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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Criminal gangs cash in Isabel Conway The Independent On Sunday Sunday 08 Jul 2001 The Netherlands is often held up by campaigners for the decriminalisation of cannabis as a shining example of the benefits of tolerance. The truth is a little more complicated. All drugs are illegal in the Netherlands but the sale of modest amounts of soft drugs - five grams per transaction - from "coffee shops" is tolerated for people over 18. Nor does the "stepping stone" process - soft drugs supposedly leading to hard drugs - seem to occur in Holland, where there are few drugs-related deaths compared with other countries. But the country is hardly free of drugs problems. What started as a cottage industry has grown into an international trade worth millions and controlled to a worrying degree by organised crime. Sale of the drug in Holland through registered outlets is thought to be worth about £1.3bn a year to the Dutch government, including an estimated saving of up to £600m for police, courts and prisons. Worried by the increasing grip of organised crime, the Dutch parliament voted last year in favour of allowing the cultivation of cannabis under a licence system. One of those who drafted the motion, Labour MP Thanasis Apostolou, said at the time: "By regulating the supply we would know who is selling what and where it is going."
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