"We do have significant differences (of opinion). But I characterize the visit as a very useful opportunity for me to hear what the Dutch are doing and to learn," General Barry McCaffrey told a news conference at the end of a one-day visit.

McCaffrey, on a European fact-finding mission, locked horns with Dutch authorities earlier this week when he called Dutch drugs policy a "disaster" and said the murder rate in the Netherlands outstripped that in the U.S.

His figures, the Dutch pointed out, were based on incorrect data. According to the government’s Central Planning Bureau, the murder rate in the Netherlands stood at 1.8 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1996, far below the U.S.’s 8.22 per 100,000.

Speaking to Dutch reporters, McCaffrey did not apologize for the error. His figures, he said, came from Interpol.

"I shouldn’t comment on Interpol data... I learned in college: don’t argue about facts," he said.
(Ed. note: Okay, the facts are that Dutch murder rate is far below ours, but when he was saying that it was the other way around he blamed Dutch drugs policy. Now that he knows the facts will he blame DEAland drug prohibition? If not, why not?)

At the height of the row, the Dutch ambassador to the United States wrote a letter of protest to the White House, and Foreign Affairs Minister Hans van Mierlo summoned the U.S. ambassador in The Hague, Terry Dornbush, to express his displeasure.

Insisting his visit to the Netherlands had been useful, McCaffrey agreed the Dutch and the U.S. views often differed.

"I came with a bias that Dutch police were good.... I cautioned my Dutch partners that police of this high calibre can allow policy to work adequately even when it may not be good policy," the drugs tsar said.
(Ed. note: This is an interesting "cop-out." Dutch cops are so good that they can make a bad policy work. Does he also mean that US cops are so bad that they couldn’t make a good policy work? He has seemed to imply that US cops are too dumb to be able to tell hemp from marijuana, unlike their counterparts in all the rest of the industrialized world.)

He criticized a Dutch Health Ministry pilot programme under which a small group of hardcore heroin addicts is administered free heroin in an effort to reduce drugs related crime.

"It is our own view that this does not constitute drug treatment but instead ends up in essence leaving and marginalising an element of the population," McCaffrey said.
(Ed. note: But putting them in prison mainstreams them?)

"When I’m asked what the most dangerous drug in America is, my response is: It’s a 12-year-old regularly using marijuana," he said.
(Ed. note: This is not even coherent. A 12-year-old using something is not a "drug." Second, does the Drug Bizarro really mean to say that it is worse for a child to use marijuana regularly than to use crack or heroin or alcohol with equal regularity? Is this really the message that he wants to send to kids? Please don’t use marijuana, use heroin! Will no one call this man’s hand on this pernitious nonsense?)

The Netherlands, often considered a front-runner in the area of drugs tolerance, argues there should be a strict separation between hard and soft drugs policy.

It tolerates the small-scale production and sale of soft drugs but actively discourages the abuse of hard drugs. Addiction to hard drugs like heroin is less common in the Netherlands than in other countries, according to the Dutch.

(Ed. note: Yes, but why not "according to the facts?" Is there reason to suspect that the Dutch government is making up the numbers? If so, this would be a major story that would get coverage in all the DEAland media. On the other hand, if the Dutch numbers are correct, wouldn’t it be nice to let the readers know what they are. Not that they would be published.)
See
Comparison of drug addiction levels in various European countries.
McCaffrey reiterated his concern that the Netherlands was a booming exporter of drugs to the United States and the rest of Europe. He said there was reason to believe the Netherlands produced half of Europe’s amphetamines and much of its Ecstasy.

Fighting drug abuse could not be done if each country applied its own policy, he said.
(Ed. note: This is just an international extension of the prohibitionist argument that criticizing prohibition causes drug abuse. Does the Drug Czar really believe that the Dutch have to arrest its citizens for marijuana use in order for the US prohibition to succeed across an ocean? That defies all logic, and logistics.

The fact is that the Dutch police cooperate fully with other countries in trying to stop contraband trafficking, including large-scale cannabis smuggling.)

"No one nation can attempt to solve the drug problem on their own, that’s our view point. You would have to do it by cooperating with your partners."