From: [b--r--e] at [rcf.rsmas.miami.edu] (Charlie Byrne)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: AP Story: Legal Drugs = Low Crime
Date: 15 Dec 1993 21:52:03 GMT

Clip this one for your files folks!
This AP wire service story appeared in the Miami Herald on Friday
December 10, 1993 page 29A. All typos are mine as it was hand entered.
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DUTCH SAY PERMISSIVE DRUG POLICY KEEPS CRIME DOWN
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) 

  While debate opens up in the United States over legalizing drugs,
the trend in Europe is towards increased tolerance of the user - and
tougher penalties for the trafficker.
  U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders set off a storm by suggesting
that America's streets might be safer if drug use were legalized.
  In Amsterdam, you don't have to go far to find evidence that appears
to support her argument.
  In the red light district, for instance, elderly tourists mingle
freely with junkies and let their pocketbooks dangle freely. In a city
known as one of Europe's major drug bazaars, purse-snatchings are rare
and drug-related crimes of violence are almost unheard of.
  "I think tolerance of both hard and soft drugs has reduced crime in
our cities," Amsterdam police spokesman Klaas Wilting said Thursday.
  But permissiveness toward drug use may be less significant than other
policies - such as strict gun control - in explaining low levels of
crime and violence.
  And Wilting and other European officials oppose outright
legalization.
  "If we do that, the government will lose its grip on the [illegal
drugs] market, and we can't manage it anymore," said Justice Ministry
spokesperson Jannie Pols.
  Police have focused their war on drugs on traffickers associated with
organized crime, even as tolerance toward possession and use makes drugs
cheap and easy to get.
  The Dutch government eliminated penalties for drug possession in
1976, setting a policy that possession of up to a gram of heroin or 30
grams of marijuana or hashish is not a punishable offense.
  Even though heroin is readily available, the Dutch addiction rate is
one of Europe's lowest, with about 15,000 hard drug addicts and
600,000 marijuana and hashish users in this nation of 15 million.
  The heroin substitute methadone is readily available at clinics to
city residents. A needle exchange program has given the Dutch one of
Europe's lowest AIDS rates among intravenous drug users.
  The crack cocaine that has contributed to urban violence in the
United States is almost nonexistent.
  But earlier this year, other European nations reacted angrily to the
personal view of Dutch drug czar Robert Samsom that they should all
legalize soft drugs like marijuana and hashish.
  Spain, which has one of Europe's highest heroin addiction rates,
decriminalized soft drugs for personal use a decade ago and tolerates
heroin and cocaine use.
  But Spain has the highest AIDS death rate in Europe, with 75 percent
of all AIDS-related deaths stemming from intravenous drug use.
  In Britain, both soft and hard drugs are illegal, but the government
runs rehabilitation centers where doctors are allowed to prescribe
illicit drugs to addicts.
  Italy decriminalized drug possession in an April referendum, after
years of debate whether it would cut crime. The government is
preparing legislation to free about 17,000 drug addicts sent to prison
under a 1990 law that stiffened penalties for drug possession.
  Germany and France remain adamant in their opposition to
legalization.
  "We see no advantage in it because the legalizing of drugs would
brings other things with it: said Juergen Stoltenow, spokesman for the
Federal Criminal Police Office.
  Germany is the most directly affected by the liberal Dutch drugs
stance, with thousands of addicts streaming across the Dutch-German 
border to buy drugs every week.
  With drug overdose deaths on the rise in France, the French
government is considering ways to increase methadone maintenance
programs to wean addicts away from heroin.
drugs every week.