugs) provides
opportunities for suppliers which, in turn, motivates our government to
have a costly "War on Drugs" directed against the suppliers (instead of
the users) which, in turn, causes the prices to rise, which, in turn,
attracts more suppliers, which, in turn, makes it impossible for us to
win the "War on Drugs".

Ho Hum.

FW

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *