[robertpaulsen]

"and per capita marijuana use rates have always been lower than ours."

And this is due strictly to marijuana legalization? Cultural differences don't come into play at all, huh? The fact that Dutch teens use alcohol at twice the rate of U.S. teens doesn't indicate that maybe their culture prefers alcohol over pot?

Does the fact that the Japanese drink more sake than Americans mean our laws need to change?

[TKDietz]

From another article covering the same topic:

"After 30 years of tolerating marijuana, its rates in the Netherlands is in the middle of international norms. According to data from various governments compiled by Trimbos, the Netherlands’ Institute for Health and Addiction, Dutch rates are higher than those in Scandinavia but lower than those in the United States and Britain."

Per capita marijuana use rates are in the middle of international norms. They're middle of the road for Europe too. Culturally, they aren't that different from us, but you can try to make them sound night and day different if you want to go that way. But as we look to the rest of the world, even their neighbors, we still don't see that their policies have caused them to have crazy marijuana use rates. If legalizing marijuana was such a terrible idea that would cause everyone to start smoking it, Dutch marijuana use rates wouldn't be middle of the road, they'd be the highest in the world.