ea80e3fb   
   XPost: talk.politics.libertarian, alt.drugs, alt.politics.libertarian   
   From: pxhxz@cadence.com   
      
   In article <135b09fd-bc8a-4d2c-8d09-416c09dff501@q14g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>   
   Brother Nate  writes:   
      
   >Without legal barriers and high cost, how many people   
   >would experiment with drugs and suffer health effects   
   >from unfettered addictions?  It just isn't possible to know   
   >that ahead of time, and trying to assess a dollar value   
   >on human suffering is just somewhere nobody needs to   
   >go.   
      
   Note that there are quite a few studies that examine use rates in   
   countries with more lenient laws regarding possession, and those studies   
   indicate that the use and abuse rates are actually lower in a more   
   permissive climate.   
      
   You really can't underestimate the power of the "forbidden fruit" aspect   
   of prohibition.   
      
   It's like the old joke that goes something like "You know the easiest way to   
   get a teenager to do something?  Tell him or her you absolutely forbid it!"   
      
   -Pete Zakel   
    (phz@seeheader.nospam)   
      
   "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."   
      
   				-Voltaire   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)