DUTCH HEALTH MINISTRY'S POT PROGRAM CALLED 'A BUST'

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- There's a whiff of crisis in the air at the Dutch
Health Ministry: It's sitting on a pile of pot that it just can't sell.

The Netherlands rolled out a program last year that allows patients to
buy prescription marijuana at any pharmacy. Some medical insurance
policies cover at least part of the cost, but often not enough to
offset the pharmacy price.

In a country where any adult can walk into a "coffee shop" and smoke a
joint for much less than the government price, many say the experiment
is a bust.

"I think it's a shame that they can't deliver a cannabis product a
little bit cheaper than the coffee shops," said David Watson, head of
Hortapharm, an Amsterdam-based company licensed to research and
develop cannabis for pharmaceutical use.

"Why is it that a legal commodity is more expensive than an illegal
commodity?"

The government says packaging and distribution push up its prices, and
acknowledges its program may be foundering. Of some 200 kilograms in
anticipated sales, only about 80 kilograms have been sold, said Bas
Kuik, spokesman for the Office of Medicinal Cannabis, an arm of the
Dutch Ministry of Health. The government sells two varieties ranging
from about $12 to $15 Cdn a gram -- enough for up to four joints.
Coffee shops sell it for as little as $6 a gram, with only the
highest-quality weed fetching prices comparable to the
government's.

Under the liberal Dutch approach dating to the 1970s, the law forbids
privately growing and selling marijuana, and has no tolerance for
dealing in hard drugs, but refrains from prosecuting the sale of small
amounts.