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Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos
I'd like to see those numbers too, and maybe some evidence of this "let-everyone-do-what-they-want" mentality you speak of. I bet there are thousands of people twiddling their thumbs in Canadian prisons on drug convictions who would love to hear about it as well.
On another note, how many more decades of failure will it take to convince you that the way we do things now doesn't work?
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Here's some numbers for you:
For the ten years following the dutch 'pretend' legalization of marijuana (1976) there was no increase in usage beyond the threshold of statistical error. Prior to that, the dutch user percentage was a lower number than in America. Only after commercial viability and promotion became factors did dutch usage increase. Shocking.
Even now, the rate of usage in the US (Where in some places, a first time cultivation charge can get you 100 years without parole) is on par with the 'legal' (it's technically not) rate of usage in the Netherlands.
Furthermore, the rate of 'hard' drug use among cannabis smokers between the two countries is, in the case of heroin, statistically irrelevent. The United States also can boast 11 percent MORE cocaine
and marijuana users than the Netherlands. So much for the gateway theory. The dutch rate of 'problem' drug use is even lower than many of its neighbours.
The Swiss seem to having close to the same results. Weird how that works...
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"Finally, the analysis of the reasons for interrupting treatment revealed that, even in the group of those treated for less than one year, the majority did not actually drop out of the program but rather changed the type of treatment, mostly either methadone maintenance or abstinence treatment. Knowing that methadone maintenance treatment – and a fortiori abstinence treatment – is able to substantially reduce acquisitive crime, the redirection of heroin maintenance patients toward alternative treatments is probably the main cause for the ongoing reduction or at least stabilization of criminal involvement of most patients after treatment interruption. Thus the principal post-treatment benefit of heroin maintenance seems to be its ability to redirect even briefly treated high-risk patients towards alternative treatments rather than back “on the street”."
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Here's a link to a pdf, but you'll have to subscribe if you want to read it. Otherwise, i'm sure it's accessable at your local library.