In message 
          Cynic  wrote:

> >Agreed - but the evidence is clear that drug abuse *does* harm other people,
> >from the idiot who runs amok with a knife to all of us who have to fork out
> >extra in the NHS budget to pay for the treatment of alcoholics, lung cancer
> >and heart disease sufferers, paranoid schizophrenics and all the rest.
 
> The flaw in that thinking is that prohibition does *more* harm that
> the effects of the drugs on the drug users.

Really? Did you hear the report this morning that 500 people are admitted to
hospital every week in the UK because of cannabis use? And that since the
relaxing of the laws against cannabis use, the number of hospital admissions
have gone up 50%?

Not only is there the human cost of all that suffering - which frankly
leaves me cold; if someone falls ill because of something they have
deliberately taken despite warnings against so doing, I feel no urge to leap
in to relieve their sufferings - there is the fact that all that money - the
hospital beds, the nurses and doctors, the medications - not only comes out
of *my* pocket, but it could be used for treating people who really are sick.

Ken Down

-- 
================ ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIGGINGS ===============
|     Australia's premier archaeological magazine      |
|             http://www.diggingsonline.com            |
========================================================