According to Iowa drug-policy coordinator Charles W. Larson, Switzerland,
the Netherlands, Spain and Italy all legalized drugs! Back to reality.
None of these nations has legalized drugs - not now, not before. All are
signatories to international drug-control treaties signed in 1961, 1971 and
1988.

The Netherlands "tolerates" but has not quite legalized marijuana, and
other drugs are quite illegal there. Spain and Italy have experimented with
not prosecuting personal quantity possession cases. And Switzerland tried
"Needle Park," an experiment in which addicts from all over the European
community were allowed to crowd into one public park in the middle of
Zurich and inject illegal drugs, but not be arrested.

These policies do differ from U.S. drug policy. But they are not
legalization. Since Needle Park and its predictable chaos, Switzerland has
moved to heroin maintenance, an orderly distribution of that drug to
certified addicts under medical outpatient supervision - not quite
legalization either. But this highly successful program for rescuing
addicts from the street economy has more in common with legalization than
any of the examples Larson so carefully selected.

David Borden,
Director, Drug Reform Coordination Network,
Washington, D.C.