USD STUDENTS GET NEW PERSPECTIVE ON DRUG POLICIES

VERMILLION, S.D. -- So your college-age daughter comes home and tells
you that in order to learn more about drug culture and policies,
she's going to Europe to spend a few days in Amsterdam.

Yes, that Amsterdam. The one that's famous worldwide for its
red-light district and coffee shops in which you can order various
types of marijuana off a menu much the way you can order different
cuts of beef in an American steakhouse.

And remember, your kid is still in college and heading over there
with a group of other students. You've seen the Cheech and Chong
movies. You're no dummy.

"I got a lot of jokes," Ashley Lilleholm said.

But it was serious stuff. The University of South Dakota counseling
and psychology graduate student and other students shrugged off the
snickers about going to Amsterdam to experiment rather than to
observe the city's open drug culture. Lilleholm, who studied alcohol
and drug studies as an undergrad, realized there are many ways to
regulate drug use and treat abuse.

"If people could act responsible (in America) like they do over
there, it's not such a bad thing," said Lilleholm, a Denison, Iowa,
native whose family has moved to Sioux Falls.

Lilleholm was one of 19 to make the trip. There were students,
professors and others from the community on the weeklong trip to
Amsterdam and Paris in June.

"One of the students said this is something you'd never learn in a
classroom," said Diane Sevening, an assistant professor in USD's
Alcohol and Drug Studies Department. She's taught about drug and
alcohol addiction for almost 25 years. Having been to Amsterdam
before, she thought it would be good for students to earn some
college credit by learning how another country deals with drugs.

It definitely was an eye-opener, said Amber Lutt, a sophomore
psychology major from Wayne, Neb.

"It was such a culture shock," Lutt said. "It's all out there.
They're not trying to cover it up."

Marijuana isn't legal in Amsterdam. Rather, it's decriminalized. It's
similar to Americans going into a bar to drink. In Amsterdam, they go
into coffee shops to smoke.

"You'd think that the availability of it would make it out of
control," Lutt said. "It was a lot more of a social thing."

No craziness. No crime. Nobody walking around stoned or drunk. At
least not Amsterdam natives.

"I saw Americans out of control," Lilleholm said.

Which leads her to believe that such policies probably wouldn't work
here. Make marijuana as easy to obtain as alcohol, and people are
going to overindulge. But both students saw some things from which
American policymakers could learn. They learned about treatment
programs that, rather than make users stop cold turkey, wean them off
their habit and at the same time provide alternatives to their risky
behavior. The police, health officials and treatment providers work
closely together, supporting one another in the effort to help
addicts rather than treat them like criminals.

Lilleholm would like to see some of those strategies incorporated
into American attitudes toward drugs. Educate children on the harm
they can do rather than just tell them to say no. When kids are
caught experimenting with marijuana, don't kick them out of school
and ban them from extracurricular activities. Keep them in school,
keep them busy so they have positive influences around them rather
than sitting at home with extra time to get into trouble.

"It's not legal, so you have to take action. But we need to
understand there's different ways to take action," said Lilleholm,
who hopes to be a school counselor.

Lutt and Lilleholm realize that incorporating some of Amsterdam's
policies pertaining to marijuana are probably a pipe dream.

But maybe, at the very least, they're worth researching. Anything to
keep an addict's life from disappearing in a puff of smoke.