Starting on Tuesday, the UN General Assembly will hold a special three-day session in New York to discuss the course of policy for years to come — its first since 1998. Advocates for reform argue that existing policies have caused more harm than good, and even the World Health Organization, the UN's health agency, has called for harm reduction measures and the decriminalization of drug users.Though the Dutch have struck a compromise with international treaties that shows great results for reducing harm for drug users, the approach has largely shielded problems with drug crime in the Netherlands from public view.Related: Here's What to Expect at the Big Drug Meeting This Week at the UN
'It's a system that is fundamentally flawed, pumping millions into a criminal underworld.'
The Netherlands' reputation for tolerance was always more a product of so many people living in such a tight space rather than an active endorsement of the rights of others. "You mind your business and I'll mind mine" is more characteristic of Dutch culture than "live free or die."This sentiment is reflected in a remark that Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte made during a 2014 interview. "People should do with their own bodies whatever they please, as long as they are well informed about what that junk does to them," he said.Rutte added in the same interview that cannabis legalization of the Colorado model — where the state taxes and regulates all levels of the supply chain, and adults 21 and over are allowed to purchase weed from state-licensed stores — was out of the question. "If we were to do that," he said, "we'd be the laughing stock of Europe."Apart from a veneer of tolerance, drug culture in the Netherlands isn't that different from much of the rest of the world. Despite the misleading idea of Amsterdam as a paradise for weed, the general public couldn't care less about cannabis, and its production is still forbidden. For most Dutch, marijuana is mostly a tourist thing or something you fool around with when you're still in school. Some 24 percent of the country's adult population has tried it, which is high, but only 10 percent did so last year, which is low.Related: A Patent for Marijuana Plants Already Exists — and More Are Expected to Follow
The healthcare approach has improved the quality of life of drug users, effectively turning drug use into a health issue rather than a criminal issue.Related: How Russia Became the New Global Leader in the War on Drugs
Earlier this month, 150 people were arrested after a wide investigation uncovered a major drug production operation. Authorities told the Dutch newspaper NRC that the lab was big enough to produce "70 kilos of MDMA multiple times a week."The market for drugs being what it is, criminal drug distribution can easily become an integral part of local economies, spurring local corruption and money laundering. Fighting the illicit drug market now costs the Netherlands roughly $1 billion a year. If the dollar figure were adjusted to reflect the US population, it would be $19 billion — roughly equivalent to NASA's annual budget.'This is an international issue. We shouldn't have the illusion that if we start doing things differently, that it would help with our problems with this ballooning organized crime.'
Nicole Maalsté, an independent sociologist, studies the people who work in the country's illicit drug industry. Police and government departments often ask her for help understanding these criminal networks. In an email to VICE News, she said people who work in the Dutch weed business can be divided into separate categories."First, the classic criminals who are trying to make a buck any way possible," she said. "Second, the pioneers who love the plant and never saw themselves as doing something wrong, then there are farmers who are trying to find a solution for their business in a bad economy, and then there are the accidental workers who were forced by life or criminals to start growing."In recent years, she said, government crackdowns have scared off many of the pot enthusiasts while professionalizing the ones that are just in it for the money.Watch the VICE News documentary Amsterdam's War on Weed:The other flaw of the current Dutch system of not going after drug users while busting drug producers is that it reduces quality of the illicit substances, making them more dangerous. Coke is almost always cut with something else, and bad pills cause some fatalities. The quality of ecstasy pills fluctuates with the amounts of seizures of precursors, occasionally leading to deaths.Related: Here's How Zero-Tolerance Drug Policies Have Damaged Public Health Worldwide
"If you solely look at both UN treaties and European drug laws, then even our current system is not allowed under these treaties," he wrote. "Any movement into not enforcing drug laws is a violation of the treaties."In the US, where three states and Washington, DC have legalized marijuana for recreational use, the Obama administration has argued — to skepticism from some members of the international community — that its approach of keeping weed outlawed at the federal level while permitting some states to legalize is compliant with the UN treaties. Many governments, including Russia, Iran, China, and others that take a hardline approach, insisting that the treaties be interpreted only as a total ban on all illicit substances.Related: Opponents of the War on Drugs Are Not Satisfied With the UN's Plan to End It
Van Kempen and a fellow researcher are currently working on a book that considers solutions outside of the UN drug treaties. He wouldn't offer any specifics, but said, "I can say that many people will probably find the results interesting."The drug war has always been framed as a campaign for public health and against organized crime. The two-tier system in the Netherlands has not only removed the worst excesses of the drug war, it has also narrowed the public's view of the problems that remain, making it difficult to build momentum for regulation. One of the country's major political parties supports legalization in principle, but its members won't campaign on the issue for fear of a political backlash.When asked about the effects of the Dutch drug policy on organized crime, Martin van Rijn, the country's secretary of health, essentially said that the jury is still out, but that no matter what happens with the country's drug policy, it will take action from the rest of the world to make a real difference."This is an international issue," he said. "So we shouldn't have the illusion that if we as the Netherlands would start doing things differently, that it would help with our problems with this ballooning organized crime."Follow Thijs Roes on Twitter: @thijsroes'If you solely look at both UN treaties and European drug laws, then even our current system is not allowed.'