PROHIBITION HAS NEVER WORKED

After reading Swedish MP Malou Lindholm's comments that our needle-exchange
programs should be closed because they encourage drug use (Daily Telegraph,
June 14). I ask: where is the evidence?

I thought we had the lowest HIV-AIDS rate in the world because of needle
exchanges, with no evidence of increased use because of it.

Come to think of it, where is the evidence that prohibition has ever done
anything but increase drug use in any country, any time?

Apparently Sweden is the only country in the world where prohibition of
drugs has worked, but all we have heard from Ms Lindholm is the same old
prohibitionist rhetoric about getting tough on drugs and a clearly
ill-informed comment about our needle exchanges.

The US spends 10 times as much on the drug war as Australia per head of
population and has, unless you believe Major Brian Watters, the worst drug
problem in the world, with teenage heroin use skyrocketing.

Are we expected to believe that the Swedes, with similar policies as
espoused by Ms Lindholm are achieving the opposite results?

Andy Smoother, Roselands