U.S. Department of State
International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1997
Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
SINGAPORE
The GOS [Government of Singapore] nonetheless is concerned about the increase in addiction rates and recidivism among drug offenders who have undergone treatment. There are currently about 9,000 addicts undergoing rehabilitation in Singapore treatment centers, the same number as in 1995.
THE NETHERLANDS
The Netherlands has extensive demand reduction programs and low-threshold medical services for addicts, who are also offered drug rehabilitation programs. Authorities believe such programs reach about 70-80 percent of the country's 25,000 hard-drug users (in a total population of 15.1 million). Because of the focus on disease prevention and care programs, the health condition of Dutch drug addicts is relatively good. The number of hard-drug addicts has stabilized and the average age of addicts has risen to 31 years. HIV infection among addicts is relatively low because of an extensive needle exchange program. The death rate also is low.
--http://druglibrary.net/schaffer/GovPubs/ncsr/ (scroll down to the country of your choice)
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"Iran has the highest proportion of heroin addicts in the world and a growing Aids problem." [2004 BBC report]
--news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/3791889.stm
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"There were an estimated 980,000 hardcore heroin addicts in the United States in 1999, 50 percent more than the estimated 630,000 hardcore addicts in 1992."
http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs07/794/heroin.htm
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Crunching the numbers, the addiction rate for Singapore was about 0.30% (population ~3,000,000 in 1996), vs about 0.17% for the Netherlands. Note that Singapore's numbers are only for addicts under treatment, whereas the Netherlands' are the estimated total number of addicts.
The US population in 2000 was about 280,000,000, so the rate of heroin addiction was about 0.35%.
So much for a REAL War on Drugs controlling addiction.
The Summary information on the Netherlands describes designer drugs as a “growing problem,” and it’s clear through the entire document that opiates are illegal and aggressively prosecuted along with designer drugs.
As of April of 2008, the Netherlands has banned the cultivation and use of magic mushrooms due to several deaths.
Furthermore, “The two towns Roosendaal and Bergen op Zoom have in October 2008 announced that they start closing all coffee shops, each week visited by up to 25000 French and Belgian drug tourists, closures beginning in February 2009”
Closing of coffeeshops is not unique for Rotterdam. Many other towns have done the same in the last 10 years.
“The Dutch Opium Act of 1919, amended in 1928 and 1976, distinguishes between “hard” drugs, having “unacceptable” risks (cocaine, opiates etc.), and “soft” drugs (cannabis products). One of the main aims of this policy is to separate the markets for soft and hard drugs so that soft-drug users are less likely to come into contact with the more potent drugs”
This clearly states that soft drug users are more likely, if exposed, to become hard drug users than a randomly selected person from the population.
There is an aggressive war on drugs in The Netherlands, according to this, with a particular emphasis on opiates as well as designer drugs like MDMA. It looks very similar to the war raged in the US with the exception of cannabis, and for a while at least, magic mushrooms. But the Dutch aren’t as stupid as I thought they were. They actually banned ‘shrooms (which I thought were a fun time, personally, back in the day).
If the US were to legalize drugs, then naturally, the entire country would attact drug vacationers as the Netherlands did (and does more or less, but which they now wish to stem), which would be a serious drain on the quality of life across the board, and after mishaps and problems, the US would start closing down its ‘coffee shops’ as well.
Furthermore, the same drug education programs designed to discourage drug use in the Netherlands could not be implemented in the US due to the differences in standard curricula. The US doesn’t have any national standard of the kind implemented there. There is no guarantee anyone would get any particular drug education program in the US as there.