If you take away alcohol and gambling - which history has shown to be pointless and MORE detrimental - the people who can't control themselves for whatever reason will either take it underground or find something else to lose themselves on. After all, it's not actually the alcohol and the gambling that is the problem.

Here is the question again:

<<If the majority of Australians were to forgo alcohol and gambling (and do so willing thereby eliminating the prospect of a black economy emerging) would society not be better off?>>

Since noone appears to be prepared to argue against (correct me if i'm wrong), should i presume that people agree that society would be better off if the majority of Australians were to WILLINGLY forgo alcohol and gambling?

J.P. Morgan: you have a go while we wait for Dotto and Pericles. Speak to the topic. What is your answer?

The answer to your question, Grateful, is NO.

Our funloving society would only replace these pleasures with other pursuits.
In any case it is a very unlikely situation that people used to living freely in Australia would ever 'willingly' do such a thing!
The vast majority of people who drink or gamble do so responsibly.

I want to ask you a question Grateful.

If a country where alcohol and gambling was banned were told the people could now have their own free will restored to them, and be able to drink or gamble if they chose to, would they feel less restricted in their life?

Grateful>>On the other hand, if everyone were to forgo alcohol and gambling (and do so willing thereby eliiminating the prospect of a black economy emerging) would society not be better off?

Or, if all radicle religions were to cease practicing and refrain from taking thier beliefs beyond thier private homes and places of worship, wouldn't society, as a whole, be better off.

YES!

A quite fag or beer never hurts anyone other than the user, same goes for one following thier religious faith, it's just when they take thier way of life and impose it on others that the problems begin.

Grateful:"Clearly it would be wrong to say, as you did, that coercion would be necessary, because Muslims prove this wrong "

LMAO. I am friends with 2 Moslems, one from Pakistan and one from Indonesia. Both attend Mosque regularly although neither observes the daily prayer requirements. Both of them drink.

Your question:"If the majority of Australians were to forgo alcohol and gambling (and do so willing thereby eliminating the prospect of a black economy emerging) would society not be better off?"

is putting a utopian view that can never be realised. Most people would NOT forego these things willingly, so your question is pointless. There are any number of Utopian postulates that could be put forward in the same vein:
if people were nice to each other willingly would we need police?
if all drivers behaved perfectly on the road at all times would we need to have invented insurance?
if nighttime was day time would we need night lights?

If sure you get the idea. It seems you've already decided that the coercion required to get people to forego their pleasures is not justified on the basis of social good, so you've answered your own question. Whether individual harm comes about as a result of indulging in their pleasures is a matter for the individual.