[ForGod'sSake]

Thanks Bokababe!

I'm curious if anyone on this forum has had any experience with the situation in the Netherlands where "soft" drugs are more or less legal? Even doing a Google search for "Netherlands drug problem" doesn't shed much light. Seems most of the chatter is yukking it up for legalization.

~ping~ for purposes of discussion...

[webstersII]

“I’m curious if anyone on this forum has had any experience with the situation in the Netherlands”

I don’t know about the Netherlands, but if you do a google search on Portugal you can see their experience with legalization. They offer non-mandatory counseling/rehab instead of jail sentences. I can’t remember the details but awhile back someone posted an article about Portugal and apparently the use of drugs has not significantly increased since the new policy.

[Bokababe]

Not sure about the Netherlands, FGS, but Portugal decriminalized drugs — with some surprising success. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization

[SunkenCiv]

In Belgium, the way it *used* to be (when I was in my teens and twenties, but I’ve never been to Belgium) it was legal to sell pot, but illegal to advertise it at the point of sale. The sign had to be some number of meters (probably ten? fifteen?) from the seller, so in the outdoor concerts the guy wearing the sign would walk that much ahead of the guy with the weed, and the sign would say something to the effect that the other guy had the stuff for sale. ;’)

[wolfcreek]

I heard the young folks in the Netherlands, because of it's availability, aren't as likely to smoke pot as yutes in this country..

Guess the thrill is gone after legalization.