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Comment by saiya-jin | Hacker News Reader

very contained and rather unique place. very little of their success is transferable elsewhere though.

it's easy to police borders of a super tiny country in the middle of atlantic ocean, not interesting place for smugglers. (been there, and apart from Reykjavik whole island is almost completely empty with tiny closed villages here and there).

> A law was also passed prohibiting children aged between 13 and 16 from being outside after 10pm in winter and midnight in summer.

totalitarian approach, could be successful but also strapping every kid to the bed would prevent drug consumption. its a question how far will state go to remove freedom to protect citizens.

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> very little of their success is transferable elsewhere though.

Could you elaborate why you come to this conclusion?

> it's easy to police borders of a super tiny country in the middle of atlantic ocean, not interesting place for smugglers.

Alcohol and cigarettes are not marked as contraband. There is no reason to assume smuggling had any effect on substance abuse.

> apart from Reykjavik whole island is almost completely empty with tiny closed villages here and there).

like most of the mid-west?

> totalitarian approach,

and forcing children to attend school for the majority of their waking day isn't? They haven't reach adult age yet and most people would agree that children are not able to fully appreciate the extend of their actions.

> its a question how far will state go to remove freedom to protect citizens.

Judging by the US 'war on drugs', I'd say US citizens are willing to remove many freedoms, children and adults alike.

> like most of the mid-west?

No? You might not be from the US, but the Midwest is relatively populated for its size, especially compared to the West.

US Census data: https://www.census.gov/popclock/data_tables.php?component=gr...

Map of the US Census classifications: https://www.census.gov/geo/img/webatlas/Region.png

You are right. I'm not from the US and my definition of Midwest was totally off. This map confirms my ignorance: https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/2522624ada2c1f9e0fafb75cca09442...

Thanks for pointing it out.

> totalitarian approach

I'm guessing you didn't know that roughly 70% of US cities also have a youth curfew in effect? (http://www.usmayors.org/publications/curfew.htm, from a 1995 study)

What does border policing have to do with the article?

The rest of that sentence indicates it has to do with smuggling. In other words, given the border situation, there should be less contraband availability. And so presumably less abuse of controlled substances.

I'm not sure it really is a major factor, but it's a valid point to raise.

Ah, but this is not a comparison study between Iceland and other countries, this is a comparison between Iceland today and Iceland in 1998.

So the 'smugglers did it' hypothesis must be that 20 years ago, Iceland was larger and located closer to major continents, making it a better target for smuggling contraband, but that volatile icelanic geology has moved it out into the north atlantic and led to the reported changes in juvenile delinquency and substance abuse. Possible. We should conduct further studies to eliminate this confounding factor.

Has snark ever been a convincing tool? I think it must be among the very least effective tactics available.

The point here is that due to having less contraband, any efforts to restrict the substances can be more effective. If there's more contraband floating around, restrictions are harder to enforce.

In other words, you can get more result for your effort if there aren't alternative ways to obtain the substances.

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