The Netherlands have a minor problem with heroin compared with most
Western European countries. One of the main reasons is the setting up
of "coffee shops" over 20 years ago, along with a sensible education
policy. The coffee shops decriminalised cannabis and separated the
market for cannabis from that for hard drugs.

Another mainstay of their policy is to treat addiction as a medical
and social problem and not as a criminal problem, which has led to the
trials with prescribing heroin.

As well as a relatively small, stable number of heroin addicts they
also have the lowest rate of teenage use of cannabis in the western
world.

Why are this country's political parties so blinkered?

Hugh Robertson,
Perth