U.S. DRUG czar Barry McCaffrey recently declared the drug policy in
the Netherlands a failure, pointing to a higher per-capita murder
rate. He stated that murder rates in the U.S. are 8.22 per 100,000 and
Dutch rates are 17.58 per 100,000. However, when you look at the
official figures published in statistics Netherlands is 1.8 per
100,000 for 1996 and it has been that way for a number of years.

The 17.58 figure is the number of attempted murders per 100,000
people. We shouldn't be surprised, really. McCaffrey is, after all, a
government propagandist and as in all other conflicts it seems truth
has become a casualty in the war on drugs as well.

Timothy Meehan
Toronto

(McCaffrey has outnumbered himself.)