DRUG DREAM THAT TURNED INTO A SORDID NIGHTMARE

THE door of the Grasshopper coffee shop in Amsterdam, creaks open, and the
fresh-faced patrons stare up through the smoke. Some are smiling, others
murmur earnestly and one boy is clutching his head in his hands over a
wooden table.

"He's had the White Widow," confides an on-looker, referring to a
particularly potent new brand of skunk weed (a type of marijuana).

"Takes a bit of getting used to."

At first glance, the scene seems almost quaint.

Here are young people sharing joints, sipping milky cups of tea, listening
to reggae and discussing world peace. The policemen at the station over the
road do not bat an eyelid.

This is the liberal and beguiling face of The Netherlands' "blind eye"
drugs policy. There are hundreds of similar coffee shops in the city, where
people can smoke without fear of prosecution in the simple belief that
tolerance, not prohibition, is the answer.

Liberals in Amsterdam use a well-rehearsed argument: if you make soft drugs
legal, you protect the users from the worst aspects of "narco-crime",
including dealers who might lead them to the far more evil hard drugs, such
as cocaine and heroin.

But after more than 15 years of experimenting, is The Netherlands really
the way ahead? Or are the cracks in the liberal drugs dream beginning to show?

The simple fact is that the Dutch are losing confidence in their own
system. Despite claims that heroin use has fallen, that drug deaths are low
and that violence and drug-related crime have dropped, the use of cocaine
and ecstasy among young people has risen to the highest in Europe.

Heroin use among teenagers is still the third-highest.

The Netherlands is also fighting its new-found image as the "drug pusher of
Europe". The "blind eye" approach has made it a haven for suppliers.

More than 80% of the heroin and 87% of the ecstasy smuggled into Britain is
believed to have come through The Netherlands.

Under pressure from its European neighbours, the Dutch Government is now
asking whether it has all gone horribly wrong.

Behind the veneer of liberalism is a much darker picture of confused law,
disastrous loopholes and hypocrisy. Most disturbing is the way the soft and
hard drug markets have merged.

The supposed division between them is as illusory as the cheerful smiles of
the prostitutes in the neon-lit windows of Amsterdam.

DARKNESS descends on Amsterdam and the coffee shops between the red light
district and the university begin to fill up.

Inside, the signs are clear for all to see: "No hard drugs here."

But outside, the dealers sidle up to you on the tiny streets and discreetly
elbow you as you pass, hissing "ecstasy, cocaine, crack" under their
breath, like a mantra.

"Can I get. you something?" one whispers, with a faint, salesman's smile.

"Like what?" you ask.

"Anything," he says, "I can get you anything you like"

By 11am the following day, a steady flow of tourists is making its way into
the Rijksmuseum. The clean, white van parked outside, with a security
camera on the roof, goes unnoticed by most. But this is a very different
side of drugs in the city. This is the mobile methadone clinic for the most
desperate addicts.

One after another they come, young and old, male and female. Their faces
are ravaged and gaunt, their eyes heavy-lidded and lifeless.

And despite the government statistics that suggest the average age of
heroin users in the city is 41, many are clearly at least a decade younger
than that.

David Dimon peers out from beneath a woolly hat. Aged 30, he has been a
drug user for 16 years and dependent on hard drugs -- cocaine and then
heroin -- for eight. His story is typical.

When he was 14, about the time The Netherlands was relaxing its drug laws,
he began smoking marijuana.

In the clubs of Amsterdam he was offered cocaine. Whereas cannabis had made
him a zombie, coke made him high. He was also able to function on it.

From cocaine be gradyated to heroin, smoking both drugs in ever increasing
amounts, and spending $230 to $300 a day on them.

First he gave up his university studies in psychology, then he lost his job
and, before he knew it, eight years of his life.

"It's laughable the policy here" he says, "At one end they make it very
easy for you to take drugs and tell you it's fine. By the time you reach
the other end, you're an outcast and they don't want to know you any more.

"Of course, being able to smoke drugs made it easy to move on to harder
drugs. It's a first step. It's like walking, then driving and then getting
a car of your own. It's a progression. I'm not saying that happens to
everyone, but it happens to enough."

AS we jump on to a tram heading out towards the suburbs. he starts to
becomc dreamy and vague, the methadone is working.

He does not regard it as a substitute for heroin, he explains, just another
drug to top him up.

He and his friend Max, who has used drugs for 17 years, are on their way to
a special place on the bland housing estate of low-rise flats where they
can get free breakfast and where Max can smoke his crack pipe without
anyone trying to stop him.

They point out the Jellinek clinic in Amsterdam, where 7500 patients are
treated every year for addictions. After alcoholism, the biggest addiction
is heroin.

David and Max dismiss the idea that drugs-related crime is low in
Amsterdam. Even the endless racks of bicycles in the city are locked up
these days.

The battered ones may be worth only $20, but for the desperate junkie that
is enough for a hit.

"There's such hypocrisy here over drugs," says David, "Now if you're a
criminal you get help. You are given a special place to take your drugs. A
policeman laughed at me the other day and said, 'You're a junkie who
doesn't steal. You must be stupid'."

The argument that a tolerant drug policy would reduce demand for illegal
drugs and drug-related crime becomes depressingly unconvincing when talking
to David.

He can buy heroin in the red light district for about $77 a gram, he
explains, less if he can find the right dealer. But in the suburb of
Bijlmermeer, the so-called ghetto of Amsterdam, it is even cheaper: $30.

Here, among the soulless blocks of flats, dealers lurk in the shadows of
the concrete car parks all day, waiting for business. They are not
surprised to see strangers. Outsiders still risk the trip to buy drugs at
bargain prices.

"Either you buy or you go." grunts a man and gestures for us to leave.

No place better sums up the mixed messages on drugs in The Netherlands than
the Bureau De Loor.

The discreet office in the centre of Amsterdam is manned by two drugs
experts, who offer a "safe-house" testing facility for the thousands of
ecstasy tablets being bought and sold in the city every day.

They do not ask the visitors who they are, whether they are dealers or
individuals. They simply perform a test on a sample of a pill they have
brought, tell them what it contains and how safe it is.

The bureau also offers a safe house service at raves around the city, for
the thousands of young clubbers. They believe that young people will take
ecstasy anyway, so it is better to offer protection.

The bureau was set up by August De Loor, a drugs aficionado and youth
worker who talks in grandiose language about the social importance of drugs.

The police love him, he insists, because he helps create an atmosphere of
safety; the doctors love him because he helps them protect the users: and
of course the kids love him.

De Loor is infuriated by a new campaign in which the Dutch Government is
warning young people against using ecstasy.

Last month it launched advertisements that insisted just one pill was
enough to kill you.

Ecstasy, perhaps more than any other drug, has embarrassed the Dutch
Government into action.

The Netherlands is Europe's biggest producer of ecstasy, and Amsterdam's
tolerance policy has turned it into a virtual free port for the drug.

The government set up special undercover teams to chase out the ecstasy
gangs. But, according to De Loor, the crackdown has made it harder for the
suppliers to produce good ecstasy. As a result, the users are either taking
more pills, four instead of one; or moving on to low-grade speed.

It is a stark illustration of how, if you have a policy of turning a blind
eye and make a drug almost legal without the state controlling the supply,
you are set for disaster.

It is clear, talking to policy makers here, who only want to chat openly
off the record, that the dream is over. No-one has the heart for it any more.