NCJ Number
116933
Date Published
1988
Length
40 pages
Annotation
The policy of the criminal justice system in The Netherlands with respect to drug use has changed from one of relatively limitless tolerance to a mixture of hard and soft elements that aims at an integrated approach.
Abstract
Pressure to do something about drug addiction in The Netherlands has never centered on soft drugs like marijuana, as it has in Britain, the United States, and Germany. The Netherlands has never legalized cannabis, but its possession and small-scale distribution have in effect been accepted as legitimate. However, the sharp increase in the use of heroin and other hard drugs in the 1970's began to change public and official attitudes. Previously The Netherlands had a laissez faire attitude and had not adopted either the prohibitionist model of the United States, which has almost totally failed to stop the rise and spread of narcotic addiction, nor the medical model used in Britain. It has now shifted away from that attitude into an integrated policy. Methadone is the major element in treatment, which includes both inpatient and outpatient treatment. The rise in crime that began in the late 1970's and came to be seen as mainly drug-related has resulted in the abandonment of the effort to reduce the prison population further. However, it has maintained its penal policies of one prisoner to a cell, high rates of waiving prosecution, and short sentences except for large-scale drug traffickers. Data tables.