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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Cannabis Decriminalisation Gaining Ground In Europe
Helsingin Sanomat International Edition (Finland)
Tuesday 29 May 2001 Website: http://www.helsinki-hs.net/ Author: Petteri Tuohinen CANNABIS DECRIMINALISATION GAINING GROUND IN EUROPE There has been a clear tendency in many European countries to ease drug policy: many countries have effectively decriminalised the use of cannabis, and some have even stopped prosecuting users of hard drugs. The pioneer in liberal drug policy is The Netherlands, where cannabis products have been openly available since the 1970s. Today adults can buy marijuana and hashish at special "coffee shops" without fear of prosecution. To the surprise of many anti-drug activists, the number of drug-related deaths in the Netherlands is one of the lowest in Europe. So the classical gateway theory, according to which the use of cannabis leads to hard drugs, does not seem to hold true - at least not among the Dutch. According to a study by the Trimbos Institute - the Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, the decriminalisation of cannabis has not led to great popularity of the drug among young people. Whereas in Britain, 41% of 15-year-olds Britain have tried cannabis, the equivalent figure in The Netherlands is 24%. Belgium lifted the ban on personal use of cannabis at the beginning of this year. Sale and the possession of large amounts of the drug remain illegal, and no Dutch-style coffee shops will be popping up on Belgian city streets. In the view of the Belgian Ministry of Health, there is no reason to treat cannabis any differently from alcohol or tobacco. Switzerland also plans to legalise both the use and small-scale sale of cannabis. Many shops are already selling drug-grade hemp, ostensibly for other purposes. Cannabis would be rather difficult to uproot from Switzerland, as about one in every four young Swiss already smoke marijuana or hashish. Switzerland has had one of Europe's most liberal drug policies. Heroin addicts considered incurable are given free heroin in supervised conditions. However, in 1998 Switzerland rejected an initiative that would have legalised all drugs. Italy and Spain have permitted the use of all drugs for a long time. The most recent country to take a more moderate approach toward drugs is Portugal, where new legislation comes into effect in July. There has been talk in Denmark of following the Dutch example. It is already standard police practice not to confiscate drugs found on an addict. The practical logic behind this approach is that taking the drugs away would force the addict to commit more crimes to get a new dose. Practice in Greece seems quite bizarre from the Finnish point of view: the use of cannabis can bring a more severe sentence than taking heroin. According to this reasoning, a heroin addict has a greater physical need for the drug than a cannabis user, and therefore deserves greater leniency. Generally, the trend in Europe is to cure drug addicts of their addictions through treatment. Although there is more tolerance toward the use of drugs, there was a sharp increase in arrests for drug-related crimes in nearly all EU countries in the 1980s. There are quite a few unresolved questions in the debate over drug legalisation. One of these is how the use of drugs can be permitted while continuing to criminalise the trade. It is also feared that the legalisation of drug use would attract more criminal elements onto the market. Portugal's change in policy has caused concern in Finland, where it is feared that the implementation of the Schengen Treaty will allow drugs to move more freely throughout the zone. Legalisation advocates speak about the rights of the individual: if no crime is involved in the acquisition of a drug, and the user harms nobody else, the state should not have any right to interfere. This is the way of t hinking that is gaining ground in Canada where authorities feel that it is not their business to interfere with the right of their citizens to grow hemp. The counter-argument is that the state has the responsibility to protect its citizens from the consequences of their own actions, by mandating the use of seat belts and motorcycle helmets. It has also been argued that the state has the right to use the law to promote public health as a way of saving on health care expenditure. Proponents of drug legalisation also argue that by legalising drugs, the state could better control the trade, use, and purity of the drugs, while getting tax revenues. Opponents counter this argument by saying that state-run drug sales would not eliminate illegal drug dealers who would produce impure drugs at a lower price. Analogies have also been made between the present drug prohibition and the attempts at alcohol prohibition of both the United States and Finland. These laws made smugglers rich while failing to make the people sober. Although drunkenness certainly was not eliminated, at least the number of alcoholics and cases of cirrhosis of the liver declined during prohibition.
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