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>>It makes sense and it's proven that it works.
>>Dutch rates of drug use are lower than U.S. rates in EVERY category and all drugs are legal there. http://www.drugpolicy.org/global/drugpolicyby/westerneurop/thenetherlan/
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>>Imagine the benefits to the American people if all these wasted resources spent on an impossible to win war on drugs was spent on public health and education. Picture our jails full of criminals that actually steal something or hurt someone. Nearly 5.1 million adults were on probation or parole at yearend 2008—the equivalent of about 1 in every 45 adults in the United States, and most of them for drugs!!! That, my fellow foxpro'ers, is NUTS!
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>>John Harvey's belief that drug usage will go up if drugs were legalized is simply unfounded - and as matter of FACT the opposite has been PROVEN. Frankly I tend to think the only reason anyone would argue is because their job involves keeping an eye on those 1 in 45 Americans that were nailed for these victimless offenses.
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>I thought I had seen differing opinions on drug use in the Netherlands. This from Readers Digest:
>The article says there have been significant increases in heroin drug addiction (that drug that killed my son's friend) and now teenagers are smoking dope at a much higher rate than in the past, because the liberal laws tell them it's okay. I don't think we want to be like the Dutch. They are devolving too.
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>http://www.readersdigest.ca/debate.html?a=v&di=96
>What are the consequences of the legalization of the so-called risk-free drugs?
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>Prior to the 1976 drug policy, the content of joints in Holland were similar to those smoked elsewhere in Europe. THC (delta-nine-tetrahydrocannabinol), the component that provides the high, was three to five percent. Nederwiet, the now-popular Dutch-grown cannabis, is far more potent, with a THC that can rise to up to 20 percent, providing a quicker, more enduring high than yesteryear's joint.
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>A leading British expert on the effects of cannabis on users, Dr. Heather Ashton, of the University of Newcastle's School of Neurosciences, found that more and more of the elevated-level THC cannabis was required to get a high as smokers developed a tolerance to the high THC-level joints. THC, which does not dissolve in water, is absorbed by human fatty tissues and remains there longer than either nicotine or alcohol. Thus, the THC effects remain with the heavy user far longer than he might think, causing a decline in short-term memory, diminished ability to learn and decreased motor skills. Regular users of the high content THC Nederwiet are developing a dependency on this "soft" drug, Ashton has found.
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>Dutch professionals working with the abusers of "soft" drugs have found that young people, especially those lighting up with the high THC cannabis, may become chronically passive, spending days smoking joint after joint, unable to find direction in their lives.
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>Even though the coffee shops are prohibited from selling to minors, cannabis use among Holland's 14- and 15-year-old high-school students rose sharply between 1984 and 1996. Back in 1984, four percent of these teenagers surveyed said they had tried cannabis once. By 1996, 28 percent of boys and 21 percent of girls admitted to smoking up. Addicts (registered cannabis users being treated) increased by 25 percent in 1997. At the same time only a three-percent rise in the numbers of people looking for help with alcohol-related problems was recorded.
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>Twenty odd years ago, the Netherlands was comparatively free of international drug-trafficking criminals. Today, Holland has become an illegal drug producing and distributing giant, a devastating threat not only to the Netherlands but across Europe. Of the amphetamines seized in France in 1996, 68.5 percent originated in the Netherlands as well as some 80 percent of the ecstasy tablets seized. In 1988, almost 40 synthetic drug-producing sites were found in the Netherlands.
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>And Nederwiet, most of which is illegally produced, is also wending its illegal way to the Netherlands' neighbouring countries. Holland's soft-drug yearly sales are estimated at some $3 billion.
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>In the 1970s, proponents of the liberalized policy said that the coffee-shop soft-drug environment would save users from the clutches of drug peddlers and stop them from falling into hard drugs. Critics however, argue that this policy tells kids it's perfectly okay to smoke cannabis and provides an easy stepping stone to the use of synthetic drugs like ecstasy. They question the mentality brought about by soft-drug legalization and the generally tolerant attitude towards drug use which followed, and worry that this may endanger the Netherlands as well as its European neighbours.
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>Heroin addiction, virtually unknown in the Netherlands prior to the policy change, has escalated, with the number of addicts estimated by the Netherlands' Institute of Mental Health (called the Trimbos Institute) to be 25,000. An estimated 12,000 addicts are being treated in methadone-maintenance programs.
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>While there may be no psychological step up from cannabis smoking to heroin, and not all pot smokers progress to hard drugs, more than 90 percent of heroin addicts treated at De Hoop (The Hope) drug rehabilitation centre in Dordrecht, Holland, were habitual grass users before moving on to heroin.
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>Despite legislation which forbade the sale of hard drugs in coffee shops, they were being sold there. So, five years ago the government clamped down, reducing the number of shops and the amount of cannabis products sold to an individual user, from 30 grams to five.

Somehow the discussion has turned from MM to legalizing marijuana. When did that happen or are there two discussions going on? Prescription narcotics are illegal without a legitimate prescription and medical marijuana should fall into the same category. If we want to legalize marijuana and treat it like alcohol, that is a different subject and frankly, I'm not convinced one way or the other on that today. Much of the crime involved with drugs is due to the import and illegal marketing of it here in the states. The crimes exist because it is illegal. It generates its own crime that spills over into the general populace. Sometimes I think treating marijuana like alcohol makes sense. Other times I recall many sites and scens I wished I've never seen and many of those concerned folks who started out smoking and later selling marijuana before they moved onto the really really bad stuff. One thing I do know: the war on drugs is not working and generates more problems than it solves. So another approach may worth the initial trial and expense to see the effect.