April 4, 1998

letters@GlobeAndMail.ca

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

(Ed. note: This article is important in two ways. First, it is very informative and -- I think -- completely accurate, a rarity. Second it was published on the front page of one of the most important establishment papers in Canada. Marijuana prohibition cannot survive this kind of journalism.)

NETHERLANDS SWIMS AGAINST THE DRUG TIDE

LOOKING THE OTHER WAY

By not punishing soft-drug use, the Dutch have avoided a lot of trouble.

First of a two-part series.

Amsterdam—THE proprietor of the Machu Picchu coffee shop was cordial enough as he uncapped a fruit drink and fished a fat joint of homegrown Superskunk from a glass jar.

But when asked how the smorgasbord of marijuana and hashish finds its way to his brightly decorated little emporium overlooking the Amstel River, the man’s face darkened. "Ah. That’s the undiscussed part."

So it is. In the Netherlands, the peculiar legal status of the 1,200-plus cannabis outlets allows them to sell the drugs in small amounts, but not to buy them. Pressure is building in a number of countries not just to decriminalize marijuana, but also to reappraise the huge fiscal and social costs of the U.S.-led "war on drugs." Drug use has been thrust into the spotlight.

There were more cheers than boos when Olympic snowboarder and sometime pot-smoker Ross Rebagliati regained his Nagano Olympic medal in February, after briefly losing it. In California and Arizona, to the dismay of Washington, voters have approved initiatives to legalize marijuana in cases of medical need. In Canada, several Canadians have gone directly to the police and the courts in the last two years to challenge what they say are the country’s anachronistic drug laws.

Marijuana has never been decriminalized in the Netherlands. It has merely been depenalized through non-enforcement of the law against simple possession. Most Dutch seem content with that state of limbo. Outright legalization looks to be as far off as ever.
(Ed. note: This is largely, but not entirely the result of foreign pressure.)

It is not that the bold experiment has failed. Since the country’s Opium Act was rewritten 22 years ago, drugs have been divided into two categories, dangerous and less dangerous. That has permitted the coffee shops to flourish, along with outlets for organic stimulants such as peyote and psychedelic mushrooms. Penalties for trafficking in heroin, cocaine and amphetamines, meanwhile, have increased sharply.

"Few people believe it, but higher availability of drugs doesn’t lead to higher use, and I’m talking about all drugs," said Tim Boekhout Van Solinge of the University of Amsterdam’s Centre for Drug Research.
See Go Dutch!

Politics, however, is another matter. It is one thing to turn a blind eye, in the Dutch tradition of gedoogbeleid , meaning institutional discretion. But it is quite another to disregard international statutes and codify a policy that in some quarters of Europe is regarded as radical.

"Right now, legalization is not possible. We’d have a lot of problems," Amsterdam police spokesman Klaas Wilting said.

For one thing, the Netherlands would become even more of a magnet for smokers and dealers than it already is. For another, conflicting priorities would bedevil co-operation with foreign police agencies.

Much of Europe is aghast at the unforgiving U.S. approach. (There are currently 400,000 Americans imprisoned for drugs, compared to 15,000 in 1980.) At the same time, many of its politicians still perceive the Netherlands and its giant port of Rotterdam, the world’s busiest, as a sinister gateway for Europe’s drugs.

There are also loud complaints about drugs that originate in the Netherlands, rather than pass through it. The huge Dutch-grown marijuana industry, whose potent hydroponically grown product comes courtesy of an estimated 35,000 farmers, accounts for about two-thirds of coffee-shop sales. Its crop is also exported.

Another worry is the amphetamine-based "designer drug" ecstasy, of which renegade Dutch chemists are Europe’s major producer, even as domestic ecstasy consumption seems to be dropping.

"The political discussion has cooled down since then, a lot of things have happened," said Dutch foreign ministry spokesman Jack Twiss. (Ed. note: For one thing, Chiracs party lost control of Parliament to the Socialist who have reneged on their promise to decriminalize, but they are moving slowly in our direction.)

Those changes include a largely symbolic reduction in how much cannabis can be purchased (five grams at a time, down from 30 grams), the shutdown of dozens of coffee shops violating the rules, and a wave of crackdowns on big drug gangs.

Yet foreign unease lingers, notably in France, Germany, Sweden and, most recently, Britain, whose illicit drug consumption is the highest in Europe. ("I do not recognize the term ‘soft drug,’ " Home Secretary Jack Straw remarked recently.)

Add to that the perennial dismay in Washington about marijuana.

Domestic pressures, too, are tilting against Dutch legalization. An election is set for May, and the conservative Christian Democrats are in the ascendant.

All of which leaves Dutch authorities in a distinctly odd spot.

"The coffee shops are strictly controlled by the police," Mr. Wilting said firmly. "If there is a disturbance, or selling of hard drugs or stolen goods, we report this to the mayor and he closes the coffee shop."

But what that control really amounts to, others suggest, is a form of selective law enforcement.

Several hundred domestic growers have their crops seized each year, too, and some are fined. (Ed. note: No life sentences for growing plants!)

"Some of the big cannabis dealers they let operate, some they don’t," explained Carolien Van Milst, 30, a long-time heroin and crack addict and veteran of the Amsterdam drug scene. "People the police can use, who have information they want, don’t get hassled."

This uneven landscape prompted the national council of Dutch police chiefs to recommend last year that cannabis be decriminalized, period.
See
Vraag Een Politieagent. Go Ahead, Ask A Cop For Dope. The Dutch Don't Mind
New Scientist  Special Report

But who would be the supplier? There is a long-time consensus that it would have to be the state. Turn it over to market forces such as the tobacco companies, the argument goes, and there will be more drug use, not less.

"This is all very confusing, but the thing about our drug policy is that it works," said political-science student Ellen Hoogakker, 29.

"Our experience over the last 20 years has been profound, and when we look around, we see that almost everywhere in the world is worse than Holland. We’re stubborn and quite proud of our drug policy. There’s a lot of moral humbug in other countries."

Ms. Van Milst, the addict, offers more anecdotal proof that the Dutch have succeeded in their core goal of driving a wedge between hard and soft drugs.

"Heroin is regarded as the losers’ drug, almost no young people are attracted by it even though it’s available at low prices," concurred Mr. Boekhout Van Solinge.
See Comparison of drug addiction levels in various European countries.

"We are a very pragmatic society. And if the Dutch drug policy had had all the negative effects that they sometimes say, in the United States and France . . . that policy would have been changed by now. I mean, this is not a religion."

Still, the anticannabis sentiment remains alive and well.

In February it was disclosed that the World Health Organization in Geneva had excised part of a long-awaited drug analysis that concluded that cannabis is less hazardous than tobacco or alcohol.

If, as many allege, the omission resulted from pressure by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse and the UN’s International Drug Control Program, few drug experts in the Netherlands would be surprised. Similarly awkward data have slipped down the cracks before.

But while most of those experts stress that what works at home might not work elsewhere, the Dutch leniency seems to have paid off.

Surveys within 11 U.S. states that reduced small-scale marijuana possession to a misdemeanour in the 1970s drew a similar conclusion: Looser laws almost certainly spur greater short-term usage, but there is no proof that most dabblers become chronic potheads or abusers of hard drugs.

Only now is a national Dutch survey being completed. When it is, statistician Marieke Langemeijer predicts the number of people who admit to having smoked pot within the previous month will range from 250,000 to 400,000 -- about half of what had been thought.

Dealers in all kinds of drugs still abound in the Amsterdam core, and legions of foreign narco-tourists still flood in to smoke their brains out in dimly lit venues in Amsterdam and in some Dutch border cities.

Yet less than 3 per cent of the total Dutch population appears to be regular cannabis users, according to new estimates by the drug-research centre.

The Conscious Dreams store on central Warmoes street is one of scores of "smart shops" that sell peyote buttons and other psychoactive substances, along with an array of horticultural equipment.

Just up the block is the local police station, where cops sip coffee and stare into computer screens, looking as bored as the nearby prostitutes in their red-lit windows.

At the giant "raves" on the outskirts of the city, arriving partygoers are liable to be stopped by police and searched for the ecstasy and other stimulants that are the festivities’ staple. But once inside, a government-sanctioned chemist will test the purity of those pills.

It all might resemble a recipe for social collapse. But Amsterdam now, where crime has dropped 25 per cent in the past five years, is a far cry from Amsterdam in the early 1970s, when the city was the hippy capital of Europe, and armies of stoned junkies were trashing the now-pristine Vondel Park.

"We’re not saying our model is the one for the whole world, that’s absolute nonsense; it’s the model for the Netherlands," Mr. Twiss concluded. "But you can learn from each other by listening to each other."

MONDAY: CANADA’S BATTLE OVER POT

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[Sidebar#1]

What the numbers say

Do liberal drug laws encourage abuse? In the case of the Netherlands, it appears not.

A national drug-use survey currently being assembled, the first of its kind in the Netherlands, is expected to conclude that about 14 per cent of Dutch citizens 12 and older have used cannabis.

Previous estimates have been much higher. But these are now thought to have been badly skewed by the heavy concentration of young adults, artists and other free thinkers in Amsterdam, where 30 per cent of teen and adult residents admit to having smoked pot at some time.

That 14-per-cent figure compares with a slightly differently based Canadian statistic of 23 per cent, drawn from 1994 surveys of residents 15 or older by Ontario’s Addiction Research Foundation and Ottawa’s Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

But the Canadian numbers are probably higher now.

After years of decline, recreational cannabis usage among teen-aged students in Ontario has more than doubled. In 1991, 12 per cent admitted using the drug at least once in the previous year, while the 1997 figure was 25 per cent.

A similar surge was seen elsewhere, most notably the United States and the United Kingdom.

As for hard drugs, the Netherlands has a rate of 1.6 heroin and cocaine addicts per 1,000 population—unchanged for more than a decade. That compares with a figure of about three on Britain, seven in Switzerland and 10 in the United States.

A canadian statistic is elusive: Both Health Minister Allan Rock’s office and Health Canada say they do not know how many Canadians regularly abuse heroin and cocaine.

Using CCSA data, an estimate of about two per 1,000 emerges. The CCSA cautions, however, that because the methodology is based on telephone interviews, the real figure may be higher. Two years ago, Maclean’s magazin cited a figure of seven addicts per 1,000 population.