PALE “However its possible that your question is sincere.”

Insincere people do not ask, they simply jump in, half cocked, like Fester and other trolls do.

“I don’t think they actually decriminalized that Island officially”

So not sure how you can assume that is evidence of “success”

“assistance of the crooks in the first place. (They being police and pollies).”

I Would hope we have greater ethical standards than to assume the police and politicians are the prime movers of illegal narcotics, so I cannot see a basis of comparison on that count.

“Decreased- stopped.” So how many to start with and how did it stop, did they all die off and were all buried?

“I don’t see why not. I suppose.”

The issue I would speculate as being similar to asking why the “kibbutz lifestyle” works for small dedicated communities but breaks down when people develop their own families and the numbers grow beyond everyone knowing everyone else, that presents a ‘scalability’ problem which I doubt would be overcome onto a larger population.

“To remove anything from the black market takes away its value and ‘severely’ hurts the dealers and growers as well..”

I cannot see aussie dealers rolling over and accepting that…

To be honest (and sincere), what might work for a small community on a small Greek island, is unlikely to be scalable to work on a national or Aussie state basis.

Festering” Twisting the facts again, Col? The opium problem in China was a result of prohibition, not legalisation.”

Wrong, dullard, the last part of the 19th century, China had legal opium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium#Prohibition_and_conflict_in_China

"Following China's defeat in the Second Opium War in 1858, China was forced to legalize opium and began massive domestic production."

And

"Official Chinese resistance to opium was renewed on September 20, 1906, with an anti-opium initiative . . . . "

you are a numb-nuts, Fester.

I have not “twisted” anything but a moron like you finds ‘twists’ in everything,

I have no reason to change my opinion, except of you and that has sunk even lower than it was.

ColRouge. The USA has a stronger intolerance of drugs than Australia by about x10. Mere possession of a substance (as I understand) can get you imprisoned and a criminal record, or worse. And what do they have for all this? Nothing. Except a huge hole where the billions and billions they spent and are spending still used to be and some extra crime.

Steel "The USA has a stronger intolerance of drugs than Australia"

I did not realise this was a "competition" between Australia and USA.

Please direct me to where that has been mandated.

#Would hope we have greater ethical standards than to assume the police and politicians are the prime movers of illegal narcotics, so I cannot see a basis of comparison on that count.#

Well there’s your first mistake. Once the rot sets in many deal on a daily basis with these people without even knowing it.

Ever hear of money laundering? Never mind. Or do you think all drug dealers and junkies are getting around with their seat out of their pants.

I hesitated before replying to you TBO . Then I thought that would be rude.

You have no idea what I know about drug operations and I am not going to bother to respond to to in future. I spent half of my life working on many operations but of course you know better.

In all honesty I simply made a comment to Celiva end of stor

Pale, thanks for your reply.
I was going to leave the thread because I had to resort to repetition, but since then a few points have come up I’d like to shortly comment on. I’m very busy atm so I have to make it short.
While I love the story of that old man, I do take what he said with a grain of salt.
The logic simply doesn’t add up.
I have tried to do some research about this island and found nothing.
I just figure, that if anywhere in the world there has been a place that effectively got rid of a drug problem, then surely one article or reference must be placed on the internet.

And if the drug problem was solved on this island, then why didn’t the rest of Greece adopt the same method as well?
If for example, Tasmania had a certain method of getting rid of drugs, and it worked, wouldn’t the rest of the states follow Tasmania’s example?

Also, one of the links Col provided about the drugs and abuse is worth looking at- when I have more time hopefully over the weekend I might get back on that.

I really think that drug use numbers have nothing to do with drugs being legal or illegal- people will use them anyway. So it’s better to regulate them so they are safer to use and harder to come by for children and teens.

And I agree with PALE in part- that legalising drugs will get rid of a large part (but probably not all) of the black market.
But I think I've discussed this before so won't go into details here.

Celivia

I too had grown weary of repeating myself, no matter how much research and evidence that has been offered by so many of us, Col and Philo hold an entrenched position from which there is no enlightenment.

I also tire of Col's puerile personal insults such as: "you are a numb-nuts, Fester." Hardly intelligent riposte.

However he made one utterance that deserves placement into the bin of 'deliberate attempts to avoid issue.'

And that's his comment to Steel regarding the USA to make any difference to the illegal drug trade, "I did not realise this was a "competition" between Australia and USA."

Well, no it isn't Col. America is an example of the 'war on drugs' being a complete and utter failure. Your arguments are increasingly feeble.

While I am skeptical with regard to PALE's 'fantasy island', there is a well documented example of drug legalisation working and that is the often mentioned Netherlands.

Many thanks to Fester, CJ Morgan, Antiseptic and others, but with special commendation to Celivia whose patient, reasonable and informative posts simply ran rings around those who have a lot of knee-jerk reaction combined with a paucity of genuine knowledge regarding the black market trade in drugs.

Adios amigos