The successful cultivation of Dutch marijuana, or Netherweed, has contributed to the development that the importation from abroad has fallen sharply, claims Ben Dronkers, Director of the Hash And Marijuana Information Museum in Amsterdam. There is no doubt that foreign criminal organisations which were involved in this suffered a serious blow as a result. The police and the law are able to spend more time, attention, and energy in combating true criminality.
Only Holland could produce a quote like that, yet it is worth clarifying some of the misconceptions regarding the Dutch policy on drugs. Trafficking, selling, producing, and possessing either hard or soft drugs are actually offences under Dutch law, but the use of drugs is not. Even so, the possession of soft drugs for personal use is a summary offence rather than an indictable one, with one of the primary aims of the policy being to separate the markets for soft and hard drugs in order to protect soft drugs users from coming into contact with the harder stuff.
The legislation was a response to social developments which had taken place in the Netherlands in the 60s and 70s, Dronkers explains.
Hashish and marijuana had been accepted, consumed and appreciated by broad layers of society. Research had also shown that the health risks related to the use of soft drugs were acceptable, certainly when compared to the damaging consequences of the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, coffee and certain medicines such as aspirin. The need was felt to make a distinction in our Opium Act between soft and hard drugs, such as LSD, heroin and cocaine. This was particularly because of the fact that at that time, dealers in the street were providing a wide range of drugs. The users of soft drugs could easily come into contact with dangerous hard drugs.
Although it was officially in conflict with Article 3 of the Opium Act, it was actually decided in 1976 that anyone who wished to could smoke a joint, he goes on. Criminal law was no longer a weapon used by the government against consumers of hemp products. The instrument which allowed this legal turnabout was the principle of discretionary powers which guarantees the Director of Public Prosecutions independence in his policy of prosecution, so that policemen can decide not to prosecute in the common interest.
According to our Ministry of Health, Welfare and Culture, the problem of drugs is primarily a health problem. Therefore people who are addicted to hard drugs, like alcoholics, are treated like normal citizens, though it should not be forgotten that they are people with a serious health problem. Therefore, they are patients, of the target of criminal prosecution, as is the case in many other countries. This is a humane approach and, while the problem of drugs is felt to be extremely serious by the Dutch population, it is one which has led to excellent results, certainly when the Dutch situation is compared to conditions in other countries which have not adopted this sort of balanced policy.
Up to 1976, all drug-related offences in Holland were subject to the same maximum penalty but, in that same year, the distinction was drawn between soft and hard drugs and a scale of penalties in tune with this distinction drawn up. The need to separate the markets for hard and soft drugs also resulted in the emergence of supervised sales outlets for soft drugs the famous coffee shops now ubiquitous in Amsterdam and so familiar to the many Irish tourists who visit them while on holiday there. Soft drug users and young people who experiment with drugs are (thus) protected from the criminal traffic in hard drugs , according to the official document Drugs A Guide To Dutch Policy . 55% of people who buy seeds used to be petty criminals, claims Dronkers. They used to have long fingers, but now they have green fingers, growing their own and selling to coffee shops!
With an estimated 1,800 of such coffee shops in The Netherlands, employing nearly 20,000 people directly and indirectly, Dronkers estimates that the government makes about 500 million guilders (approximately #187 million) per annum from the industry . Although the sale of soft drugs remains an offence by the letter of the law, prosecution of coffee shop owners is not a priority provided they comply with several conditions. These include: an agreement that no more than five grammes are sold to any one customer at any one time (recently reduced from 30 grammes to counter the sale of soft drugs for export and to appease the French and Jacques Chirac); that no hard drugs are sold; that drugs are not advertised, that they are sold to over-18s; and, finally, that no nuisance is caused.
It is against this background, that Dronkers Hash And Marijuana Information Museum operates in the heart of Amsterdam s Red Light District, attracting some 60,000 visitors a year, including, says Dronkers, police and health groups from Holland and abroad.
A small and unassuming ground floor plays host to this museum, decorated with a graphic history of hemp derivatives and their historical uses, together with a special greenhouse area where one can observe the process from germination to cultivation.
Cannabis was one of the first plants to be cultivated by man, explains one of the many brochures available. It spread throughout the world from Central Asia, from about the 8th and 9th centuries BC. Knowledge about this special plant, as well as its seed, was disseminated throughout the world by trading caravans and the people of Central Asia such as the Skytes, who went everywhere. Even before the birth of Christ, hemp was mentioned by the Greek historian Heroditus. During the golden age of the Roman Empire the plant first came to Italy and, from there, hemp spread throughout western Europe.
In terms of time and space, the route which hemp took from Central Asia to The Netherlands was a long one, but since the Middle Ages the plant has been widely grown here and has increasingly left its mark on the landscape and the economy. It is known that hemp was already cultivated in small fields in Holland before the 17th century. Farmers were more familiar with growing this plant than with any other. The economic value for our ancestors lay particularly in the long, water-resistant, strong fibres in the stem, which formed the raw material, for example, for the sails and sheets for ships .
Interestingly, the brochure points out that hemp fibre is still used to make the high quality paper that is manufactured in Italy and France, and is used for banknotes and cigarette papers. Is Monsieur Chirac aware of this, one wonders? In addition, hemp oil has also been used for the manufacture of green soap, and for lamp oil. A particularly noteworthy point in the booklet concerns World War II. Japan had conquered and occupied large parts of Eastern Asia, so that the worldwide trade in hemp fibre from these countries collapsed, it states. The United States was suddenly confronted with a desperate shortage of fibre. This was a complete disaster for the war against Germany, Italy and Japan. The navy needed cables for its ships, the airforce canvas for parachutes, and the army canvas for tents, kitbags and rucksacks.
The shoe industry was in danger of collapsing because there wasn t an inch of hemp rope or thread available. Following an intensive campaign in which the government appealed to American patriotism, the Department of Agriculture urged farmers to start planting hemp. There was a propaganda film entitled Hemp For Victory pointing out the need for cultivating hemp on a massive scale in America. Threshing machines were made available free of charge, or at a very low cost, and farmers who grew hemp, as well as their sons, were exempted from military service. The response to this campaign certainly contributed to the fact that the United States was able to play such an important role in the Second World War, the role of liberators, of The Netherlands, too.
The museum also highlights the healing properties of hemp and its derivatives in particular, THC, the psycho-active substance in cannabis. Most American eye specialists would choose to prescribe smoking marijuana for cases of glaucoma because, in comparison with others, this medicine is the safest, as well as being the cheapest, visitors are told. In some cases, marijuana is used to combat the nausea and vomiting which are the result of chemotherapy. AIDS victims who feel ill as a result of their virus inhibitor, AZT, also smoke cannabis to relieve their nausea. For patients suffering from anorexia nervosa, hemp stimulates the appetite and reduces weight loss. Cannabis can also give relief in cases of stress, backache, sleep deprivation and migraine. Epileptics and people suffering from MS benefit from the muscle relaxing effect.
All of which makes cannabis sound like a wonderful panacea rather than the notorious drug, the use of which many governments spend vast amounts of money trying to eradicate.
From once being a widely appreciated plant, Ben Dronkers agrees, hemp has become very suspect. This devaluation is quite unjustified, but there are many signs that cannabis will enjoy a glorious renaissance as a cultivated plant. It is now a matter of responding appropriately to the current situation and future developments. Decisions can only be taken on the basis of correct information which can be evaluated.
Dronkers sees The Hash And Marijuana Information Museum as playing a role in providing such correct information , and throws down a challenge to whoever may wish to challenge his views.
In his book The Emperor Wears No Clothes, the author Jack Herer offers a reward of $10,000 to anyone who can disprove the following statement: If all fossil fuels and their derivatives, as well as the deforestation of trees for paper and agriculture are banned from use in order to save the planet, protect the ozone layer, and reverse the greenhouse effect, then there is only one known renewable natural resource able to provide the overall majority of our paper, textiles and food, meet all the world s transportation, home and industrial energy needs, reduce pollution, rebuild the soil and clean the atmosphere all at the same time our old stand-by that did it all before: cannabis, hemp . . . marijuana!
The Hash And Marijuana Information Museum in Amsterdam has doubled the sum offered by Jack Herer. Says Ben Dronkers: There are now $20,000 available for anyone who can prove that his thesis is incorrect. n