DOPEY ARGUMENT

THE NSW Health Department acknowledges that there is no reliable data
to show that legal shooting galleries are of any value.

Similarly, the US Supreme Court cannot find any scientific evidence
that cannabis is effective or better than any conventional medicine.

These facts were enough to unleash an irrational torrent of illogic
from Dr Michael Dawson, of the University of Technology, who argues
that popular illegal drugs should be decriminalised.

In a letter responding to last Thursday's column, he also attacked
its content with the non sequitur that there was no mention of the
damage alcohol had wreaked on some Aboriginal communities.

The reason that was not mentioned is simple.

The report on the dangers of marijuana to Aboriginals in the Northern
Territory, which was quoted, didn't discuss the well-known tragic
effects of alcohol.

The real tragedy of Dr Dawson's letter, however, lies not in his
failure to refer to the well-publicised views of the NSW Health
Department or the US Supreme Court, as the column did, but in the
revelation that someone in some way involved with an institute of
learning could present such an illogical argument.