its not banned because it makes the Country too much money...
Prevention is way way better, but really making harsher punishments isn't the answer, its the mentality of the people of Australia that has to change, not what we can and can't do with certain substances.
I don't know if you have ever been to Sydney city before and after the 2am lock out that pubs and clubs trialled, baically the gov said all clubs ect.... will not allow people to go back into clubs after 2am, what did this do? 2am-4am there was a 10fold amount of pedestrians getting hit by cars, another 10 fold in arguments and fights created, there were so many intoxicated people thrown onto the streets all at once that the city on friday and saturday nights went crazy and the boys in blue couldnt cope, paramedics couldn't cope. I'm not saying that it is anyones fault other than the drunks themselves for the problem created with 2am lock outs, but the fact is there is way too many drunk people of ALL ages that makes it very hard to come to a reasonable solution.
If ciggies were banned there wouldn't be anywhere near as an economic and public unrest situation than if Alcohol was banned. Its all good and well to say to ban it, but really if you did ban it the hospitals would shrink, police and security force will shrink, a masive loss of government revenue will be lost, taxi's, trains, busses, rental property, city and near city realestate would fall both commercial and residential and not to mention millions of other people who directly and indirectly depend on alcohol for a means of income.
Alcohol is the oldest man made form of beverage, can you really ban something that has religous significance to millions of christians of Australia? can you tell the story of jesus turning water to wine, and then have people asking what is wine and how come it was good enough for jesus but not good enough for us? Wouldn't that be like banning all religion because some wirdo's start a cult that ends in mass suicide?
There are too many different reasons as to why banning alcohol wouldn't work for the greater good of society, sure you can sleep better at night knowing people arn't going to be getting into trouble because of being drunk, you won't get killed by a drunk driver ect.... but have you considered you probably wont have a job seeing as the major cause of police work is caused because of idiots drinking too much? AUstralias economy will shrink signifficantly.
Also if other countries can deal with it better, why don't we see what they do different, maybe that can help us understand how we can have alcohol and a better functioning society at the same time. I don't understand why we all know that America is going down the drain, yet we still try to coppy what they do even though we know that what they do doesn't seem to be helping their social situation.
Really we need stricter police legislation to deal with drunks because really this whole situation stems from beuracrats trying to tell the police what they can and can't do, if someone is undermining your authority, what authority do you have? I say make it like the old days where the cops did there jobs and didn't have to worry about getting sued or stood down
