20;soft drugs”, such as marijuana. The decriminalization of “soft drugs” has emerged as an active political issue in many European countries, including Switzerland, Holland, and Germany. The policies being considered range from decriminalization, or repeal of criminal penalties for private use and cultivation of cannabis, to full legalization, in which marijuana is commercially sold like alcohol and tobacco. The Netherlands follows a policy of separating the market for illicit drugs. Cannabis is primarily purchased through coffee shops. Coffee shops offer no or few possibilities for purchasing illicit drugs other than cannabis. Thus The Netherlands achieve a separation of the soft drug market from the hard drugs market - and separation of the ‘acceptable risk’ drug user from the ‘unacceptable risk’ drug user. Decriminalization involves the removal of criminal penalties for possession of marijuana for personal use. Small fines may be issued (similar to traffic tickets) but there is no arrest, incarceration, or criminal record. Marijuana is presently decriminalized in 10 states—California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oregon. In these states, cultivation and distribution remain criminal offenses.We already have some evidence that legalization works. In the U.S. states that have briefly decriminalized marijuana in the 1970s, the number of users stayed about the same. In the Netherlands, legal tolerance of marijuana has led to a significant decline in consumption and has successfully prevented kids from experimenting with hard drugs. Eleven times as many U.S. high school seniors smoked pot daily in 1983 as did students the same age in the Netherlands. The Dutch discovered that making the purchase of small amounts of marijuana freely available to anyone over 16 cuts the drug dealer out; as a result, there is virtually no crime associate...
