Well, I can't blame you for thinking I'm wrong as I said that so many countries outside of the Netherlands have burned us for thinking this way. But if you do a little research, you can see that this policy is getting more and more support world wide.

Yep, you're right. I think we are right, just because we have stopped thinking in conservative terms and use rational and actually listen to experts in the field. Again that does not mean we and the experts do not make mistakes, but we are increasingly willing to listen to fact and reason and less adhere to what we inherited from our past and religuous standpoints.

If you really want to know more about those topics you could do a comparison of statistic of those issues. You'll see that we have less problems in those areas:
- We have less teenage pregnancies.
- We have less young unwillingbly parents
- We have less drug related criminality
- We have less drug addicts.

I respect that it is all counterintuitive to you and is 180 degrees from your morality, but the facts don't lie. We are doing pretty good in this area.

Look being a parent of my own, I know it is hard to get the best for your kids. You want to prevent them making the mistakes you did. However my viewpoint is that forbidding everything is not going to be anything good. You'd better prepare him better to the world outside and teach them about the dangers, and that includes letting them making small mistakes and help them correct them before they make big mistakes.

I realise this is a cultural thing. And if you are the only one in your area of the world that thinks this way, it would probably not work out as well as here (as kids are highly influencable by friends). And I think you might be right that the US is not ready for this yet. OTOH,I think this will change as progress in unstoppable and we already signs off it in the discussions of abortions and gay marriage.







>First off Walter, let me congratulate you on your tone in this message. We are pretty much diametric in our positions. I cannot follow the logic of what you are saying, but it's your opinion and you are welcome to it. My opinion, after many years of dealing with these issues, in this country, is that illegal drugs are not good, abortion is wrong, abstinence is best (but we did educate the kids in that area) and we also didn't condone kids drinking alcohol. Allowing my kids to smoke dope, drink alcohol, or bring their boyfriend/girlfriend over for a romantic encounter would do nothing to add to their character (I drug tested my son several times and when he failed one, I sold his truck - he is clean now). Some things cannot be prevented, but why send signals to your children that self destruction is a good thing. I've tried to raise my kids using tried and true fundamentals and they have turned out to be pretty good kids. At any rate, I appreciate your attempt to convince me that your
>country has it right, but I'll have to respectfully disagree.
>
>John
>
>>John, Some drugs are less harmfull than alcohol and tabbacco, both medical and socially. If we talk Canabis, it is well medical researched that it is less harmfull than for example alcohol. For example Canabis has way less influence on the ability to drive a car. Tabbaco really increases the risks on certian types of Cancer and is a threat to your general condition. Medically there is no point in denying that. The medical costs of treating the consequences of smoking are tremendous for the society.
>>
>>Socially we have not accepted those facts because it is classified as drugs (Though alcohol officially also is classified as drug). Soft and hard drugs are lumped on one heap. In holland we identified this many, many years ago and though soft drugs officially illegal no-one is jailed because of using canabis or even other drugs. The odd thing I must admit is that though we can legally sell soft drugs in coffee shops, the production of Canabis still is illegal. Those coffeeshops are stricly monitored and have to adhere to certain regulations. Frequently one is closed because violating them.
>>
>>Soft drugs are relatively cheap up here (don't ask me the price, I really would not know), so addicted users generally don't go bankrupt because of their addiction and don't have to go into crime to get their stuff. Most of them function well in social life.
>>
>>The trading side still is criminal and most top criminals are involved in drugs. Once in a while one is murdered, but honestly I would not care that much about a drug criminal to be killed anyways.
>>
>>Bottom line is that, because of our policy we up here have way less problems with drug addiction. Our rates of addicts is even significantly lower than other surrounding countries and esspecially the US. We were crusified for our liberal drug policy many many years by countries like france and the US. But once they saw their drug related problems were far worse than ours, they are beginning to see the rational of it.
>>
>>We really have to stop thinking conversatively into these topic.
>>- If you do not give your children sexual education, don't think that your children won't practise unsafe and teenage sex. You'd better educate the best you can.
>>- If you do not allow for abortion, some people will die because they will try every way to get rid of the baby. Not to mention the disasterous social implications for the parents involved.
>>- If you prohibit your kid to drink alcohol, he probably will. And if he does, he likely will do it unresponsible. You'd better give them some drinks at home and regulate it so I he learns the effect and limits.
>>- If you prohibit your kid to smoke some canabis, he likely will at some party where there is a lot of alcohol as well. Educate them on the effects (medical and socially) of using them.
>>
>>I'm proud of living in a nation that is on the cutting edge on topics like this. It has the courage swim upstrean to really look at what problems are and how they can be controlled in the most effective way rather than blindly and conservatively hold on to old and outdated believes. That does not mean we do not make mistakes in our policy as some of the progressive decissions we made in the past (e.g. immigration of uneducated people), have bitten us more recently. And sure every change might induce other problems, but least up here we are trying to lift our society to a newer level without the influence of stupid religuous believes and standpoint, but actually looking at facts. And that is the ONLY way a society should be driven, and not by the standards of a third world country.