Not legal, but decriminalized. The Netherlands has a pretty sensible drug policy, they've realize that prohibition doesn't work. They've made Drug use into more of a health and social issue, than a criminal issue. Last I heard the Dutch were closing prisons due to the lack of criminals to put in them. Contrast this with California and their idiotic 3-strikes and you're out sentencing and you have a state thats on pace to spend more money(that they don't have) on prisons, then what they spend on their state universities. That sounds like a wise investment of money
The Dutch drugs policy is one of the things I'm actually proud of. I believe that it is the only way to deal with drugs. Because soft drug use is legal there is no taboo on it. which makes it less apealing to young adults. I think many of the dutch youth tries a soft drugs once and rarely do it after that. In general you have more problems with people who drink alcohol than with people using soft drugs. The conservatives in our country are actually trying to make the drugs policy more conservative, and not use the tolerate policy anymore. But i think/hope that they will not succeed.
They're also a tiny country with a lot less diversity and social problems to begin with compared to US
Actually, we could have a DRASTIC impact on the amount of smuggling as well as a meaningful impact on the number of problem drug users with one simple policy change.
Your claim is belied by the evidence from before prohibition was the law of the land. People could buy heroin and cocaine over the counter and at the time it was estimated that 1.3% of the population was addicted to drugs. Meanwhile, after four DECADES of the "drug war," it is estimated that 1.3% of the population is addicted to drugs. ***Statistics provided by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
Nope, the US has the highest per capita incarceration rate as well as the highest total number of prisoners. Russia is the next highest number of total prisoners, at over 750,000, but we have well over 2 million. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/icps/downloads/world-prison-population-list-2005.pdf
Are you honestly trying to claim that Holland can have a meaningful impact on rates of teen drug use, but that we can't? I disagree.
