The Bitterest Pill

EUROPE BECOMES LESS DRUG-FRIENDLY

With its marijuana coffee shops, the Netherlands has a reputation for
being the most drug-friendly country in Europe: the epitome of the
continent's permissive cultural attitude to illegal drug use. The Dutch
have long favored "harm reduction" rather than law enforcement in their
drug-related public policies, and many coffee shops have been able to
flout what rules there are regarding the sale of cannabis.

In March 2006, though, the Dutch minister for justice, Piet Hein
Donner, proposed an amendment that would make it easier to shut down
shops selling drugs illegally--it is still under debate. Later that
spring, he was not only able to defeat a parliamentary proposal to
allow regulated, large-scale production of marijuana, but the
legislature also raised the maximum sentence for large-scale marijuana
cultivation. Last Friday, the Dutch government banned the sale and
cultivation of magic mushrooms after a series of high-profile
incidents. A justice ministry spokesman promised that the law would be
enforced and coffee shops caught selling them closed down. The city of
Rotterdam has also passed a law that will shut down nearly half of its
"grow" shops.

By the late 1990s, the country had become the world's largest producer
of Ecstasy, a problem they have successfully tackled. In 2002 the
government launched a five-year campaign against the drug. Production
has fallen significantly and rates of use of Ecstasy (as well as
marijuana, cocaine, and amphetamines) declined among Dutch teens from
1999 to 2003. The Netherlands, long the leader in legalization of soft
drugs, is part of a wide shift in European attitudes and laws on drug
use.

Take Sweden. The 2007 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report
notes that drug use in Sweden is a third the European average with
only 12 percent of the adult population having ever used drugs. Yet
even here the number of serious drug users fell 7 percent from last
year and the percentage of high school students who have tried
drugs--already low--dipped slightly.

Or Switzerland. It has some of the highest rates of cannabis use in
Europe: In a population of 7.5 million, 500,000 Swiss are thought to use
marijuana at least occasionally. Approximately 250,000 use it regularly,
a 100 percent increase from a decade ago. In 2004, the Swiss parliament
considered a bill that would have decriminalized marijuana use for
adults (and set up a permanent heroin maintenance program for addicts).
But spooked by a steep increase in users and a spike in drug-related
crime (50,000 cases nationally, an all-time high), parliament rejected
the measure.

Following the failure of the bill, a lobbying group collected the
100,000 signatures needed to bring legalization directly before voters
as a ballot initiative. The vote won't happen until 2009 or 2010, but
it won't be the first time voters will have been asked to legalize
pot: A similar initiative was rejected--with 74 percent against--in
1998.

The biggest turnaround may have occurred in the United Kingdom, which
ten years ago looked to be on its way to adopting the Dutch model. In
1997, the London Sunday Independent launched a loud campaign to
legalize marijuana. The paper opined frequently about the issue and
even sponsored a march in support of legalization, which attracted
16,000 activists. In 2001, the government's Advisory Council on the
Misuse of Drugs declared that "the mental health effects of cannabis
are real and significant." Three years later, marijuana was downgraded
from a Class B to a Class C drug, essentially making possession of the
substance permissible for adults.

Then researchers noticed that the drug was having a number of
dangerous effects. In 1997, a survey showed 1,660 cannabis users
entering treatment programs for addiction. Ten years later, that
number had shot up to 22,000. By 2007, 1.5 million Britons were using
cannabis, and this number was accompanied by a sizable increase in
related mental and behavioral disorders.

Robin Murray, of London's Institute of Psychiatry, explained to the
Independent that a quarter of the population was particularly at risk
for psychosis caused by the elevated levels of dopamine that come from
cannabis use. Murray estimated that at least 25,000 Britons were
suffering from marijuana-induced schizophrenia. As Antonio Maria
Costa, executive director of the U.N.'s Office on Drugs and Crime,
summarizes it: "The harmful characteristics of cannabis are no longer
that different from those of other plant-based drugs such as cocaine
and heroin."

In Britain, it has also become apparent that the semi-legalization for
adults led to a spike in usage for minors. One precinct commander in
East London said that the reclassification of the drug caused
"extensive and expansive" increases in use by teenagers (for whom
possession was still illegal). As Neil McKeganey of Glasgow
University's Centre for Drug Misuse Research explained, "Society has
seriously underestimated how dangerous cannabis really is." A July
2007 study in the Lancet reported that the use of cannabis leads to an
increase in psychotic outcomes, including what researchers refer to as
a "dose-response" effect--meaning that the more pot you smoke, the
more at risk you are.

The Independent actually rescinded its decade-long call for
legalization, running a package of articles pointing to the dangers of
marijuana and an editorial regretting its earlier stance. Politicians
who had previously supported the downgrading of marijuana, including
Conservative party leader David Cameron, also reversed their
positions. When he took office, Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised
that he would explore reclassifying the drug.

In other countries, the backlash against drugs has been born out of
grim necessity. Since the end of the Cold War, drug use in Russia has
boomed. In 2006, Russia's Federal Drug Control Service reported that
over 100,000 citizens had died of drug addiction in recent years,
compared with 30,000 in homicides and 35,000 in highway deaths. Nearly
5 percent of all crimes in Russia are now drug-related. Instead of
pushing for legalization, Russia is trying to crack down on the drug
trade, creating stiffer sentencing guidelines and making it easier to
prosecute drug possession.

Still, some Europeans cling to the old line. Rosie Boycott, who as
editor of the Independent initiated the paper's legalization campaign,
remains unpersuaded by the new data and research. The demonstrated
dangers "do not change my mind about legalization," she recently
wrote. "Indeed, I now think full legalization to be more important, so
that there can be sensible education about the possible dangers."

Some people will hold out until the bitter roach.