LTE: DUTCH MODEL SHOWS CANNABIS LEADS TO HARD DRUGS

Sir-Some correspondents would have us believe that Holland's liberal
attitude to cannabis, if implemented here, would solve all of our own
problems with cannabis and that such a policy would not lead to
increased use of "hard drugs". Rubbish.

According to Teun Stortenbeker, director of a drug rehabilitation
centre, De Hoop, in Dordrecht, in 1996, the odds are that regular
soft-drug users will eventually become hard-drug users.

In that centre, typical of many such Dutch centres, 80 to 90 per cent
of all hard-drug users had a history of soft-drug use.

Further, because of the large number of so-called coffeeshops, young
people had ridiculously easy access to soft drugs. The competition
between the coffeeshops kept prices down while improved cultivation
methods made cannabis ever more potent. Moving on to hard drugs was
much easier.