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You will actually find that before prohibition, when heroin was legal and readily available, there were no deaths at all.
Now it is illegal, heroin kills about 1,000 people per year.
Prohibition in Australia has its origins in the 1920’s when the temperance movement was gathering pace. Regulations restricting the use of heroin, morphine and cocaine were introduced during the 1920’s and 1930’s in accordance with international treaties, predominantly led by the US.
In 1953, despite opposition by the Australian medical profession, the Menzies government, under pressure from the US and its captive UN agencies, passed a law banning the importation and manufacture of heroin.
Before the 1953 law, a heroin addict could get a prescription from his or her local doctor and collect a dose of pharmaceutical-grade heroin, in the form of heroin linctus, from the nearest pharmacy. In 1953, users suffered few indirect side effects from heroin. Property crime linked to narcotics was non-existent and although trafficking in heroin was a criminal offence, there were no prisoners in any Australian jail in relation to drug dealing.
Now under prohibition, heroin will kill about 20 people this week, mainly because of the uncontrolled dosage. Australia ’s 150,000 addicts and regular users, will need, at an estimated $1,000 per head, a massive $150 million this week to feed their habit. This will result in a monstrous amount of muggings, burglaries, armed hold-ups, home invasions, stolen cars and traumatised victims.
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"The first stage of the great adventure has concluded happily, and here I am installed in Mexico, although I have no idea about the future" Che Guevara
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