See
An Official Statement On The Netherlands’ Drug
Policy; Published In The Most Improbable Place
and
Comparison of drug addiction levels in various European countries
and
Legalize Marijuana and Reduce Use?
New Survey Puts Estimate of Dutch Marijuana Use Even More Below DEAland

"For instance, out of a total of 210 ‘place of purchase’ answers for cocaine, only 4 (1.9%) reported that their place of purchase was a coffee shop."

See
"Here, if you want cannabis you go to a coffee shop.
In other countries if you want it you have to go to a man who might try to sell you heroin or cocaine as well."

As the IOM Report observed, "marijuana serves as a gateway to the world of illegal drugs in which youths have greater opportunity and are under greater social pressure to try other illegal drugs." This, of course, is a function of marijuana prohibition not of marijuana use. The Dutch have broken this connection.)
See
"Those who insist on keeping the plant illegal bear a serious degree of moral responsibility for young marijuana users who do go on to use cocaine, heroin, PCP or other genuinely dangerous or addictive drugs."
Alan Bock, of the Orange County Register On the Real Gateway

Excerpts From The Final Report Of Dutch National Drug Use Prevalence Survey

From a pdf file available at CEDRO http://www.frw.uva.nl/cedro :

After publishing in January 1999 the national estimates for drug use in The Netherlands, we now offer the full data set of the national drug use survey. This means that we offer a range of data for all nine sub samples. Four of the sub-samples represent Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, and five sub-samples represent municipalities in the different address density categories that Statistics Netherlands distinguishes. The total number of respondents in the 1997 survey was 22,000.

Reporting by sub-sample makes clear how much variance of drug use exists within the Netherlands. We show that Amsterdam has the highest levels of life time drug use. For instance, looking at cannabis we observe that lifetime use in Amsterdam is 36.7%, twice as high as in Rotterdam (18.5%), over twice as high as the national estimate (15.6%) and over three times as high as life time cannabis use in the rural municipalities (10.5%).

We show that there is much more variation in prevalence of drug use within the Netherlands than in indicators like average age of initiation or proportion of experienced users per drug.

… the 'separation of markets' is a corner stone of Dutch drug policy thinking…

(Marijuananews note: The Dutch often grow their own.)

Introduction

In this report, the data of the 1997 national study on drug use among the population of 12 years and older in the Netherlands, will be published. The figures are based on self-reported data. Almost 22,000 respondents were questioned face-to-face about lifestyle and the use of licit and illicit drugs. Drugs included in the study are: tobacco, alcohol, hypnotics, sedatives, cannabis, inhalants, cocaine, amphetamine, ecstasy, hallucinogens, mushrooms, opiates such as heroin and codeine, and doping. ((Marijuananews note: "Doping" means "performance enhancing" drugs.)

The survey is designed by CEDRO in co-operation with Statistics Netherlands (CBS), and funded by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports (VWS).

The national survey on licit and illicit drug use is a nationally representative survey, covering all persons in the Municipal Population Registry of the Netherlands, recorded on January 1st 1997 and aged 12 and older (for Utrecht, this date is January 1st 1996). In this report we give an outline of ‘average’ drug use prevalence in the Netherlands as a whole, and monitor distinct drug use prevalence for the four large cities each and the five population density strata separately.

We knew that use levels in Amsterdam were non-typical of drug use in the Netherlands. But that these differences would be of the magnitude that we found, was a surprise for us.

For instance, lifetime cocaine use in the Dutch Capital is 9.4 percent, which is in sharp contrast with 1.0 percent in the lowest density municipalities.

National lifetime cocaine use is 2.1 percent. In chapter 3, we also give estimated rates of drug use, expressed in thousands of inhabitants (of 12 years and older), within their 95 percent confidence intervals. The information in chapter 3 also shows, that low or high prevalence of drug use does not always predict scores on other indicators. For instance, in spite of the very large difference in cocaine use prevalence between Amsterdam and the lowest density municipalities, average age of initiation with cocaine is very similar (24.6 years in Amsterdam, 25.7 in lowest density. For cannabis these data are 20.3 in Amsterdam, and 19.5 in lowest density.

An uncommon indicator we report in chapter 3 is ‘amount of use-days’ in last month users. For four substances - alcohol, sedatives, hypnotics and cannabis - we supply data of how many last month users use 1-4 days, 5-8 days, 9-20 days, and more than 20 days (intensive use). Once again, it is interesting to see that this indicator does not show large differences within the Netherlands. For instance, intensive use of cannabis is reported nationally by 25.7 percent of all last month users. In Amsterdam this is 22.7 percent.

In general, we found that many indicators are similar, irrespective of city or density sample.

We then see that lifetime tobacco use among 12-15 year olds is much lower in Amsterdam (24.6%) than nationally (35.3%).

These data make it possible to empirically investigate one of the grounding hypotheses for the Dutch drug policy. These data give insight into the extent to which the ‘separation of markets’ principle applies in practice. This separation has reached an unexpected level of success.

Non-cannabis drug sales are extremely rare in coffee shops. This finding is valid across all our nine samples.

In 2000, we will repeat this national drug use survey, results of which will be published in 2002.

Conclusion

We found that drug use in the Netherlands varies a lot, depending on where one measures. Cannabis use in Amsterdam, like all other illicit drug use, is highest compared to the rest of the country. In Amsterdam, lifetime use of cannabis in the population of 12 years and older was 36.7 percent, versus 10.5 percent in the lowest density municipalities.

National average is 15.6 percent, a figure that places national lifetime cannabis use at the same level or lower as that found in France (16.0% in 1995), Germany (13.9% in 1995), or the UK (22.0% in 1996) and far lower than that of the US (32.9% in 1997), (source: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction 1998; Na-tional Household Survey 1997 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 1997). Although the above-mentioned national prevalence rates are not readily comparable, they do indicate drug use levels.[1]

(Marijuananews note: Marijuana use in DEAland has increased since 1997, and is probably understated, given the fear of giving honest answers in the land of the free.)

Level of urbanisation is an important variable that explains many of the differences within the Netherlands in the level of drug use. Differences within the Netherlands are so large, that a national ‘percentage’ of drug use should be seen as a somewhat average datum that neglects divergence within the country. However, a ‘national average’ of drug use has the advantage that the drug use levels can be compared to similar data from other countries. These comparisons might teach us something about the role of drug control policies to (co)- determine levels of drug use. We should expect little of the explaining power of drug policy variables, looking at the enormous differences within one drug control regime, like the Netherlands.

Even between the cities, with their relatively large numbers of quasi-legal ‘coffee shops’, use levels of cannabis can vary with a factor 2 (as between Amsterdam and Rotterdam). Cultural and economic factors that influence wealth distribution, population composition, fashions and preferred lifestyles, probably explain more of levels of use in cities or countries, than control policy per se.

Some trends reach the urban lifestyle melting pots sooner, explaining the 7.0 percent lifetime use of ecstasy in the Amsterdam population, versus 2.2 percent in Rotterdam, or the 1.9 percent national average (ecstasy life time). The use of hallucinogenic mushrooms, a trend which arrived in the Netherlands around 1995, is 6.6 percent among the Amsterdam population, versus 2.4 percent in Rotterdam or 1.6 percent nationally. These differences occur in spite of the homogenic de jure drug control policies in the country as a whole.

Looking at tobacco use figures in the age cohort of 12-15, one sees large differences as well between Amsterdam and the rest of the country. Our oversampling of the 12-18 year age cohort makes it possible to conclude that last month tobacco use in Amsterdam among youths between 12-15 (6.9%) is less than half of the national average (15.0%). With alcohol we see the same disparity, with Amsterdam youths between 12-15 having a last month use of 20.1 percent versus 33.4 percent nationally.

In spite of the large differences we measured in lifetime or more recent drug use levels, we found much less variation within the Netherlands in less superficial indicators of drug use. We found for instance, that in Amsterdam, having the highest lifetime experience in all illicit drugs, figures for last month continuation, proportion of experienced lifetime users or average age of initiation, vary much less with the rest of the country than prevalence.

Note for instance, that the proportion of lifetime cannabis users that also report last month use (last month continuation) in Amsterdam is 22.1 percent, versus 17.7 percent in Rotterdam or 15.8 percent nationally. Age of initiation in Amsterdam averages 20.3 in Amsterdam, versus 20.1 in Rotterdam or 19.7 nationally.

These figures show that on national level, drug use indicators may be very similar, in spite of large variation in prevalence. They remind us that serious insight into patterns and intensity of drug use, can only be delivered by looking beyond mere drug use prevalence figures.

The striking fact of very similar average ages of initiation regarding almost all drugs throughout the Netherlands, and the slightly smaller homogeneity of continuation figures, show that the ‘Dutch culture’ may create very similar patterns of drug use wherever one looks. Prevalence of drug use or availability of drugs is not so important versus these broad cultural sets of determinants. All together they create ways and functions of drug use that might be far more important for understanding control aspects and consequences of drug use than drug policy.

Finally we would like to conclude that our data give evidence of a high degree of ‘separation of markets’ in the Netherlands. Very few respondents indicate that they bought drugs in coffee shops other than cannabis. Of 945 answers about drugs being bought in coffee shops, 910 answers refer to ‘cannabis’ (96%) and 35 refer to other drugs, of which ‘mushrooms’ are by far the most often mentioned (18 answers).

Smart shops are the most important outlets for mushrooms. Of the 258 reported purchase locations for mushrooms, 137 are ‘smart shops’ (53%), 67 are friends and relatives (26%).
See
Dutch Drugs Policies Illustrated By Two Stories About Coffee Shops
And The New "Smart Shops" Phenomenon

[W]ill we see that the ‘normalisation’ of drug use is mainly a big city phenomenon that causes a growing disparity between ‘urban lifestyles’ and non-urban ones? And the trend towards lower licit drug use (tobacco and alcohol) among the young in the big city, will this occur as well, but later, in the less urban environments of the Netherlands? Future research will answer these questions.

Notes