DUTCH REBUKE U.S. DRUGS ADVISER

AMSTERDAM, July 14 (Reuters) - The Netherlands rebuked a top U.S. drugs
policy adviser on Tuesday for getting his facts wrong about Dutch
drug-related crime but said General Barry McCaffrey was welcome to learn
from the Dutch experience.

McCaffrey, speaking in Stockholm during a European fact-finding mission,
said on Monday the per capita murder rate in the Netherlands was double
that in the United States and blamed the liberal Dutch attitude towards
soft drugs.

In Amsterdam, Europe's drugs capital according to McCaffrey, coffee shops
peddling marijuana are almost as common as bars selling beer. Nevertheless,
the Dutch say addiction to hard drugs like heroin is less common than in
other countries.

``The murder rate in Holland is double that in the United States, McCaffrey
told Swedish reporters.

The overall crime rate in Holland is probably 40 percent higher than the
United States. That's drugs.''

According to the White House adviser, there were 17.58 murders for every
100,000 inhabitants in the Netherlands in 1995, compared with 8.22 murders
per 100,000 people in the United States.

The Dutch government's Central Planning Bureau poured scorn on McCaffrey's
figures.

Official data put the Dutch murder rate at 1.8 per 100,000 people in 1996,
up from 1.5 at the start of the decade.

``The figure (McCaffrey is using) is not right. He is adding in attempted
murders,'' a planning bureau spokesman told Reuters.

McCaffrey, who is due to visit the Netherlands on Thursday, contends that
Amsterdam is Europe's biggest drugs market and has described the Dutch
drugs policy as a ``disaster.''

He said the Netherlands is an export centre for synthetic drugs like
Ecstasy to Britain and the United States.

``(McCaffrey's) statements show...that he is not coming totally unbiased,''
Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Birgitta Tazelaar told Reuters.

``We hope he is coming here to learn from the Dutch drugs policy and one
can only learn if open-minded, she said. We don't want to deprive him of
the opportunity to inform himself.''

On his visit, McCaffrey plans to steer clear of the notorious coffee shops
but will visit an outpatients clinic for drug addicts.

He will also take in the latest in Dutch drug experiments -- a Health
Ministry centre where hardcore addicts are given free heroin with the aim
of reducing drug-related crime.

``We hope his opinions will then come more into line with the facts the way
we see them here,'' Tazelaar said. ``We would rather enter a discussion
than turn our back on dialogue.''

The Health Ministry cast doubt on whether McCaffrey's visit could still
serve to create an open exchange on drugs policy.

The Netherlands, often considered a front-runner in the area of drugs
tolerance, argues there should be a strict separation between hard and soft
drugs policy.

It tolerates the small-scale production and sale of soft drugs but actively
discourages the abuse of hard drugs.

The Dutch government clashed with McCaffrey last week over comments he made
in an interview with Cable Network News (CNN) television. McCaffrey called
Dutch drugs policy a ``disaster.''

``I must say that I find the timing of your remarks -- six days before your
planned visit to the Netherlands with a view to gaining first-hand
knowledge about Dutch drugs policy and its results -- rather astonishing,''
Joris Vos, Dutch ambassador to the United States, said in a letter to
McCaffrey.