, many of the parties in parliament don't seem to happy about the proposal either. The Christian Democrats and other right-wing parties disagree vehemently with the proposals and promise "aggressive" criticism when the proposals are debated later this year (Spanjer 660; Sheldon 467).The other major issue in Dutch politics is the drug policy. Since the late 1970's, it has been legal to smoke marijuana and use other soft drugs. While this may seem like an absurd idea to other countries, the Dutch drug policy seems to be working quite well. For example, the use of cannabis in the Netherlands is lower than in the United States (Barnard 68). The trouble starts when other countries, namely France, try to impose their ideas on drug enforcement on the Netherlands. While trying to control the flow of drugs within their own countries, European nations are blaming the Netherlands' loose policy on drugs for all of the problems. However, the policy on cannabis has not led to an increase in the number of hard-drug users, and therefore, the steppingstone hypothesis cannot be confirmed (Barnard 69). In fact, only about 1.6 percent of the Dutch population are said to be addicted to hard drugs. "This compares with an estimated 160,000 addicts in France, or 2.8 percent of the population; 200,000 in Germany, or 1.5 percent; and 175,000 in Italy, or 3 percent" (Gross 41). Moreover, Bob Keijzer, a senior drug-policy adviser in the health ministry, notes that about 50 people a year die of drug-related causes in the Netherlands, which is the lowest rate in the Western world (Gross 41). Never the less, the Netherlands has agreed to control more closely the flow of soft drugs inside their own borders to make France and all the rest of European countries happy. The Dutch have reduced the number of coffee shops from 1,400 to 1,200, raised the age at which youths can buy soft drugs in coffee shops from 16 to 18, and limited purchases of soft drugs to on...
