But is arresting people who break the law a legal shame or a moral shame? I am not sure what part of illegal is unclear.
Good point Peter, I look at this as a moral shame, after all for the most part police are only doing their jobs.
As far as legalization making us a nation of pot heads data from other countries doesn't indicate that.
DRUG WAR FACTS
Compiled and updated by Douglas A. McVay
for Common Sense for Drug Policy, csdp.org
Updated: February 2004
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The Netherlands and the United States -- A Comparison
1. The Netherlands follows a policy of separating the market
for illicit drugs. Cannabis is primarily purchased through coffee
shops. Coffee shops offer no or few possibilities for purchasing
illicit drugs other than cannabis. Thus The Netherlands achieve
a separation of the soft drug market from the hard drugs market
- and separation of the 'acceptable risk' drug user from the
'unacceptable risk' drug user.
Source: #4: Abraham, Manja D., University of Amsterdam, Centre
for Drug Research, Places of Drug Purchase in The Netherlands
(Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, September 1999), pp. 1-5.
2. Comparing Important Drug and Violence Indicators
Social Indicator Comparison Year U.S. Netherlands
=================================================================
Lifetime prevalence
of marijuana use
(ages 12+) 2001 36.9% #1 17.0% #2
Past month
prevalence of
marijuana use
(ages 12+) 2001 5.4% #1 3.0% #2
Lifetime prevalence
of heroin use
(ages 12+) 2001 1.4% #1 0.4% #2
Incarceration Rate
per 100,000
population 2002 701 #3 100 #4
Per capita spending
on criminal justice
system (in Euros) 1998 379 #5 223 #5
Homicide rate per
100,000 population average 1999-2001 5.56 #6 1.51 #6
Source #1: US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Household
Survey on Drug Abuse: Volume I. Summary of National Findings
(Washington, DC: HHS, August 2002), p. 109, Table H.1.
Source #2: Trimbos Institute, "Report to the EMCDDA by the Reitox
National Focal Point, The Netherlands Drug Situation 2002" (Lisboa,
Portugal: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction,
Nov. 2002), p. 28, Table 2.1.
Source #3: Walmsley, Roy, "World Prison Population List (fifth
edition) (London, England: Research, Development and Statistics
Directorate of the Home Office), Dec. 2003, p. 3, Table 2.
Source #4: Walmsley, Roy, "World Prison Population List (fifth
edition) (London, England: Research, Development and Statistics
Directorate of the Home Office), Dec. 2003, p. 5, Table 4.
Source #5: van Dijk, Frans & Jaap de Waard, "Legal infrastructure of
the Netherlands in international perspective: Crime control"
(Netherlands: Ministry of Justice, June 2000), p. 9, Table S.13.
Source #6: Barclay, Gordon, Cynthia Tavares, Sally Kenny, Arsalaan
Siddique & Emma Wilby, "International comparisons of criminal justice
statistics 2001," Issue 12/03 (London, England: Home Office Research,
Development & Statistics Directorate, October 2003), p. 10, Table 1.1.
3. "There were 2.4 drug-related deaths per million inhabitants
in the Netherlands in 1995. In France this figure was 9.5, in
Germany 20, in Sweden 23.5 and in Spain 27.1. According to the
1995 report of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug
Addiction in Lisbon, the Dutch figures are the lowest in Europe.
The Dutch AIDS prevention programme was equally successful. Europe-wide,
an average of 39.2% of AIDS victims are intravenous drug-users.
In the Netherlands, this percentage is as low as 10.5%."
Source: Netherlands Ministry of Justice, Fact Sheet: Dutch Drugs
Policy, (Utrecht: Trimbos Institute, Netherlands Institute of
Mental Health and Addiction, 1999), from the Netherlands Justice
Ministry website at
minjust.nl:8080/a_beleid/fact/cfact7.htm
4. "The number of addicts in the Netherlands has been stable
- at 25,000 - for many years. Expressed as a percentage of the
population, this number is approximately the same as in Germany,
Sweden and Belgium. There are very few young heroin addicts in
the Netherlands, largely thanks to the policy of separating the
users markets for hard and soft drugs. The average age of heroin
addicts is now 36."
Source: Netherlands Ministry of Justice, Fact Sheet: Dutch Drugs
Policy, (Utrecht: Trimbos Institute, Netherlands Institute of
Mental Health and Addiction, 1999), from the Netherlands Justice
Ministry website at
minjust.nl:8080/a_beleid/fact/cfact7.htm
5. "Cannabis use among young people has also increased in most
Western European countries and in the US. The rate of (cannabis)
use among young people in the US is much higher than in the Netherlands,
and Great Britain and Ireland also have relatively larger numbers
of school students who use cannabis."
Source: Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Drug
Policy in the Netherlands: Progress Report September 1997-September
1999, (The Hague: Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, November
1999), p. 7.
6. "The figures for cannabis use among the general population
reveal the same pictures. The Netherlands does not differ greatly
from other European countries. In contrast, a comparison with the
US shows a striking difference in this area: 32.9% of Americans
aged 12 and above have experience with cannabis and 5.1% have used
in the past month. These figures are twice as high as those in the
Netherlands."
Source: Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Drug
Policy in the Netherlands: Progress Report September 1997-September
1999, (The Hague: Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, November
1999), pp. 7-8.
7. "The prevalence figures for cocaine use in the Netherlands do not
differ greatly from those for other European countries. However,
the discrepancy with the United States is very large. The percentage
of the general population who have used cocaine at some point is
10.5% in the US, five times higher than in the Netherlands. The
percentage who have used cocaine in the past month is 0.7% in the US,
compared with 0.2% in the Netherlands.*"
Source: Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Drug
Policy in the Netherlands: Progress Report September 1997-September
1999, (The Hague: Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, November
1999), p. 6. The report notes "*The figures quoted in this paragraph
for drug use in the US are taken from the National Household
Survey 1997, SAMSHA, Office of Applied Studies, Washington, DC".
8. According to a report in the British Medical Journal in
September of 2000, "Cannabis use among Dutch schoolchildren
aged 10-18 years has fallen for the first time in 16 years, a
national survey of risk behaviour among 10,000 young people
has shown." The story notes that according to Trimbos,
the Netherlands Institute for Mental Health and
Addiction ( www.trimbos.nl ), "about one in five young people had
used cannabis at some point in their lives but less than a tenth
had used it in the previous four weeks ("current users")."
Source: Sheldon, Tony, "Cannabis use falls among Dutch youth,"
British Medical Journal (London, England: September 16, 2000),
vol. 321, p. 655.
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Available online at: drugwarfacts.org
Questions, comments or suggestions for additions and modifications
may be addressed to Doug McVay at: dmcvay@drugwarfacts.org
For more information, see Drug War Facts: International Policies & Data. |
