EDUCATION KEY TO EFFECTIVE ILLICIT-DRUG POLICY - ENVOY

Making drug use a crime is no guarantee that there will be fewer drug
users, an envoy said.

"By making something taboo, you make it more attractive," said Dutch
ambassador to the Philippines, Richard Brinks, in an exclusive
roundtable interview with The Manila Times recently. "Repressive
policies just make people more curious."

To stress his point, he said last year there were around 17,000 drug
users in The Netherlands, country known for its permissive attitude
toward the so-called soft drugs. Despite the easy availability of
marijuana, hashish and other "mild" drugs in coffee shops, drug
related crime is almost unheard off.

Making these substances available--and legal--eliminates the need for
addicts to steal or perpetrate crimes to support their drug habits,
Brinks explained.

The Dutch government draws the line on "hard drugs," though, he
added.

An establishment found selling hard drugs immediately loses its
license, as the government keeps a tight watch over those shops.

"There is a zero tolerance policy for hard drugs," Brinks said. "It
is hard drugs and hard drug users that present a danger to public
security, that we spend money to ensure through the legal system are
kept off the street."

In The Netherlands, soft drug users are considered not as criminals
but as patients with health problems, the envoy said. Drug users are
not so different from cigarette smokers or consumers of alcoholic
drinks, and like chain smokers or alcoholics, those who abuse drugs
are offered medical treatment by the Dutch government. The
authorities there keep tabs on the soft drug users in the country and
offer them health services, including clean needles and paying for
anti-addiction treatments for those who want to kick the habit.

"I am proud of our drug policy," Brinks said. "Why pay through the
nose to put soft drug users in prison? They don't present a danger to
public security. Let's concentrate on the hard-drug users."

Despite the openness about drug use, the ambassador told The Times
that the number of users and of coffee houses selling soft drugs in
the country are actually decreasing. Plus, there are very few
recorded deaths by overdose, with only 30 victims last year. Most of
those who died of overdose were not Dutch, rather foreigners who
were likely overwhelmed by The Netherlands' liberal society.

"I think one reason why we have less drug users and also less
drug-related deaths is because the Dutch are very well informed about
drug use," Brinks said. "No one ODs [overdoses] by accident, because
they know how to use drugs safely."

Drug education is part of the public-education system in The
Netherlands. Children are taught about the variety of drugs they
might see on the streets and their effects on the mind and body.

"If you hide it away, you just make them more curious," Brinks
explained, referring to children. "The possibilities that they're
going to experiment are great anyway, but at least this way they
don't do it recklessly in a back alley somewhere."

"And we don't make it glamorous," he added. "We don't have a stuffy
official from the Health Department giving a lecture. We get a dealer
from the street to visit the public classrooms to show everything
they have and explain what they're supposed to do and how you're
supposed to use it."

The "scruffy guy from the street" allegedly has a de-glamorizing
effect on drug use as it shows the children how they could end up,
the envoy said.

"It's like showing pictures of diseased lungs to a smoker," Brinks
said. "We're just teaching them what the risks are, because they're
going to experiment anyhow. We want to make sure the number of deaths
is zero."