Aussie idiots chase their own tails but never mention the War

Discarded syringes in a Kings Cross gutter
- this is not what prohibition is supposed to look like.

Why are there so many idiots in Australia? Especially, it seems, among police, politicians, academics and journalists.

A lengthy piece on ABC Radio National this morning looked at the escalating War on Bikies in Queensland and Victoria, where they are apparently supplying methamphetamines (Ice) more and more into regional and country towns.

Duh, you dumbos, listen up: THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS UNDER PROHIBITION!
As usual, however, prohibition was not mentioned once in any report on the above that I heard.

The brilliantly intelligent Queensland government is going to - wait for it - ban bikies from working in tattoo parlours!!! Woo-hoo, that'll do it!

RN's James Carlton this morning interviewed Criminal Law Professor Andreas Schloenhardt from Queensland University who specialises in organised crime and 'narcotrafficking'.

Carlton asked Prof Schloenhardt what was the root cause of the drugs/gangs problem. Professor Schloenhardt replied: "That's the $64 million dollar question". I'm thinking: "Here comes a mention of Prohibition!" but no -  he went on to say that we needed to do more research into the gangs and "engage" with them. Hello! Engage with the nice bikies and they'll just stop dealing drugs? Is this gentleman serious? No doubt the professor himself would be the best person to get any such funding.

Mind you Radio National might have edited out talk of prohibition, in which case I apologise to the good professor but it looks like the old pattern of people making money from prohibition having a vested interest in defending it.

Contrast this imbecilic Australian discourse with what's going on in the UK, where Durham's chief constable Mike Barton - the intelligence lead for the Association of Chief Police Officers - wrote an opinion piece in The Observer calling for decriminalisation and regulation of Class A drugs because "prohibition had put billions of pounds into the hands of villains who sell adulterated drugs on the streets".

Britain's police forces all map the activities of organised crime. In my force area we have 43 organised crime groups on our radar. Most of them have their primary source of income in illicit drug supply; all of them are involved in some way. These criminals are often local heroes and role models for young people who covet their wealth. Decriminalising their commodity will immediately cut off their income stream and destroy their power.

In a separate BBC piece, medical researchers show that the "War on illegal drugs is failing" because the drugs "are now cheaper and purer than at any time over the last 20 years".

The report said street prices of drugs had fallen in real terms between 1990 and 2010, while their purity and potency had increased. In Europe, for example, the average price of opiates and cocaine, adjusted for inflation and purity, decreased by 74% and 51% respectively between 1990 and 2010, the Vancouver-based centre said. The seven drug surveillance systems the study looked at had at least 10 years of information on the price and purity of cannabis, cocaine and opiates, including heroin.

Among the 945 comments underneath that story was this bit of light relief:

"Only a user loses drugs" - Wideboy