Remarkable, indeed. I find the part about including alcohol and tobacco under the "drugs" label especially interesting. I have seen too many cases where they were placed in a separate category... This seams an artificial separation to me, and even more, hypocritical. Especially in the case of alcohol.

I have the dutch citizenship (my father was Dutch), but I never actually lived there, so all this is a little alien to me. I did hear about the Netherlands legalizing soft drugs, but I didn't know much details.

Greetings,

Hilmar.

>Let me be clear and say that the dutch government still fights against (highly addictive) hard drugs, but by more or less legalizing the (way less harmfull) soft drugs market, they can take all the problems related to the use of soft drugs out of the criminality. The government has more control over where soft drugs are sold (a coffee shop must have a licence to sell softdrugs, and at any given time they can't have more in stock than a certain maximum) and don't have to act upon soft drug users much. Quality is high and prices are relatively low.
>
>They still fighting as war against XTC labs, but there is no way they can win the battle. As long as there is a demand to such party drugs there is no way they can win. So what you get is bad quality and accidents happen with dirty drugs. The problem is that XTC in contrary to canabis is more harmfull to your health and taking too much could lead to death. From time to time people die after using XTC or similar drugs, so the government virtually has no choice in trying to act upon it. OTOH, we've been experimenting with labs on house parties where you can test the quality of your XTC and there are medical teams available who do recognize the symtoms of drug usage. At the same time the organisation of such events and/or the police try to capture the dealers who are trying to sell their stuff at such events. Here again the government is trying to control the organisation of such events and they are doing their best to do prevent accidents. That is why illegal house parties are strictly
>forbidden.
>
>But even with XTC the market is flooded. That is why from time to time, the US prisons drug dealers from holland: a single pill of XTC can be sold in the US against 10 in holland for the same total price.
>
>Their is a lot of information avaiable on the nature, dangers and long term effect of drugs. 20 years ago when I was a yound kid at high school, I already learned the variaty of drugs and what it does to you. Remarkable was that alcohol and smoking was included into the drugs label. Aside form the fact that they are legal as oposed to the other material, there does not seem to be a difference between them and the other kind of drugs. Teaching kids about drugs seem to be more effective in preventing them to use it. I know some shools are visited by (former) drug addicted to tell their story. I've got a lot of friends, but only a few have ever tried canabis. None of them is using canabis now (AFAIK) or have been using canabis on a regular basis. Sure, I know some people who did, but normally it a certain period of their life (mostly teen age) and now live a reasonable normal life, with a job, a house, wife, kids, etc. In my world, the effects of smoking and excessive drinking is a far
>bigger problem to society than using drugs from time to time.
>
>Bottom line is that the dutch government has recognized that blindly fighting a battle because of morality is leading to nothing. They try to get a grip on the negative aspects and control the drug usage in various ways which lead to less harmfull situations. On the other hand they provide people with objective information about drugs via the media (News papers, TV, Internet), without retorism about morality and religion.
>
>By no means I'm going to tell you that the system is perfect. There is still (hard) drug criminality. Certain places in big cities you better not come at night on your own. There are still drug related social problems in certain neighbourhoods, but I certainly believe in the course the dutch government has taken, esspecially when I look at the statistics.
>
>Walter,