Netherlands Drug Policy Foundation
Raimond Dufour, President

LEGALISATION OF ALL DRUGS: OF COURSE!

Of course all drugs should be legalised, and they will be. It’s easy to see why. At present, in our western societies the police and judiciary spend half of their time and money enforcing the drugs-prohibition. The result of this outragious effort: less than 5-10% of drugs are caught. The maffia, Taliban and other criminal and terroristic organisations as well as home-grown gangs keep on happily providing the rest.

Like the prohibition of alcohol, 1925-1933 in the U.S., the drugsprohibition has proved to be a disastrous failure. The problems it has created are vastly more threatening than those of drugs themselves. In my country, The Netherlands, there are 13x more alcoholics than drugaddicts, 15x more deaths caused by alcohol (not even counting trafficaccidents !) and 333x more deaths by tobacco. In other countries, the statistics are similar.

Now, the champions of prohibition point to these dramatic differences as an argument for the continuation of it: otherwise we would end up with equally high numbers of drugaddicts and –deaths! This retort has, however, been invalidated by reality.
The Netherlands instituted some 30 years ago a system of officially tolerated sale of cannabis in the so-called “coffee-shops”. This regulated sale has not resulted, as critics prophesied, in a biblical flood of cannabis users and addicts: on the contrary, the numbers are an average in Europe. In France and Britain, with much harsher regimes, these numbers are much higher.
Neither has the regulated sale of cannabis led to more users and addicts of the other drugs: again the number of users is average, and that of addicts is among the lowest. So much for the “stepping-stone theory”, which predicts that the use of cannabis inevitably leads to the use of the other drugs. Not True!

And the same goes for other measures that have softened the impact of prohibition, such as clean needles, users-rooms, not arresting users, supplying of methadon and heroïn. Neither in Holland nor in other countries that have introduced those measures have they led to more use or addiction.

So all available evidence point to this: prohibition is not necessary, and the real danger of drugs lies in their prohibition.

Now, the question arises how to end this worldwide mistake. Since prohibition has been agreed upon in U.N-treaties, the princely road to abolition would be to change these treaties or revoke them. This however, would be a long and thorny path. Immense international pressure would be brought upon the rebellious nation, especially by the U.S. with its ugly “war on drugs”.
Much faster and more practical is for pioneering nations to just go ahead on the road towards legalisation by way of experimental projects. In the Dutch legal system this can be done without a fullfledged legal basis by using the prerogative of the public prosecutor not to prosecute if certain conditions are met. If successful then they could later on be generally applied.
This has another advantage: for as well as we know that “prohibition stinks” , as little we know of the best practice to regulate drugs. So, experiments are necessary to find out.

The Netherlands Drug Policy Foundation has proposed the following measures:
1. Cannabis-growing. The coffeeshop model should be completed by also regulating the growing of cannabis to be sold there. At present, coffeeshops may sell cannabis “at the frontdoor”, but they have to buy their stuff at their “backdoor” illegally. This obvious manco has caused many problems. People grow cannabis in cellars or attics in their houses, sometimes criminal gangs organise this culture, and decent coffeeshops are drawn into criminal circles. Experiments should be started with the handing out of licenses to grow cannabis, only to be sold in licenced coffeeshops. There is a large majority in the Dutch parliament in favour of these experiments, almost all large cities have asked the government to allow them, but the present government has refused.
2. Heroïne: for some years now the government supplies longstanding addicts with heroin besides or instead of methadon. This program has proved to improve the health of these addicts and caused them to commit less crimes. It now should be extended to all addicts who want to participate.
3. Cocaïne and amphetamine. More and more young addicts use these drugs instead of heroïn. Pilot projects should find out if and under which conditions supplying these drugs could be beneficial. The main drughelp organisations and psychiatric wards are in favour of this.
4. Recreational harddrug-use. There is no fundamental difference between cannabis and the other drugs. They all have their own caracteristics, but none of them can be judged to be extremely dangerous. If they were, nobody would want to use them anyhow. Several thorough pharmacological studies, like those commissioned by French, English and Canadian governments, have proven this. Since the regulated sale of cannabis in Holland has shown not to lead to more (mis-)use, experiments should now be organised to find out if regulated sale of the other drugs like cocaïne, xtc and amphetamines could not have similar good results.

By adopting steps like these, European countries and the world as a whole would find their way out of the present quagmire. They would effectively prevent the further spread of aids and tbc, improve the health of users , and deal a fatal blow to crime and terror organisations. When finally drugs are regulated by law, the entire drugsquestion will have been reduced to what it is in reality: an enjoyment for most and a problem for some (like most enjoyments).
Later generations will ask their (grand-)parents in amazement why it took them so long!