IN THE NETHERLANDS, LEGALIZATION TAKES ALL THE FUN OUT OF POT

Marijuana Use Among Teens Is Lower There Than It Is In Canada

It's official: the Dutch have managed to make pot smoking uncool. The
Dutch don't smoke nearly as much cannabis as Canadians, which is
surprising because cannabis use is legal in the Netherlands. What can
we learn from this?

Cannabis is not taboo, as it is in North America, under prohibition.
That could be why there is no real attraction for Dutch youth to take
up the practice.

UN statistics tell it like it is: 16.8 per cent of adult Canadians
have tried cannabis, yet only 6.1 per cent of Dutch have (2007 World
Drug Report, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime).

Yet cannabis is legally available in 280 licensed coffee shops in the
Netherlands. Obviously, there is no connection between availability
and higher consumption rates.

Despite the lower rates of use among adults, and despite the fact that
Dutch teens try cannabis at much lower rates than North Americans, the
coffee shops are constantly threatened with closure. That's because
the drug warrior mentality has spread like fundamentalist wildfire
across the globe.

I met a few folks on a recent trip to Amsterdam, and of those who grew
up there, many said that they had not been interested in cannabis as
teens. Most did not even try it until they were adults.

That's very different from the Great White North.

When teens in Amsterdam think of pot smoking, they think of the
chronically bewildered tourists they have to look out for while
cycling downtown. For many, smoking pot is just not that much fun if
there aren't any laws being broken.

Although the Dutch system of cannabis regulation works pretty well,
there is constant pressure from conservatives both at home and
internationally to shut down the coffee shops.

The legislation to legalize soft drugs came about almost inadvertently
30 years ago, and a formal supply system was never put in place.

The marketplace is regulated, and consumers aren't prosecuted. But
suppliers can't exist. Naturally, organized crime stepped in to fill
the void. Unfortunately, that also means that hard drugs are never
very far away.

"The Dutch approach is a better-than-nothing solution," said Chimed
Jansen, a chemistry student I spoke to, "but not a good solution. It
has left itself wide open to criticism by never developing a
functional policy. The coffee shops, while profitable businesses, face
possible closure at any time for a multitude of reasons: schools close
by, neighbours not liking the customers, customers found carrying hard
drugs during raids, etc.

"Not only that, they are forced to work with criminals to function
since the production of cannabis is illegal."

I was in Amsterdam because my documentary, Damage Done: The Drug War Odyssey
was being screened as part of a Cannabis Tribunal. Former NYPD detective
Frank Serpico, who is in my film, travelled with me.

We were invited to speak because Damage Done is about a group of cops,
including Frank, and Canadian Senator Larry Campbell, who believe that
the war on drugs does more harm than the drugs themselves.

We presented a copy of our film to the chief of the
Amsterdam-Amstelland Police, who told me that he became a cop because
of Frank.

Since the Netherlands is in the process of re-examining its drug
policy, it was an interesting time to visit.

The famous open-mindedness of the Dutch is being challenged by those
who subscribe to a more conservative, faith-based political dogma.

When I asked my new Dutch friends what Canadians should take away from
the Dutch experience, they offered a few suggestions: "Maybe Canada
can start its own licensed coffeeshop system for 18-plus and from the
start let every coffee shop appoint two or three growers, who would
then get a licence and pay taxes. That would eliminate most illegal
growing," said Mila Jansen, an inventor and entrepreneur.

A lot of discussion took place around public education.

Society needs to accept that drug use is here to stay, no matter how
much we may want it to disappear. There will always be those who want
to use drugs, and who won't buy into anti-drug propaganda or be
deterred by stiff sentences.

What we tell our children is especially important: "Provide for an
honest drug education. Exaggerating or misleading kids only works
miracles for losing your credibility," said Job Joris Arnold, a
journalist and drug policy activist.

Legalizing tobacco and alcohol -- but not cannabis -- is hypocritical,
and kids realize that. "Just Say No" never worked. Try it yourself.
Tell any teenager that they can't have something they want, no matter
how innocuous, and see what happens.

The usefulness of surveying rates of drug use and abuse is arguable.
The rates of truthfulness with which people respond to such studies
must differ depending on whether one lives in a country in which
admitting to such behaviours could result in jail time.

If such studies prove anything definitively, it's that prohibition
doesn't work.

According to the same UN study, the use of heroin and MDMA
(methylenedioxymethamphetamine) is higher in the Netherlands than in
Canada. Why the difference? Good question. The field is full of
tremendous opportunities for further research.

"Nobody knows the reasons for this difference in use levels," said
Frederik Polak, a psychiatrist I interviewed.

"Another point that is not clear is whether this must be seen as a
grave problem, a small problem, or as no problem," he continued.

"In general it is automatically assumed that higher drug use levels
are a bad thing. Many people see even unproblematic drug use as
morally wrong. We want to make the case that, for most users, the
recreational and functional use of drugs provides pleasure and
enhances quality of life."

The lower rate of pot smoking in the Netherlands would certainly seem
to indicate that the way to solve our drug problem is to legalize drugs.

Soon, even prohibitionists will have to admit this is the case. It is
a concept that certainly warrants further consideration.

In Canada we are already struggling to develop an efficient,
government-regulated system of cannabis supply for medical uses. Once
the bugs in that system get worked out -- and there are many --
supplying to the retail trade won't be a huge leap.

Are there cannabis coffee shops in our future?

Connie Littlefield's films include Hofmann's Potion: The Early Years of LSD,
and DamageDone: The Drug War Odyssey