Gedoogbelied Describes the Commonsensical Act of Tolerating Behavior that
Is Sort Of Illegal, Provided it Doesn't Get Completely Out of Control.

THIS EUROPEAN NOTION WORTH ADOPTING HERE IN THE U.S.A.

One of the side effects of world travel is how it opens your eyes to the
many ways your own little corner of the planet could stand improvement.
Spring break in Mexico will generally inspire you to take more siestas. A
vacation in Italy, where the barmen can paint a swaying palm tree out of
the foamed milk and nutmeg on your cappuccino, will only make you more
contemptuous of the service at Starbuck's. A trip to Turkey will typically
turn you on to all the untapped potential of eggplant.

So after spending the past several days in Amsterdam, I've been considering
what aspect of Dutch culture I'd want to import. And though easy access to
pancakes and Vermeer paintings ranked high on the list, the thing I admired
most about Holland was a single word: Gedoogbelied.

I have no idea how to pronounce it, but if you tried it with a slight
German accent mixed with a tad of Dr. Seuss, you probably wouldn't be far
off. I'm told it comes from the root ``gedogen,'' which means ``to look the
other way,'' and though it has no direct translation in English it
describes the commonsensical act of tolerating behavior that is sort of
illegal, provided it doesn't get completely out of control.

This word is applied most regularly -- and controversially -- toward the
Netherlands' policy on soft drugs. In 1976, the Health Ministry of Holland
determined that crime linked to the sale of drugs was a greater threat to
health than the actual drugs, and thus decriminalized cannabis without
making it technically legal.

In 1996, the Dutch went even further by licensing the country's 1,000 or so
coffee shops and ``hash'' houses, increasing safety and security for the
estimated 1 million regular Dutch pot consumers, and also providing a nice
tax base (so substantial that the mayor of Amsterdam may be the only
elected official in the world happy to tell reporters the going price for a
gram of pot in his city: about 8 bucks).

But this remains a controversial policy, particularly if your own country
is losing its battle against drugs. Last year, French President Jacques
Chirac blamed Holland for his own country's rising drug rates (never mind
that Spain, Pakistan, and Morocco are the main suppliers of drugs to
France), and pressured the Dutch to drop the allowable amount of pot from
30 grams (admittedly, a quantity better suited to entrepreneurs than
day-trippers) to five.

U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey visited Holland last year to declare their
drug policy ``an unmitigated disaster,'' claiming it contributed to the
country's ``high crime rate.'' Which might actually be true if you count
all the bike thieves, pickpockets, and people who don't pick up after their
dogs in Amsterdam.

Clearly, there are drawbacks to this permissive policy. It attracts idiotic
tourists who are so delighted at the prospect of ordering a croissant and a
spliff of Mexican sensamilla they never make it to the Rijksmuseum to see
Rembrandt's ``Night Watch.'' And too many of the country's coffee-shop
owners seem to think pop music began and ended with Bob Marley's
``Legends'' album.

But are their problems any more ridiculous than our own absurd ``war on
drugs'' that cost $17.1 billion in federal funds last year, plus $20
billion more from state and local sources? As much as $3 billion is spent
on pot busts alone. Some 4,000 new HIV infections could have been prevented
before the year 2000 if the federal ban on needle-exchange funding had been
lifted this year. Every 20 seconds, someone is arrested in the U.S. for a
drug law violation.

All this, when a 1990 Gallup poll found that only 4 percent of Americans
thought arresting people who use drugs was the best way for the government
to allocate resources.

Suddenly, gedoogbelied doesn't sound like such a dumb word.

So what came next on my list of things Holland has that we could use? Light
rail. But I worried that writing about the wonders of reliable public
transit might make readers think I'd been smoking something funny.