Let's face it, Fractelle, for someone who claims to be a bean-counter, poor old Col isn't very good with numbers.

The Age carried a story this morning quoting Mick Keelty in relation to the recent "successes" of the AFP in seizing large quantities of drugs and precursor chemicals and charging some allegedly responsible for the importation.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/thirst-for-party-drugs-will-keep-trade-thriving-keelty-20080815-3we4.html?page=-1

Mr Keelty makes the obvious point that these people are catering to a large market demand and that people are prepared to pay a premium price for the drugs that are imported. Let's do a simple set of calculations and hope that poor old hysterical Col can keep up, shall we?

The AFP claims to have intercepted 14.6 tonnes of such substances in the past three months, largely either ecstasy or amphetamines or pseudo-ephedrine, which is a precursor for amphetamines. A generous dose for either ecstasy or speed is perhaps 200mg (that's 5 doses per gram for you, Col), which means that these chemicals would have provided, at a minimum, 14600000g x 5 = 73 million doses. For Col, that means that there was enough seized to provide every Australian with 3.5 doses. Mr Keelty himself says that while this is a large amount, it will have no impact whatever on the price or availability of the substances, nor on the demand for them. These things are popular, widely used and widely available. Many of those who use amphetamines would use perhaps 10 or more doses across a weekend and happily turn up at work on Monday, probably less grumpy and certainly more capable than Col, who stuck to his bottles of plonk. Imagine how Col would be if he'd drunk 10 times the effective dose of alcohol over the same time?

Over that weekend, there would have been many hospitalisations for MV accidents and personal assaults, nearly all of which would have involved Col's favoured drug and few that would have involved amphetamines alone. You still keeping up, Col, or has the hangover got you down?

Antiseptic,
A friend attended an ecstasy party (Netherlands) with about 30-35 people present. A bowl with around two hundred ecstasy tablets sat on the table for people to grab. There was no alcohol present, just water, juice and sports drinks.
The police turned up to warn about the loud music after a neighbour had complained about it and spotted the bowl of ecstasies. They told everyone that there wouldn’t be a problem if the music was kept down and nobody would drive home. Only two people had arrived by car anyway because they were going to sleep over, but they were asked to hand in their car keys, which they could pick up from the police station the next day.
The police left, the music was kept down and there were no problems whatsoever.

Col,
Why would it be a crime if a group of people wanted to choose ecstasy over alcohol at a party but caused no one harm?
Can you imagine how much time it would have taken the police to make arrests, do all the paperwork for no good reason? And taxpayers would have to pay for 'the service'.
There was no crime, no violence, just a fun party.

The police were able to get on with chasing the real criminals (probably alcohol-induced violence) and the party could continue.
Nobody at this party needed to be over-protected by some interfering government.
These people and many others use ecstasy on occasions, for fun and recreation.

During my teenage and young adult years ALL of my friends have experimented with drugs at some stage, and even some of the older generation, like my grandmother, wanted to try stuff to find out “what all the fuss was about”.
I only know of one who has never taken an illicit drug.
Nobody I know however has become addicted or turned into a psycho; in fact the vast majority have become health-conscious, responsible people with jobs and families and who either use recreational drugs very occasionally or not at all.

But I have known several alcoholics who died from their drinking habit.

Hmmm, decision, decisions.

I could post a well thought through and reasonable post like Celivia's (wish I was a teen again but this time in Amsterdam)

....or....I could go with....

CJ & Antiseptic

I imagine that dear old Col won’t be surfacing for a while yet, his last post was made at 3.00 AM – an odd time for a chap his age to still be online. One considers whether he had indeed been partaking of a bottle of red or two.

OK. What we know about Col.

1. Prison Officer partner
2. Sees drug addicts as crims
3. Professional tax avoider (bean counter)
4. Abhors government ‘interference’
5. Worships individualism over cooperation

CONCLUSION
Col supports the black market, admires the drug lord entrepreneur and any attempt to legalise drugs would threaten his income stream.

CJMorgan “insulting anybody who happens to argue against it.”

I am arguing against Celivia, I see no insults from her, you will find none of her from me.

Steel “Col You can't do simple mathematics “

Antiseptic “Let's face it, Fractelle, for someone who claims to be a bean-counter, poor old Col isn't very good with numbers.”

Fractelle “clearly you require special care.”

When people want to abuse me, I make no apology for responding in kind.

So CJM, your usually vacuous comments, running like a wimp behind the pack, ready to pick up some missed piece of offal from when the pack attacks, I have the measure of you CJM and to be honest

It don’t add up to much.

To the posts concerning the dangers of alcohol and tobacco

Making the most convincing case to reduce public accessibility to alcohol or tobacco, in no way supports a case to decriminalize drugs which are presently illegal.

Celivia “Col, Why would it be a crime if a group of people…..”

If you think the case for the legalization of ecstasy is so compelling, you can find some here-today, gone-tomorrow politician to support your cause, then do so but until then, popping ecstasy is no different to any other illegal act.

Having condoned one 'illegal act'

How and where do you draw the line, someone ODing on your sofa?

Persuading yourself there is no harm in it is for you and your conscience but do not ask me to condone the illegal.

“During my teenage and young adult years ALL of my friends have experimented with drugs”

Me too, with Cannabis and friends who injected.

“But I have known several alcoholics who died from their drinking habit.”

Likewise and people who OD when they were only 20 too…

The point is, to ‘OD’ on alcohol usually takes a lot longer than heroin or illegal pills (I do not wonder why).

“Nobody I know however has become addicted or turned into a psycho;”

You are lucky, it has happened in front of me and I know people who died because of it

Col,
“popping ecstasy is no different to any other illegal act”
I just want to point out that it makes no sense to outlaw a drug that is less harmful than a legal drug.

Agree that taking drugs can be harmful; that drugs harm people’s health and that some people overdose on drugs.
However, the chance of overdosing is much higher when drugs are illegal than when they are legal, regulated and controlled.

When someone takes an illegal drug there is the risk that the ingredients are less than pure, that the quality is poor.
But when drugs are legal, like alcohol, people can choose to buy their drugs from a licensed seller who sells pure, standard strength and quality drugs, rather than from a risky black market.
Legalising drugs would reduce overdosing because the strength of the drug would be constant and known to the user.

“The point is, to ‘OD’ on alcohol usually takes a lot longer than heroin or illegal pills (I do not wonder why).”
You're correct but you’re comparing a legal drug to illegal drugs. Legal drugs are controlled and regulated, whereas illegal drugs are not. That’s not a fair comparison.

Alcohol can cause instant deaths if alcohol were not legalised, not regulated and controlled.
That happened in the US in the 1920’s and it is happening today in countries where alcohol is illegal.
For example,

“PAKISTAN: Illegal alcohol continues to cause deaths.
MULTAN, 21 September 2004
Pakistan's human rights activists have criticised the government for what they call its disregard for public health after 42 people died after drinking poisonous home-made alcohol in the eastern city of Multan in Punjab province. Consumption of liquor by Muslims is banned in Pakistan under the country's prohibition laws dating back to the 1970s.

Officially two breweries operate in the country to serve non-Muslim communities, who form just 3 percent of the 150-million-member Muslim state. But potent home-made liquors are manufactured illegally in several parts of the country in often unhygienic conditions and using dangerous ingredients.”
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=26367

Do you understand what I've been trying to say?

Col

"So you have come back here to throw ad homenines(sic) around, as usual,"

My assessment of you as moronic is based on the standard of your reasoning. And you continue to maintain your standard.

"I smoked for 25 years. I went ‘cold turkey’ and stopped. No symptoms of physical withdraw. It is not physically addictive."

For you perhaps, but your own experience is not a measure for society. Yet your whole approach in this thread has been one of making unsupported assumptions and pronouncements, with a good deal of scaremongering and vilification of drug addicts thrown in.

And what is my contribution? I have no idea of the best way of managing illegal drugs, but I would rather see a system come about empirically than by the dictate of a conceited old windbag. I think that large numbers of intelligent and informed people, working in a coordinated fashion to define and solve a problem can offer far more. There is so much about addiction which is unknown, and it is the unknown which causes fear and irrationality, both of which are major barriers to understanding.