DUTCH SHOW LEGAL POT THE BEST WAY TO CURB TEENS' USE

It's official: The Dutch have managed to make pot smoking uncool. They
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. United Nations 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.

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. 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 didn't try it until they were adults. For many, smoking
pot is just not that much fun if there aren't any laws being broken.

Although the Dutch system works pretty well, there is constant
pressure from conservatives to shut down the coffee shops. The
legislation to legalize soft drugs came about almost inadvertently 30
years ago, and a 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. The
coffee shops, while profitable businesses, face possible closing at
any time for a multitude of reasons ... 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 there. Former New York Police Department detective Frank
Serpico, who is in the
film, was with me. We were invited to speak because Damage Done is
about a group of
cops, including Serpico, and Canadian Senator Larry Campbell, who
believe that the war
on drugs does more harm than the drugs themselves.

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.

My new Dutch friends offered suggestions on what Canadians should take
from their experience: "Maybe Canada can start its own licensed coffee
shop 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 education. Society needs to
accept that drug use is here to stay, no matter how much we 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 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 he can't have something he wants, no matter how
innocuous, and see what happens.

If drug studies prove anything definitively, it's that prohibition
doesn't work. According to the same UN study, the use of heroin and
MDMA are higher in the Netherlands than in Canada.

"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 added. "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 use in the Netherlands would certainly seem to
indicate that the way to solve our drug problem is to legalize drugs.
It is a concept that certainly warrants consideration.

In Canada, we are struggling to develop an efficient,
government-regulated system of cannabis supply for medical uses. Once
the bugs get worked out, supplying to the retail trade won't be a huge
leap. Are there cannabis coffee shops in our future?