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by bigdang 1097 days ago
So what? We’ve been here before. We already know the effects alcohol has. But we also know the effects alcohol bans have.
2 comments

Great way to give a lot of money to organized crime
That isn’t happening in Alice Springs.
You’re right, it’s probably all the surrounding communities.
What surrounding communities?
Google Maps seems to show a fair number of small settlements in the general area, but not within the city limits of Alice Springs.
I'm bad at explaining this.

Remote Australia is not like the rest of world. It is not easy to supply these places with goods. Doing so illegally is even more difficult.

Those outlying communities are not just relay points in some chain going back to the coastal cities. Like you would get in other places.

Organized crime will always exist as long as there is human demand for something illegal, it's how aggressively you manage it (investigate, jail, or in some countries, execute, depending on the crime, measured harm, etc).
Organized crime at scale only ever exists due to the government manifesting it through a prohibition that shouldn't have been put into place.

The organized at scale (beyond just a gang in a neighborhood) aspect of it requires considerable ongoing capital infusion, which you can only get from a sustainable extraction of economy. It's that pocket of black market economy that is always created by government action, without exception. Every large gang operation in the US rides on top of government prohibition or otherwise preys on regressive regulation.

The war on drugs being the greatest example in recorded history.

Indeed, they were there before. Until 1 year ago, they had alcohol bans in place. They brought those back.
To be clear, the bans began in 07/08, and expired at the start of this year. After a short time without the ban, it was reinstated in February
Was anyone surprised they didn't develop a responsible drinking culture while alcohol was banned?