"If you use or sell drugs the penalty is death.'
That would stop the scourge in its tracks and we could reduce the size of our massive police forces.
We'd probably lose a lot of politicians.
A howling success, eh? Then why did Singapore and Iran have such severe heroin problems when compared to the Netherlands:
"Iran has executed more than 10,000 narcotics traffickers in the last decade;"
--www.payvand.com/news/04/mar/1012.htm
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"Iran has the highest proportion of heroin addicts in the world and a growing Aids problem."
--news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/3791889.stm
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"The GOS [Government of Singapore] nonetheless is concerned about the increase in addiction rates and recidivism among drug offenders who have undergone treatment. There are currently about 9,000 addicts undergoing rehabilitation in Singapore treatment centers, the same number as in 1995."
--http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1996_narc_report/index.html
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The Netherlands-- "Demand Reduction. The Netherlands has extensive demand reduction programs and lowthreshold medical services for addicts, who are also offered drug rehabilitation programs. Authorities believe such programs reach about 7080 percent of the country's 25,000 harddrug users. [my note: in a total population of 15.1 million]
--http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1996_narc_report/index.html
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Using a population of 3 million for Singapore in 1996, that works out to an addiction rate of about 0.30%. Using the State Dept. figures for the Netherlands, and a population of 15.1 million, the addiction rate was about 0.17%. Nearly double!
Also note that the Singapore figure only takes into account the addicts under treatment, whereas the figure for Holland is the estimate of the total number of addicts.
Any thoughts?