juju said:

Well that's where the obvious root of the blame lies, but the government didn't seem to have a problem with it before they started to receive so many ambulance calls because dumb tourists didn't know what they were doing.  It's a stupid mindset for a government to have, but it's like a parent who trusted a kid be independent and that kid neglected that independence.  Except it's not the kid himself in this case, it's a group outside him that's messing it up.

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juju said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to excuse the government.  If I had it my way, there would be no government, only mutually agreed upon actions that are never enforced except through community pressures.

I'm just trying to put responsibility where responsibility lies - that is, not fully on the government, because I don't know about you, but if I had the power, and moral conviction to make laws, over 100 people a year being admitted to the hospital, regardless of the cause, seems like something you should take action on. 

I agree that banning never has and never will work, but I'm not sure what other solution there is in this case.  The usual alternative to arresting people for using a drug is rehabilitating them for using it, which doesn't really make any sense in this case.  I'm not too sure what "reasonable course of action" you might be referring to in this situation, especially from the standpoint of a government(which are notoriously unreasonable).

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The reasonable course of action would be prosecuting the offenders who committed crimes while intoxicated, or who were unreasonably intoxicated in open public- similar to alcohol. It would be to respect consenting adult decisions and not infringe on personal chemical choices and prosecute cultural minorities.

You say you don't know what 'other solution there is'. Banning drugs has never provided any sort of solution for the damage caused by them, this is well known.

juju said:

Like I said, from the perspective of a government, it is a solution.  That doesn't mean it actually is, but putting yourself in the (il)logical perspective of a government, that is the one and only solution.  Either ban it, or don't ban it.  There is no middle ground.  Especially when considering the staggering number of people who are admitted to the hospital every year from it, that's unheard of anywhere else.  I dunno, maybe a public awareness campaign could be conducted, like a brochure or something that is sold with every mushroom, telling people "Don't be an idiot!".  It sucks that you have to actually say that though.

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