CAFE SOCIETY MAKES CANNABIS RESPECTABLE

In the Purple Rain Coffee Shop, sitting next to a jukebox in the shape of a
Pink Cadillac, Marcel is rolling a big, fat joint.

Between swigs of Looza Ace, a bright orange vitamin drink, his long, nimble
fingers are sticking Rizla papers together, heaping on tobacco before
sprinkling a generous amount of cannabis resin. The package is then licked
and sealed into something resembling a fat cigarette.

Firing it up with a black plastic lighter, the lad in the Timberland
T-shirt takes a deep draw, smiles and blows smoke and hot air.

"That is worth a long drive in a slow car," Marcel says in English. "The
Netherlands - we salute you."

Breda, 120 kilometers from Amsterdam and nestled on the border with
Belgium, sees an influx of young French, Germans and Belgians each weekend.
They are drawn not by the elegant streets or magnificent gothic cathedral,
but the contents of the little metal boxes kept behind coffee shop bars and
labelled in ball-point: hash, weed or mix.

They are drug tourists, drawn by UKP 2 joints and a country that grants
them freedom to smoke without fear of prosecution and confiscation. Holland
has long been the home of the hash head. Here, cannabis, like alcohol and
nicotine, is acceptable as a recreational drug.

On 1 November, the Netherlands celebrates the 25th anniversary of its
controversial and pioneering approach to drug use. There will be no cakes
in the shape of a giant joint or banners drawn across the entrance to
coffee shops, just quiet confidence in a successful system. As the UK
begins to question its own punitive and restrictive approach to drugs and
looks across the North Sea for a lead, the key questions remain. How does
it work? How successful has it been? What could we apply in Britain?

The world's perception of Holland's attitude to drugs is a maze of
misconceptions. Under the Opium Act, the distribution, production,
trafficking and possession of drugs is entirely illegal. Cannabis
possession still carries a one-month prison sentence and a fine of UKP
1,500, yet since 1976, the authorities have chosen not to enforce the law.

The cultivation of hashish and marijuana is illegal, permissible only by
licence for medicinal or scientific purposes, or, bizarrely, in the case of
hemp, as a wind-break. This leads to the paradoxical situation where the
coffee shops are selling an illegal drug, whose owners must purchase
supplies illegally from dealers, while police turn a blind eye. The reason
is the belief cannabis is a relatively safe or "soft" drug that should be
firmly separated from "hard", more dangerous and addictive drugs such as
heroin and cocaine.

"It's a great idea," said Marcel, 23, an engineer from Brussels who arrived
in Breda in a clapped-out red Renault with two friends for a weekend of
smoking. The money they save by sleeping in their car is ploughed back into
a ready supply of joints to smuggle home across the border. "What is wrong
with a few joints? It helps you relax and everybody is cool. We shouldn't
have to drive 100 kilometers to smoke in peace."

Waving his joint across the room, he asks: "Is there anything wrong with
this place?"

Abdul Hussan, the Moroccan manager and provider of the antique Hookah pipes
that sit on the shelves, believes not. The police, he explains, regularly
visit, supplies of cannabis are restricted to a specific amount and any
transgression results in closure. "No fights, we have no fights," he says,
pointing at his crowd of placid customers.

A father of three children aged four to 15, he would allow them, when over
18, to smoke dope: "If they tried anything else, I would kick their a*s."

Critics of the system were concerned coffee shops would encourage cannabis
use among the young and, for nearly two decades, they were proved correct.
Cannabis use among school children did increase but the rise was reflected
across the world, including far stricter countries.

Last year, cannabis use among students actually dropped slightly. Among
children aged 15-16, 14 per cent regularly smoke cannabis. In Britain, the
figure is 16 per cent.

A second concern is cannabis as a gateway to harder drugs.

The World Health Organisation, however, says the greatest risk of moving
from soft to hard drugs is the exposure to opportunity provided by the
black market. Where the system is separated, as in Holland, the rate of
hard drug abuse should be reduced. For many years, the number of Dutch
heroin addicts slowly increased, but has now begun to fall.

In the Netherlands, the percentage of hard-drug addicts is less than half
that found in Britain, while the number of drug deaths is minuscule. In
1995, the Netherlands (population of 16 million) had just 70 drug deaths;
Britain (population 50 million) had 1,389.

Yet the Netherlands will never be a drug-friendly Nirvana. Ecstasy use
among 15-16 year-olds is, at 4 per cent, the highest in Europe (3 per cent
in Britain), while the use of cocaine is rising.

The prevalence of ecstasy manufacturing and smuggling has necessitated the
creation of the Synthetic Drug Unit, a police force dedicated exclusively
to the investigation and prosecution of suppliers.

Although increasingly successful, the Dutch authorities are aware that
because of their unique position, possessing in Rotterdam the largest port
in the world and huge unmanned borders with Belgium and Germany, the
country will remain popular with drug smugglers.

The most impressive element of the Netherlands' drug policy is not
tolerance, but dedication to prevention and the assertive treatment of addicts.

In Britain, care of addiction remains a scattered concern handled by dozens
of religious and secular agencies. The Netherlands offers a one-stop shop.
In Breda, an organisation called Kentron, housed in three modern brick
buildings, offers help and advice on every form of addiction. The
cornerstone is information. "Just Say No" is a discredited policy and
anyone can ask about the safest way to take any drug.

In his office, Marcel Wilderon, who works in preventive education, said:
"In Holland we accept that people want to take drugs. It's a myth that you
can stop them. It is much more important that people are aware of the risks
and limit them as much as possible."

In a point cutting to the heart of the drugs debate, Wilderon added: "They
are young consumers. They will make their own decisions."