[Xedes]

Originally Posted by kalimus

I'm not trying to ruffle your feathers or anything, but you honestly think that the fact you can go out to any of the hundreds of bars to drink freely doesn't raise the drinking and driving? Yeah, they drank during the prohibition. But they didn't drive out to socialize and meet new people and then go "awww, how am I going to get home?". They had to be more "secretive" about it.

You go to any decent sized city, and you're talking literally dozens of bars within a couple square miles. You can't honestly think that that availability, combined with having to drive to get there, doesn't contribute to DUI.

Actually, I have an even better example. Not that I drank before I was 21... but IF I had... I would have went to a person's house, or a get a hotel room, and I would have gotten drunk, and not went ANYWHERE. I would have done that, because it was illegal for me to drink, and I didn't want to get caught. Now that I'm of age, and it's so socially acceptable to go have some beer with friends, etc etc... I have to plan almost every time I go out.

Increased availability and affordable prices, leads to increased use and consumption with ANY product. Gasoline, electronics, clothes, food... you name it. Drugs are no different. "Happy Hour" anyone?

It's legal to buy marijuana in Amsterdam and they still have a lower consumption rate than the U.S. 28% of their teens use it compared to the United States 41%. Even stranger is the fact that the U.S spends more money on the war on drugs but still have an overall higher rate of users. The percentage of teens that go on to try harder drugs is also higher in the U.S.

Psychologically people want things they can't have or are told they can't have more so than if they are freely available to them.