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By Katrice R. Jalbuena, Reporter
Making drug use a crime is no guarantee that
there will be fewer drug users, an envoy said.
“By making something taboo, you make it more
attractive,” said Dutch ambassador to the Philippines, Richard
Brinks, in an exclusive roundtable interview with The Manila Times
recently. “Repressive policies just make people more curious.”
To stress his point, he said last year there
were around 17,000 drug users in The Netherlands, country known for
its permissive attitude toward the so-called soft drugs. Despite the
easy availability of marijuana, hashish and other “mild” drugs
in coffee shops, drug related crime is almost unheard off.
Making these substances available—and
legal—eliminates the need for addicts to steal or perpetrate
crimes to support their drug habits, Brinks explained.
The Dutch government draws the line on “hard
drugs,” though, he added.
An establishment found selling hard drugs
immediately loses its license, as the government keeps a tight watch
over those shops.
“There is a zero tolerance policy for hard
drugs,” Brinks said. “It is hard drugs and hard drug users that
present a danger to public security, that we spend money to ensure
through the legal system are kept off the street.”
In The Netherlands, soft drug users are
considered not as criminals but as patients with health problems,
the envoy said. Drug users are not so different from cigarette
smokers or consumers of alcoholic drinks, and like chain smokers or
alcoholics, those who abuse drugs are offered medical treatment by
the Dutch government. The authorities there keep tabs on the soft
drug users in the country and offer them health services, including
clean needles and paying for anti-addiction treatments for those who
want to kick the habit.
“I am proud of our drug policy,” Brinks
said. “Why pay through the nose to put soft drug users in prison?
They don’t present a danger to public security. Let’s
concentrate on the hard-drug users.”
Despite the openness about drug use, the
ambassador told The Times that the number of users and of coffee
houses selling soft drugs in the country are actually decreasing.
Plus, there are very few recorded deaths by overdose, with only 30
victims last year. Most of those who died of overdose were not
Dutch, rather foreigners who were likely overwhelmed by The
Netherlands’ liberal society.
“I think one reason why we have less drug
users and also less drug-related deaths is because the Dutch are
very well informed about drug use,” Brinks said. “No one ODs
[overdoses] by accident, because they know how to use drugs
safely.”
Drug education is part of the public-education
system in The Netherlands. Children are taught about the variety of
drugs they might see on the streets and their effects on the mind
and body.
“If you hide it away, you just make them more
curious,” Brinks explained, referring to children. “The
possibilities that they’re going to experiment are great anyway,
but at least this way they don’t do it recklessly in a back alley
somewhere.”
“And we don’t make it glamorous,” he
added. “We don’t have a stuffy official from the Health
Department giving a lecture. We get a dealer from the street to
visit the public classrooms to show everything they have and explain
what they’re supposed to do and how you’re supposed to use
it.”
The “scruffy guy from the street” allegedly
has a de-glamorizing effect on drug use as it shows the children how
they could end up, the envoy said.
“It’s like showing pictures of diseased
lungs to a smoker,” Brinks said. “We’re just teaching them
what the risks are, because they’re going to experiment anyhow. We
want to make sure the number of deaths is zero.”
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