Dean,

>>So you have a respectable percentage of people who can't have sex freely (in both meanings - as in "without social constraints" and "no payment required"), so they're resorting to find on the market what they lack in their social life. What's your plan for them?

>Therapy? Real help? Or are you suggesting providing them with endless access to prostitutes...

Not sure what you're saying here, but here in holland as well as in many african and asian countries prostitution is more or less a general accepted thing. Taking it out of the illegal corner of our society has tremendous advantages. Prostitutes have to use condoms are regulary tested and are paying taxes. Here, technically it is just an occupation. Prostitution is a big business in Amsterdam (red light disctrict). I don't think the AIDS problem is big amongst our prostitutes. The problem seems to be far bigger amongst gays having unsafe sex.

The hypocracy about sex in the US, is leading to all sorts of problems, like having un safe sex at early age. Why does your 16 year old daugthers have to have condoms when she goes out ?? She does not have sex, does she ?? Of course your 16 year old son can take your car when he goes out with friends on saturday night. He does not drink yet, does he ?? Look at your countries teenage motherhood rate. The number of illegal abortions (and accidents that happen with it), the number of AIDS infected teens. Now compare them with lots of european countries ?? (I can't remeber the exact numbers, but I recall the rates are approx 5 times higher in the US). You'll come to the conclusion you're living in a third world country in this respect.

>Do you also suggest we provide drug addicts with gov't funded drugs?
>If so...

Actually we do. There are hopeless groups, who do not have much hope of getting off hard drugs (like heroine). If you give them the opportunity to use alternative drugs (like methadon) they don't have to get their shot because else they litterly are doing anything to get their shot (Do you know what happens if they don't get it ?) By ensuring that they get a replacement drug (or sometimes the real thing), they less often fall into crimes like robbery, pick pocketing, etc. For a little money you can control a small group of addicts and preventing a lot off crimes in a more effective way.

Now of course I know you are going to say that this will lead into uncontrollable numbers of addicted people. But that is far from the truth. The dutch drug policy works way better than any other system here in europe and north america. We have the lowest number of hard drug addicts, a remarkable low number of crimes because the addicted has to get their shot. We have been standing alone in our standpoints regarding soft and hard drugs and prostitution for a long time. We have been attacked by the US and France for this. However the latter seems to recognise that their policy does not work and they are having way more drug related problems in their country than we have. So their are beginning to conclude that we are doing something better than they do....

Currently we are talking about the total legalisation of soft drugs like canabis, weed, because though noone will be prisoned for taking drugs, the sales of drugs is restricted to coffeeshops and the production is prohibited (except for medical purposes). Though the prices are exceptionally low compared to anywhere else, we don't see any significant social problem with this. Medically seen smoking a joint is not more harmfull than drinking one or two glasses of alcohol. The chances of getting addicted to canabis is very low (even lower than getting addicted to alcohol) and prices are reasonably low the canabis user does not fall into crime to get their shot.

For hard drugs this still is a different issue. They are highly addtive and prohibited. Since soft drugs are more or less legalized and very affordable to the user, the user on the average does not go into hard drugs when doing soft drugs.

Another aspect is that the schooling system recognizes problems like 'soft and hard drugs', alcohol, smoking, unsafe sex, abortion etc. They spend a lot of time on education on these issue on high schools. I truly don't know if this aspect is done in the US, but I can tell that ignoring these senstive subjects like they don't exist is 'putting your head into the sand', and making the problem worse in stead of better.

But of course it all comes back to the holier than thou issue. The issue of morale and religion. And those are the real problems. Refusing to look at facts and trying to understand a problem and find a way out.

>How about providing child molesters with .... why not, they can't help themselves.

This is a total different issue, because you are harming an innocent child. However pedosexuals indeed are indeed a real problem once they start practicing. We consider this behaviour as an yet not curable disease. Though sometimes chemical castration is a solution, this is not always the case. Then we have to protect the society from this individual. We are, (just like any other country) are struggling to find a solution for these cases.

>How about providing mass murders with endless supply of victims... why not they can't help themselves.

See above.

>Where does it all end?

When people just start thinking with their brains in stead of reacting stupid and hypocritically with a political, religious or a hunger for power background. I see paralells in computer programming: Programming is about problem solving. Politics and religious are way more than that. Therefore you cannot trust the religious and politic leaders to solve those problem.

You'd better come to amsterdam one time. You'll see a total different world.

Walter,