DON'T GO SOFT ON DRUGS

Franz Koopmans has firsthand knowledge of how Holland's relaxed drug laws
have caused untold suffering among users. Leah Haines reports.

There's a hint of the fundamental Christian about Dutch anti-drugs
campaigner Frans Koopmans.

Like a preacher out to save a soul, his voice booms, eyes gleam and he
rarely draws breath as he launches into why Holland's soft stance on drugs
is destroying his country's young people.

The gangly giant and passionate PR man for one of The Netherlands' biggest
residential drug centres has come to New Zealand to try to stop this country
from doing the same.

Unfortunately for Mr Koopmans, so has his arch-rival Peter Cohen - a
scientist with a much more glamorous message to peddle: legalise it.

"I like him, we get along quite good, we talk to each other and we're very
polite," Mr Koopmans laughs. "But we certainly differ."

Both were putting their messages to a parliamentary committee looking at
cannabis law reform last week.

Dr Cohen, 60, has spent 20 years researching drug use and argues that drug
policies are an expensive waste of time.

He says cultural and economic factors drive drug use and he advocates
cannabis be regulated and education around its dangers beefed up.

But Dr Cohen is dismissed by 30-something Mr Koopmans. He says that though
Dr Cohen does a "good job as a sociologist", he is merely a "scientist with
the danger of being in an ivory tower".

Mr Koopmans has worked for 14 years with drug addicts, "down there in the
mud where we see what the use of drugs can add up to".

According to him, that equals about 20 young people at any time struggling
to get off cannabis at his residential clinic De Hoop (The Hope) near
Rotterdam. That's five times as many cannabis addicts as the centre treated
14 years ago.

They're brought along by terrified parents who, Mr Koopmans says, have lost
their children to apathy, psychological disorders, lung illness and
personality changes.

He says Dr Cohen's belief that parents are helpless to keep their children
off drugs makes him angry. "It's a disastrous idea and leaves parents
completely in the dark."

Parents, according to Mr Koopmans, are the key to keeping children safe.

The rate of cannabis use among young Dutch people has risen from 15 per cent
in 1984 - eight years after the country decriminalised its use - to 44 per
cent today.

Mr Koopmans says some of the increase can be put down to the drug's
increasing popularity across the world.

But while Dr Cohen argues that drug policy - and parents - have nothing to
do with people's decision to do drugs, Mr Koopmans says they have
everything.

Young people he interviewed had no idea cannabis had been only
decriminalised and was still technically illegal.

He blames the Dutch authorities' soft stance on all drugs and the fact that
you can buy cannabis at coffee shops for adding to the confusion.

Coffee shops have become the symbol of Dutch drug policies. But Mr Koopmans
argues "it was never intended to look like this".

There is an "everything goes" mentality in Holland which he says has also
seen prostitution and euthanasia legalised and has added to a plethora of
social problems.

But mayors and other leaders are now recognising that such permissive laws
may have gone over the top. Dope-selling coffee shops have almost halved in
the past few years. And proponents of pulling back the laws are gathering
support.

Laws around gambling have been tightened since problems exploded in the
1980s and positive results can already be seen.

The same results could also be achieved with the tightening of cannabis
laws.

Based on the Dutch experience, Mr Koopmans has grim predictions for New
Zealand if the Government chooses to decriminalise cannabis. "The Government
has a real obligation to look after the public health of people, especially
that of young people."

Though he hates the term "soft" drugs, Mr Koopmans says when you
decriminalise such drugs you get an increase in drug use that will grow over
the years.

Eventually, it will lead to cases like that of the poster girl for the De
Hoop clinic, he says.

Thirteen years old, she spent 18 months in the clinic. Her reliance on
cannabis had left her unable to cope with stress or anxiety and her parents
did not recognise the changes in her.

Mr Koopmans says: "I have been there for 14 years and I have never got
accustomed to the stories. Every story is unique, and often so terrible."