TOLERANT DUTCH LEAD THE WAY

From the outside, Blue Velvet in central Amsterdam is a brightly lit,
high-tech shop of attractive, modernist design. Walking past its shimmering
neon frontage on Haarlemstraat, you could mistake it for another chintzy
hair salon or swanky furniture store.

In fact, it's a "coffee shop," that charming Dutch euphemism for the 300 or
so shops licensed to sell marijuana and hashish.

On any walk around the city, coffee shops are visible.

In areas heavily frequented by tourists, Rastafarian colours and Bob Marley
posters are the usual decor, although farther out many look like
sophisticated restaurant-bars or quiet neighbourhood cafes, and locals stop
by simply for a coffee or a drink.

Far from being seedy, coffee shops are usually scrupulously clean.

All offer menus for hashish and marijuana - hashish priced around $25 a
gram, excellent quality marijuana around $15 a gram - as well as food and
(sometimes) alcohol.

Each has its own character: De Dampkring has a constantly changing and
comfortable decor with numerous flowers; Rasta Baby near the railway station
has comfortable outdoor seating on one of the city's busiest corners; and
the Pax Party House is by a police station.

The Bulldog - established 25 years ago - with five outlets, bike rental
facilities and a budget hotel, is as much a corporate entity as the Body
Shop and has an international reputation.

To us, poised to seriously debate our own relationship to marijuana - the
third most popular drug in New Zealand after alcohol and tobacco - the
liberal attitude of the Dutch may appear puzzling, but is admirable for its
intelligent application.

Trafficking in, selling, producing or possessing either hard or soft drugs
continue to be offences.

However, the use of drugs is not an offence in itself. Policies and
legislation distinguish between hard and soft drugs based on health risk,
and seek to separate the markets for each so soft-drug users are less likely
to come into contact with hard drugs.

The reason the use of drugs is not an offence is because, like excessive
consumption of alcohol and tobacco, drugs primarily harm the user. Dutch
policy is therefore to provide assistance in the rehabilitation of hard-drug
users, of whom there are relatively few (0.16 per cent of the population).

Studies have discredited the idea that soft-drug users move on to hard
drugs, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs guide to Dutch policy also states
that liberalisation of the sale of soft drugs has not led to a rise in
cannabis use among young people.

Yet, if drugs cannot be sold, how is it coffee shops exist?

Low priority is given to prosecuting owners or operators, provided certain
conditions are met - that no hard drugs are sold, drugs are not advertised,
no nuisance is caused, there are no sales to under-18s, and no more than 5g
is sold to any customer at one time. (Possession of up to 30g of soft drugs
is considered a minor offence and charges are not usually brought.)

Coffee shops have been allowed to exist - although their numbers are
gradually being cut to allow for easier monitoring of compliance with
conditions - to separate the markets for soft and hard drugs.

Research from the Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport rates
psychological and physical damage from cannabis smoking as "minor" or "nil,"
but "major" for tobacco and alcohol.

In New Zealand, marijuana use is endemic. A 1998 survey by the Alcohol and
Public Health Research Unit of the University of Auckland found 52 per cent
of the 15-to-45-years survey group had tried it (up from 43 per cent in
1990), and 21 per cent in the previous year (up from 18 per cent.)

Those figures suggest that the arrival of the Green MP Nandor Tanczos, a
self-confessed marijuana smoker, in Parliament has made it more properly a
"House of Representatives."

As debate in this country begins on decriminalisation of marijuana - hashish
is rarely seen here and only 2 per cent in the 1998 survey had used it in
the previous year - it is worth weighing up the Dutch experience.

Amsterdam has developed a "people first" policy, so what people do - be it
prostitution or taking drugs - has to be factored in to any social
programmes or political agenda.

And that is why the main, stated aim of Dutch drug policy is to prevent harm
to users, their immediate environment and society as a whole.