Comparison of the number of hard drug addicts under the
Dutch Drugs Policy compared with other European Countries
The easy-to-comprehend sound-bite from these figures is, of course, that "there are 58 percent more addicts in the UK than in Holland"
|
|
Number of Addicts |
Inhabitants (millions) |
Per 100,000 of population |
|
Netherlands |
25,000 |
15.1 |
1.6 |
|
Germany |
100,000 -120,000 |
79.8 |
1.2 -.1.5 |
|
France |
135,000 - 150,000 |
57.0 |
2.4 - 2.6 |
|
United Kingdom |
150,000 |
57.6 |
2..6 |
|
Luxembourg |
2,000 |
0.4 |
5.0 |
|
Belgium |
7,500 |
10.0 |
1.8 |
from:
Dutch Drugs Policy, 1995
http://www.minvws.nl/drugnota/0/index.htm
http://www.frw.uva.nl/acd/isg/drugs/library/JB/JBUS.html
Sources: Bosman and Van Es (1993); Bless, Korf, Freeman, Urban drug policies in Europe 1993 (1993); WHO regional office for Europe, European summary on drug abuse, first report: 1985-1990 (1992); Commis sion of the European Communities, Second Report on drug demand reduction in the European Community (1992); Bossong (1994); Van Cauwenberghe et al. 1993 (Belgium).
Various experts estimate that there are about 25,000 hard drug addicts in the Netherlands. This is equivalent to 0.16 percent of the population. As stated above, this estimate is reliable, partly because in the Netherlands care agencies manage to maintain contact with a relatively high proportion of drug addicts.
It is not possible to make a clear comparison with estimated numbers of hard drug addicts in other European countries because of methodological uncertainties but it is likely that the "dark number" is higher in certain other countries, where care agencies reach fewer addicts, than it is in the Netherlands. The estimates which do exist, however, suggest that the number of hard drug addicts per 100,000 inhabitants in the Netherlands is low in comparison with the European average of 2.7 and indeed considerably lower than in France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Switzerland, for example. Annex I contains an overview of the estimated numbers of drug addicts in a number of European countries, according to a number of sources. All estimates suggest that the number of addicts in the Netherlands is relatively low.