NO LAW CAN STOP DRUG DEPENDENCE

Clinical psychologist Ross Colquhoun's arguments (Letters, March 13)
supporting the current prohibition of heroin are exactly those used
during the 1930s to support the continued prohibition of alcohol.

Sure, no-one denies that there were less alcoholics as a result of
the prohibition of alcohol early this century. The problem with
prohibition was that the small gains in the reduction of the use of
alcohol came at great cost to society in terms of crime, deaths from
adulterated grog and corruption of police and public officials. The
community finally realised that prohibition of alcohol caused more
harm than good and forced politicians to repeal the relevant laws.

A sad fact is that there will always be people who become dependent
on drugs, be it alcohol, heroin or something else, and no law will
ever change that.

An even sadder fact is that there will always be people prepared to
profit from those who become drug-dependent without any regard of the
cost to the community as a whole. However, changes to the laws
regarding use of illicit drugs would certainly change that.

Dr Michael Dawson, University of Technology, Sydney, Sydney, March 13.