ENCOD president Fredrick Polak blasted US drug czars saying that they misreprest the Dutch experience of marijuana coffee shops. He said this as a warning to Americans about removing cannabis from the black market.
A poll taken earlier in the year indicated that 50% of the Dutch think marijuana should be fully legalized. Even though coffee shops have dropped from 2,500 to only 700, then that’s okay. Coffee shops also reduce the number of police calls for incidents unlike bars or clubs.
Polak has a firm belief that the American people and Californians would and should support decriminalizing drugs and regulating the drug markets. He went onto say that if they only knew how liberal policies about drug problems are much better in other countries than the United States. There is a tradition of lies being told by US officials, especially about the Netherlands.
The Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics issued a special press release explaining that the actual Dutch murder rate is 1.8 per 100,000 people, or less than one-quarter the U.S. murder rate. Polak said that, “I hope that the American people will at least have access to accurate information when they decide what cannabis policies will work best.”
Even the President of ENCOD, European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies, agrees that proposition 19 needs to become law. It is time to take the black market away and legalize what so many people throughout the country want.
Related posts:
Tags: coffee shops, Dutch, ENCOD, Fredrick Polak, Marijuana
