Aaron,
a good idea,unfortunately our one an only armoured regiment is otherwise engaged bringing peace and prosperity to the people of Iraq, thats whats left of it of course.A march by was contemplated for the munchkin in Canberra but a dispute arose amoungst the building contractors for the erection of the podium when it was discovered that Amanda Vandstone was to take the salute.According to the structural engineer a podium certified to take this type of weight could only be designed and built in Holland.The Dutch being masters of heavy salvage operations.

In the end the project was vetoed by the treasurer who said the money would be better spent on an adverising campaign education the public on the difference between poop and clay.

As to cruel and un-usual punishment,the form of for want of a better word re-education, as I described has been used in other country's before remember Hitler.There ve vas drinking a little snapps the next think ve know ve are in Poland

Returning to this discussion I see that we now have over 30 posts. I was sufficiently interested in Greg Barns’ article to check on responses only to find the first post by Col Rouge talking about “paedophiles, “appeasement” and “filth”. To get some balance I criticized his approach and made my own small contribution to the debate.

I now see that Col (11th post) has had a go at me. His criticism of my spelling of pedophile (acceptable nowadays) is a bit rich when he doesn’t know the difference between “there” and “their” and can’t even spell Van Nguyen's name correctly!

Having a look through the various posts there seems to be some variety of opinions and a bit of humour too. Whilst I’m in favour of Greg Barns’ approach, I’m interested in the arguments of those who are not.

There seems to be a small fringe of extreme anti-liberalization people. Taking Col as an example, he seems to be incapable of any sustained argument and to be prone to personal abuse. He’s probably allowed to vote too. Take a cold shower Col and try some meditation. Take a beginner’s course in logic too.

Is “filth” an appropriate term for a 24 year old man who was subjected to state-sanctioned murder last Friday because he was forced by triads to break the law to get his twin brother out of a fix

Ahh the irony. The execution of a drug dealer is evidence of the failure in the war on drugs?

That Milton Friedman thinks the costs of legalizing <b>marijuana</b> are less than the costs of keeping it criminalized does not mean that he believes that for the 'harder' drugs. Of course, you wouldn't know it by reading Greg's article.

Greg's article sounds 'reasonable', yet it doesn't seem to be saying much. As we don't necessarily know the effects of legalization, all it is is a gamble with the lives of those we should be protecting and nuturing.

Given the record of legalized alcohol and tobacco, it is quite clear that it provides a higher level of accessability and acceptability which leads to a higher level of use.

A clear case example is when Britian legalized Heroin use, so that users could register to obtain it from pharmacies. This resulted in a dramatic increase in heroin use (it doubled) and also in illegal heroin imports (it tripled) as users supplemented the legal heroin with higher strength illegal heroin. For those who argue we can ration illegal drugs, this shows how out of touch the idea really is.

Many other examples show that legalizing drugs increases use, even amongst teenagers. A look into the history of marijuana in the US between 1972 and 1978 clearly shows that when legalized, marijuana use more than doubled for teenages and tripled for adults.

As a side note, even though I don't advocate theocracy, I could have written much the same piece but interchanged 'the war on drugs' with secularism, provided many examples of smart people who thought Christian morals are the real answer to the drug problem and so we should make our society a christian state. The logic and content would be virtually identical to Greg's.

I suffer from chronic pain and would like to see certain drugs legalised for ones own use. Yes I can get pain relief medication, but the side effects I end up with are sometimes worse than the pain.
I have 2 choices use an illegal drug or suicide. Come on Tony Abbot and John Howard it is about time you looked at the whole picture and not just the addiction side of it.

I agree with legalising drungs, one one condition, if you commit a crime or injure someone whilst under the infoulence of any drug, you get double the sentence. That should go for tobacco, prescription drugs, alcohol or even chemicals in food as they also alter our mental state.
It is not the drug that is the probl;em, but the economics of it. Shooting rooms, needle exchanges, methodone are all just money makers for large corporations and of no benefit to the user.

I find most things that Barns says to be totally obnoxious and very far from reality. I put that down to his mental state and his use of prescription drugs for his lack of understanding of reality. But he does have a point regarding drugs.

Surely we have matured enough as a scoiety to have laws that punish people who aren't prepared to taske responsibility for themsleves adn their actions. So take your drugs ansd enjoy them, but impose what they do to you on others and copm the consequences big time.

The reason they won't use dope for medicinal purposoes is because they can't control it like they can pharmecuticals and unlike pharmecutical drugs, it actually does relieve chronic pain, rather than just ruin your health

Drug law reform is much needed and long overdue. What is desperately needed is a monumental shift from a criminal focus to a health and education focus. Essentially drug use must be viewed as a health concern not a criminal concern. The money funneled into law enforcement must be alocated to healthcare and education.

It is surprissing that this debate was not raised dureing Corbys trial, the Bali nine, or before the death of Van Nguyen. I hope the debate continues before more innocent children are killed by the 'War on Drugs'.