Netherlands Refines Approach On Pot Toleration

[Alfa]

NETHERLANDS REFINES APPROACH ON POT TOLERATION
AMSTERDAM -- Paul Wilhelm speaks about marijuana the way a vintner might discuss wine. He talks of aroma, taste and texture, of flowering periods, of the pros and cons of hydroponic cultivation.
Wilhelm's connoisseurship might earn him a long prison sentence in the United States, but here in the Netherlands, he's just another taxpaying businessman. He owns a long-established pot emporium -- the Dutch call them "coffee shops" -- where customers can sidle up to the bar, peruse a detailed menu, and choose from 22 variations of fragrant marijuana and 18 types of potent hash.
Business got even better after Wilhelm's shop, the Dampkring, was featured earlier last year in the film "Ocean's Twelve."
Yet life is not as simple for Wilhelm as it is for the pub owner down the street, thanks to the contradictory nature of Holland's famously liberal drug laws. Though the business is duly licensed and regulated, to run it properly he is forced to flout the law on a daily basis.
While the Netherlands allows the sale of small amounts of marijuana in coffee shops, it is still illegal to grow marijuana, store it, and transport it in the kind of quantities that any popular shop requires.
In Parliament
Last month, the Dutch parliament began debating a proposal to change that by launching a pilot project to regulate marijuana growing. It was the brainchild of the mayor of Maastricht, a city near the German and Belgian borders that is plagued by gangs of smugglers. Proponents argue that legalizing growing will drive out most of the criminal element and boost responsible purveyors.
"The current policy is schizophrenic," Wilhelm said. "Under the rules, we can only keep 500 grams in the shop at any one time, so that means I have to have more delivered every few hours. And if the delivery guy gets stopped, they take everything, and he gets arrested."
For years, that odd state of affairs seemed to work well, because it allowed the Dutch to tolerate marijuana without having to risk the opprobrium that would come from legalizing it. But organized crime has come to play an increasing role in production, the government has found.
A majority in parliament has come out in favor of the bill to decriminalize growing, reflecting widespread Dutch comfort with a liberal marijuana policy. But the ruling Christian Democratic Party, which has increasingly tightened the rules on coffee shops, opposes it. Analysts expect the government to block implementation even if the measure passes.
"It won't solve anything," said Ivo Hommes, a spokesman for the justice ministry. "You will still have a large amount of people that will grow marijuana for illegal sales and for international export."
The bill is a good first step, Wilhelm and other coffee-shop owners agree. What they really want is full legalization of cannabis. Polls show that a majority of Dutch support that, but the government says it would run afoul of the international narcotics conventions that the Netherlands and most other nations have signed.
Dealing With Drug Use
Whatever the fate of the legislation, the Dutch debate underscores a schism in the developed world over how to deal with drug use.
Even as the United States continues to spend tens of billions of dollars each year fighting a war on drugs that lately has included an increasing number of marijuana arrests, much of Europe and Canada have instead opted to treat drug use as a public-health problem.
While no country has gone as far as the Netherlands and allowed open sales of marijuana, in most of Europe possession of small amounts of cannabis, and even cocaine and heroin, merits only a fine. And penalties for drug dealing are far lower than in the United States.
Rejecting the approach that has filled U.S. jails with nonviolent drug offenders, Europeans and Canadians have embraced the concept of "harm reduction," which argues that illegal drug use is impossible to stamp out, and therefore the best public policy is to minimize the damage to society.
Thirty years after the Netherlands began allowing open marijuana sales, only about 3 percent of the Dutch population -- or 408,000 people -- use marijuana in a given year, compared with 8.6 percent -- or 25.5 million -- Americans, according to the most authoritative surveys by both governments.