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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DavesM who wrote (474629)	10/11/2003 12:41:33 PM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 769670

Cannabis policy in the Netherlands A Success: * See hard drug use has been successfully curtailed: While it is often assumed that the Netherlands decided to decriminalise the sale and use of cannabis in 1976 out of blind liberalism, this was not the case. In addition to the strong Dutch belief that consenting adults should be allowed to do whatever they like as long as it harms nobody else, their main concerns were that prohibition was increasing hard drug use and that it was wasting valuable police resources. In the Netherlands, cannabis may be sold by strictly-controlled "coffeeshops". These coffeeshops are regulated according to what are known as the "AHOJ-G" criteria. These are: No overt advertising (Affichering – A) No sales of hard drugs (H) No nuisance (Overlast – O) No admission to coffee shops for under 18's (Jongeren – J) No sales of large quantities, defined as more than 5 grams per transaction (Grote hoeveelheden – G). Amsterdam's 'coffeeshops' provide a sensible alternative to street dealers Coffeeshops violating any of these rules can be immediately closed down. Note that the ban on hard drugs also applies to alcohol. As a result of these policies, and a radical approach to tackling hard-drug addiction, the Dutch have had remarkable success in reducing hard-drug use. The Netherlands has one of the lowest, if not the lowest rates of problem drug use in Europe [1]. It also has one of the lowest rates of acute drug-related deaths in Europe [2]. The number of addicts in Holland has remained steady for years, while it has risen in the rest of Europe. There are very few young people getting into heroin, and the average age of users is now 39 [3], far higher than any other country in Europe. (For comparison, in Ireland it is 23 [4]). Interestingly, the number of people using cannabis actually decreased in the years immediately after decriminalisation. The possible reasons for this decrease are too complex to say whether it was actually caused by decriminalisation [5], but the very fact that the rate of use decreased at all is a strong indication that prohibition was not acting as an effective deterrent. It would seem that the majority of people who wanted to smoke cannabis were already smoking it before decriminalisation and did not regard its illegal status as a significant deterrent. Recent developments Since 1995, the number of coffeeshops has been reduced, a fact which has been seized upon by foreign opponents of liberalisation as proof that the policy has not worked. In fact, the Dutch government, (and even more so, the Dutch people), have no intention of ending the coffeeshop system. The changes were actually not intended to get rid of coffeeshops; rather the intention was to allow only as many coffeeshops as were needed to serve local demand. This had two purposes: firstly, to make the AHOJ-G rules easier to enforce. Secondly, it was a concession to the Netherlands' prohibitionist neighbours, in particular France, Sweden and to a lesser extent, Germany. Many of the coffeeshops which were closed were in border towns and catered mostly to tourists. France and Sweden, as Europe's two most has fiercely prohibitionist countries, have put enormous pressure on the Netherlands to reverse its policies ever since 1976. Indeed, the fact that successive Dutch governments have resisted this pressure can be taken as a measure of how satisfied the Dutch are with the results. More information on current Dutch drug policy can be found in the Dutch Government's "Q&A: Drugs – A Guide to Dutch Policy 2002" [6]. 1. "Estimated rate of problem drug users in EU member states, 1995–2000", a supplementary datasheet to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) Annual Report 2002. See our section on "drug use statistics". "Problem drug use" is defined for the purpose of this research as "injecting drug use or long-duration/regular use of opiates, cocaine, and/or amphetamines". The age group is 15–64 years. 2. "Number of 'acute drug-related deaths' recorded in EU countries", a complementary datasheet to the the 2002 Annual Report of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). 3. National Report on the Drug Situation in The Netherlands 2001, Trimbos Institute, Utrecht. This is the average age of opiate users getting treatment. Between the years 1989 to 1998, this figure rose from 32 to 39 years, showing that the Dutch are having remarkable success in discouraging young people from starting to take heroin. The estimated average age among all users in 2000 was estimated to be 37 years. 4. "Ireland National Report 2001", Sinclair, O'Brien et al., Health Research Board. This figure is the average age of those seeking treatment and is comparable to the figure of 39 years for the Netherlands. 5. "Dutch coffee shops and trends in cannabis use", Korf, Dirk J., Addictive Behaviors 27 (2002) 851–856. 6. "Q&A: Drugs– A Guide to Dutch Policy 2002" (187kb) by The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs International Information and Communication Division.