The Dutch Cannabis Debate, 1968-1976

Abstract

Today's Dutch drug policy has acquired the reputation of standing outside the international mainstream of drug control. One of the most eye-catching aspects of the revision of the Dutch Opium Act in 1976 has been the de facto decriminalization of cannabis in small amounts. Nowadays the use of and small-scale dealing in cannabis has become normalized. This process of normalization is widely seen as a "model" for a revision of European drug policies. However, in this article the conclusion is reached that this process should not be considered as a "model." When we examine the arguments, points of contention, and policy alternatives discussed within the Dutch ministries between 1968 and 1976, it becomes clear that the de facto decriminalization of soft drugs was more the result of the absence of policy, and of a belated adaptation to already existing circumstances, than of any rational, well-considered action.

In 1976 the Dutch Opium Act was revised. Among the most significant and talked about aspects of the changes made, and of the "deviant" drug policies in the Netherlands in general, has been the de facto decriminalization of cannabis in small amounts. The amending of this law, however, was no unique event. A number of states in the USA were taking steps to distinguish "hard" from "soft drugs," and in virtually all Western countries controversy raged on the reform of narcotics legislation. This period of "lenience" from roughly 1968 to 1976 now lies far behind us. The Dutch policy on soft drugs has remained exceptional in that, in the period subsequent to 1976, small-scale dealing in hash and marijuana has slowly but surely become tolerated in practice. This policy of toleration resulted in the institution of house dealers in youth centres during the late 1970s, and in the emergence of the so-called coffeeshops in the 1980s. Today the cannabis debate in many European countries has yet to subside, while in the Netherlands the discussion on the legal status of soft drugs is now being revived. (1)

The public debate in the Netherlands on the cannabis issue and the characteristics of government policy since 1976 have been extensively detailed elsewhere.(2) Less well-documented are the debates that took place at policymaking levels of the national government between 1968 and 1976, and which eventually resulted in the "self-willed," lenient approach to soft drugs. The aim of this article is therefore to examine arguments, points of contention, and policy alternatives that were under discussion within the concerned ministries during this important period for Dutch drug policy. Analysis of this twenty-year-old debate can be of value for cannabis policy in the 1990s.

Dutch practice on both soft and hard drugs is the object of sharp international scrutiny. The Dutch let no chance go by to promote "their" policies, concluding as a rule that the Dutch approach stands up favorably to those elsewhere and can hence be deemed successful(3) Generally, however, it remains unclear on what criteria such conclusions are being based. Comparing the effectiveness of different kinds of drug policy remains a precarious undertaking. One example can illustrate this. Many post-war critics of the United States anti-drug campaign pointed to the success of the British approach to the drug problem. According to these critics, the policy of criminalizing narcotics use in the United States during the 1920s was a total failure. The British medical model, under which narcotics could be prescribed by physicians, was to have prevented marginalization of drug users, thereby keeping the problem limited and manageable. More recent research, however, has shown that such a claim ignores important differences between the British and the U.S. situation. As a result, the circumstances forming the background to the 1926 Roleston Report, which laid the foundation for the medical approach, were misinterpreted.(4) This danger is also present in the case of the Dutch approach. If one disregards the specific circumstances, historical and otherwise, under which the Dutch policies emerged, an overly simplified and static alternative model for the U.S. "war on drugs" will result. In this article it will be concluded that the de facto decriminalization of soft drugs in the Netherlands was more the result of the absence of policy, and of a belated adaptation to already existing circumstances, than of any rational, well-considered action.

A short overview will first be given on the rise of the cannabis issue in the Netherlands and of the contemporary changes in society which were strongly to influence policy formulation.

Prior to the Second World War one could hardly speak of a cannabis problem in the Netherlands. Police reports do mention some marijuana being smoked in sailors' quarters of large seaport cities, but it was certainly not being used on any large scale. In contrast to the United States, where marijuana was considered a "killer weed," there was no clear "cannabis ideology" in the Netherlands.(5) There was a slight increase in trade and use after the war, but this likewise failed to cause much concern. Some dealing was carried on in bars in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the two largest cities, as well as by soldiers from the U.S. occupying forces when on leave from Germany.(6) In 1955, the Amsterdam police began collaboration with the Office of Special Investigation at the U.S. airforce base at Soesterberg. In the same year, police managed to arrest three Americans possessing sixty reefers of marijuana, at that time a considerable amount.

Around 1960, it was discovered that the use of cannabis was slowly spreading within certain groups of young Dutch people. The great increase in use, however, would not occur until the second half of the decade. At first, cannabis using was dealt with severely by law enforcement authorities. A psychiatric report was drawn up on detained users for the court, and they received prison sentences of up to a year.(7) Some users were even forced to undergo detoxification in a psychiatric clinic. Such repressive action did not, however, serve to stop what appeared to be art explosive increase in cannabis use among the young.

This belief was further strengthened by the widespread publicity that accompanied this first instance of larger-scale nonmedical drug use and the repressive treatment to which users were being subjected. In the press, articles dominated that argued cannabis was not the dangerous and addictive substance one had presumed it to be up to now. Voices stressing the dangers of cannabis were mostly to be heard in law enforcement circles. 'Their cogency, however, was all but cancelled out by the wide publicity enjoyed by those propagating legalization or decriminalization. "Moral entrepreneurs," as depicted by Howard Becker, were virtually absent in the Netherlands.(8) In fact, it was sooner the case that a group of immoral entrepreneurs was active, which received extensive access to the media. in its perhaps most controversial form, this "enterprise" found expression in the weekly radio programs in which the quality and prices of various sorts of soft drugs were evaluated. This form of consumer education provoked much resistance ftorn the establishment.

Scientific circles also responded to the great commotion about cannabis use. The first Dutch social-science study of drug use among youth by H. Cohen received wide attention, and it would eventually play an significant part in the outcome of the debate. Cohen stressed in his report the sociological and psychological aspects of the drug issue - factors that had scarcely received notice up to then. In particular, his observations on deviant groups and the role the penal approach played in their emergence would form an important contribution to the e cannabis debate in the ministries.(9)

In 1968 the General Central Bureau for Public Mental Health, an independent foundation, appointed a multidisciplinary study group, one of whose tasks was to draw up recommendations for government drug policy. This working party, chaired by Professor L. Hulsman, advised the government in 1971 to decriminalize the use and possession of small amounts of cannabis as soon as possible. The production and distribution of hash and marijuana were to be reduced from felony to misdemeanour offences.(10)

It was becoming increasingly clear, partly under influence of the Cohen and Hulsman reports, that prescribing the same penalties for "soft" as for "hard" drugs was not in accordance with their divergent health risks. With the introduction and comparatively rapid spread of heroin from 1972 onward, law enforcement officials increasingly gave priority to fighting "hard" drugs. The idea of separating the markets for soft and hard drugs by creating a legal distinction between these substances was already being realized in practice during the first half of the 1970s. In the larger cities the use and sale of soft drugs in youth centers was already more or less being tolerated.(11) In order to keep hard drugs out of the youth centers, house dealers were instituted in some places. These were persons who, with the permission and sometimes under the protection of the management of the centers, sold soft drugs on the premises. Even after the revision of the law in 1976, this would officially remain a felony. In a sense, then, the new law had at its enactment already been overtaken by common practice. Apart from an arrest here or there, the police rarely acted against the house dealers. The toleration of house dealers was propagated especially by local authorities in the large cities, who feared that drug trade might otherwise spread to less observable places. The policy of toleration could be pursued because the nature of Netherlands law makes it possible to choose not to prosecute certain offences:

The Opium Act is part of the whole of the criminal law structure of which the "expediency principle" is one of the basic underlying principles. This principle, embodied within many of Europe's legal systems, empowers the Public Prosecutions Department to refrain from instituting criminal proceedings on grounds derived from the public interest.(12)

In line with this principle, the policy for prosecuting drug offenders was gradually tuned more and more finely after 1968. In the beginning only a course distinction was made between socially well-adjusted and maladjusted cannabis users. In the course of the 1970s, and especially after the arrival of heroin in 1972, the criteria for criminal investigation and prosecution were more and more subject to "inflation." Also on the basis of the expediency principle, it was decided to assign the activities of house dealers and coffeeshops a relatively low priority for police investigation. In practice this amounted to a policy of toleration.

Just as in many other Western countries, a counterculture emerged in the Netherlands in the 1960s that was to greatly change social relationships. This counterculture, primarily a youth culture, attacked the established order and demanded greater political, social, and cultural freedom and influence. The Amsterdam Provo movement of the mid-1960s, and the hippies in the years to follow, epitomized this counterculture. The use of soft drugs played an important part in these movements. The response of the dominant culture or of the government, as the case may be, was at first repressive, but by the end of the 1960s authorities were taking on a more pragmatic and lenient attitude. This nonrepressive attitude toward the counterculture has also been analysed as a form of accommodation.(13) To explain this leniency we must look at the contemporary social changes on a more general level.

From around 1917 until the 1960s, the pluralistic Netherlands can be characterized as a "pillarized" society, consisting of several large minority groups, or pillars, each with its own philosophy of life, religion or ideology. Between the various tightly organized pillars there was little contact. Even so, a stable democratic system existed. An important prerequisite for this was that the elites of the various pillars made political compromises. These compromises came into being on the basis of the rules of "consociational democracy."(14) By means of such compromises, conflicts within the multiform and divided society were made manageable, and political stability was achieved.(15)

During the 1960s, the system of pillars more or less collapsed. Secularization, expanding opportunities for communication, and growing prosperity were major factors that brought on the process of depillarization. Individuals no longer felt tied to their religious or ideological pillar, thus coming into contact with other ideas and outlooks on life. Depillarization was likewise taking place on a political level, and that signalled the end of consociational democracy. The changes in the mid-1960s gave other groups who had not belonged to a pillar the chance to play a role in political and social life. One manifestation of this on a political level was the emergence of new, rather successful parties, which breached the lines of the rather ossified political culture. The Kabouters (Gnomes), for example, who stemmed from the Provo movement, gained seats in the Amsterdam city council in 1970. Due to the crumbling of the pillars, new groups outside politics also saw their chance to influence social life, Some of these were to be found within youth culture, which in these times of change did not end up being marginalized by dominant culture. On the contrary, many youth facilities, in both the recreational and the social-work sector, were subsidized by government funding.

Depillarization meant that traditional values. and norms went less without saying, so that alternative views, particularly in the sphere of morality, gained more scope. As a consequence, opinions in large sectors of the population on subjects such as abortion, pornography and contraception altered sharply. In politics, an attitude of tolerant procrastination resulted which Ten Have has described as "a kind of accommodation . . . of nontreatment of problems."(16) This politics of nontreatment of problems also applied to the cannabis issue.

The first consultations held on cannabis on a ministerial level took place at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Public Health in 1961. They were occasioned by a number of newspaper and magazine articles that had argued that the draconic penalties being imposed for possessing tiny amounts of marijuana were not in keeping with the marginal noxiousness of the drug itself. Although no one at these consultations could demonstrate in the least that cannabis formed a hazard to public health, it was decided to ask the Ministry of Justice to combat the use of marijuana "as forcefully as possible."(17) The Justice Ministry complied with the request, and this led to the repressive treatment of marijuana use during the first half of the 1960s.

The rapid increase in drug use among youth several years later once again brought the cannabis problem to the attention of the ministries. Besides the Department of Public Health - in the meantime part of the new Ministry of Public Health and Environmental Sanitation - this time the Ministry of Justice was also party to the consultations. A third ministry, which was to play an increasingly prominent role, was the Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Welfare (CRM), established in 1965 and charged with the coordination of youth policy, and hence responsible for subsidizing youth welfare work.

It had meanwhile become clear that, because of the growing doubts about the risks of cannabis use as well as the public commotion that had arisen, a lucid statement of position and a sound goverment policy was urgently needed. The most acute problem, however, was the lack of scientific knowledge on which a policy could be based. Uncertainty was rampant, because no smug appeals could be made to an older "ideology."

In order to bring more clarity into this confused situation, a study group called the Narcotics Working Party was set up in 1968; this became known as the Baan Working Party after the person who chaired it. At first the group was composed of officials from Public Health and Justice who had a medical, pharmacological, or legal background. In itself this limited composition was not all that surprising, because enforcement of the Opium Act had historically been in the hands of these two bodies. Partly because no behavioral scientists were included, the group made little progress for more than a year. The Ministry of CRM in particular desired more influence, and it pushed successfully for enlargement of the Working Party with social and behavioural scientists. The drug problem, it argued, was not only medical and judicial in nature, but also psychological, sociological, and cultural, After a considerable delay caused in part by the recruitment of the new members, the Baan Report was finally published early in 1972. The report, which was accorded a quite favorable reception from many quarters, comprised pharinacological, psychological, legal, and sociological analyses. The emphasis was on the so-called risks of drug use. The report asserted that use of the diverse illegal drugs entailed correspondingly diverse health risks. Legislation and drug policy should take these differences into consideration. It would seem to follow that cannabis, the substance concentrated on most by the Working Party, should in any case carry a lighter punishment than hard drugs. Nevertheless, the Baan group was exceptionally cautious in its recommendations. It did not urge swift legal changes, but recommended instead that, making use of the expediency principle, a certain period be set aside for experimentation. During this period further information was to be gathered on subjects as the harmfulness of cannabis, and amendments to the law could afterward be considered on the basis of better-informed judgement.(18) The Baan Report must be viewed as a conservative work compared to other reports and studies, such as the Hulsman Report, especially because it was so exceedingly cautious in making recommendations. That is not so strange considering the large numbers of ministry officials who served on it. Its findings, of course, consisted largely of compromises between the three ministries involved.

The conservative character of the Baan Report becomes even more clear when we examine the positions taken in the ministry debates between 1968 and 1972. The starting point for the discussions within and between the ministries was formed by two essential questions, which would come to dominate the entire cannabis debate:

• Is cannabis damaging to individual and public health?
• Is the stepping-stone theory correct?

If these two questions were answered affirmatively, there would be sufficient reason to retain prohibitive measures. If, on the other hand, the harmfulness of cannabis could not be convincingly demonstrated, and if the stepping-stone theory were to be rejected, the foundation under the legal ban would be swept away.

The opinions on the civil service level within the Ministry of Public Health and Environmental Sanitation were divided. A few officials had their doubts about the harmful effects of cannabis use, and they favored creating a legal distinction between soft and hard drugs. The majority of officials, however, backed by the politically accountable state secretary for public health, Dr. Kruisinga, argued for maintaining the legal sanctions. They held that sustained use brought on the amotivation syndrome. Users were thought to sink into a lethargic, apathetic state, whereby the desire to work or study vanished and social isolation eventually resulted.(19) The behavior of cannabis-using hippies was seen as conclusive proof of this hypothesis. As to bodily risks, however, there was more uncertainty; various studies from abroad contradicted one another on this point. Around 1970 the stepping-stone theory was also still being supported wholeheartedly at this ministry. Officials saw a clear connection between the use of soft and of hard drugs. A third argument against partial or full decriminalization formed the commitments under the Single Convention of 1961. So Public Health took the position that cannabis was rightly included in the Opium Act, and that enforcement of that law for cannabis by police and courts was to be continued.

At the Ministry of Justice there were more misgivings about the repressive approach. This ministry was being subjected to strong public pressure from the media. Harsh punishments dealt out to young middle-class cannabis users had touched off a storm of protest. Justice officials assumed the position that not their ministry, but that of Public Health held prime responsibility for defining drug policy: drug users were not criminals, but patients. Application of criminal law with respect to drug users was always to be a last resort. Resentment arose when it turned out that Public Health expected Justice to adhere scrupulously to the Opium Act regarding cannabis. The belief grew among Justice officials that Public Health was trying to shove off the responsibility for drugs onto their ministry.

Another problem for the Justice Ministry was the fast-growing number of convictions. The preventive effect of a legal ban was being cited as a major reason for keeping cannabis in the Opium Act, but the rapid rise in convictions within a short period seemed to give the lie to this preventive effect. One sooner got the impression that the severe penalties had already made for marginalization of the subculture and for an increase in drug use. This idea was reinforced by the first Dutch prevalence studies. Buikhuisen ascertained in 1969 that I I % of higherform, secondary -school pupils had occasionally used drugs, primarily or solely cannabis. Two years later this percentage had risen to 20%.(20) Studies as these caused a good deal of turmoil in the Justice Ministry. How could one guarantee law enforcement when one out of five young people was committing a drug offence? Scepticism further increased when Public Health failed to demonstrate adequately that cannabis formed a greater health risk than alcohol or tobacco.

The above arguments were enough for Justice to seriously consider decriminalization. The first intraministerial consultations on this occurred as early as 1970, almost two years prior to the publication of the Baan Report. It was clear that treating young users as criminals did them more damage than the cannabis they were smoking. It should be remembered here that in numerous other moral issues, such as pornography and abortion, the utility of the penal approach was also being called into question during these years. More faith was placed in a social approach to such problems, and law enforcement agencies were gradually withdrawing.

Following this line of reasoning, the Justice Ministry became open to psychological and sociological approaches. Attention was focused, for example, on the consequences of marginalizing and criminalizing subcultures. The steppingstone theory appeared to acquire at least some validity in a situation where a single criminalized market existed for both hard and soft drugs. Severing this market by means of legal measures could forestall the marginalization and criminalization of cannabis users. Cannabis would then no longer act as a stepping-stone to trying hard drugs.

The third ministry concerned, Culture, Recreation and Welfare (CRM), was the most reform minded of the three. It became actively involved in drug policy around 1968. Great consternation had arisen over the use of drugs in the youth centers Paradiso and Fantasio in Amsterdam, both of which were subsidized by the local council. Those in charge of the centers had begun tolerating the use of soft drugs there, and this resulted in sensational newspaper stories. The CRM Ministry, being responsible for youth affairs, was compelled to take a position. While certainly not playing down drug use, officials were highly fearful of police intervention. Surveillance of drug use in youth centers was relatively easy. but action by law enforcement authorities against them would reduce the controllability of drug trade and use, while also encouraging marginalization of the youth. From the perspective of CRM, further alienation of the youth from society was a danger to be averted at all times.

In 1970, the National Council on Civil Youth Training (Raad voor de Jeugdvorming), an advisory body to CRM, published a report urging extensive legalization of cannabis products to accord them a status comparable to that of alcohol. Partly influenced by this report, CRM became increasingly keen on the idea of a far-reaching disengagement of criminal justice from involvement with drug use.

The cautious nature of the Baan Report was also reflected in the initial outcome of the cannabis debate in the ministries. In its memorandum of July 1972, the government did go further than the Baan recommendations. While not wholly rejecting the idea of a trial period, it concluded that further postponement of the revisions would not be prudent, if only because of the comparatively low penalties then existing for dealing in hard drugs. It pro osed reducing the possession and use of hash and marijuana to a misdemeanor.(21) Framing these proposals had not been without its difficulties, as the Public Health Department had long gone on contending it would be ill-advised to change the law with respect to cannabis. Largely under pressure from the Justice Ministry, Public Health ended up consenting to a slightly watered-down version of the proposals outlined in the government's original draft.

The standpoint of Public Health altered sharply, however, following the change of government in 1973. The conservative Dr. Kruisinga was replaced by Minister Vorrink of the Social -Democratic Party, who favored a further -reaching liberalization of the proposals. Minister Vorrink, incidentally, was the mother of Koos Zwart, the well-known proponent of legalization in whose radio program the price and quality of cannabis products were discussed. As a consequence of the change of government, Health Department officials began devoting more attention to the prospects of decriminalizing cannabis. In all three ministries, various studies were conducted in these years on the feasibility of thorough changes to the Opium Act.

The major stumbling block was the Single Convention of 1961. This agreement did not permit legalizing cannabis. The only possibility within the limits set by the Convention was reducing the offence to a misdemeanor. In addition, legalization would entail practical problems. The hemp being grown in the Netherlands at that time was of poor quality, so that imports would still be necessary. How would the Netherlands manage to legally import marijuana and hashish when it was a forbidden substance abroad? Obligations under international treaties, then, prevented the Netherlands from legalizing cannabis. This was, however, the eventual aim of the government. In a memorandum published in January 1974, the government asserted:

The use of cannabis products and the possession of them for personal use should be removed as soon as possible from the domain of criminal justice. However, this cannot be realized as yet, as it would bring us into conflict with our treaty obligations. The Government shall explore in international consultations whether it is feasible that agreements as the Single Convention be amended in a way that nations will be free to institute, at their discretion, a separate regimen for cannabis products.(22)

Despite an intensive search for loopholes in the Single Convention, the efforts had little success. Cautious attempts on the international level to amend the Convention also came to nothing. The 1976 Netherlands Opium Act did go on to draw a distinction between cannabis products and drugs bearing unacceptable risks, such as heroin, cocaine, amphetamines and LSD. Penalties for dealing in the latter were sharply increased, while those for trade and use of cannabis were reduced substantially. Possession of marijuana and hash in amounts up to 30 grams became a misdemeanor.

Dutch cannabis policy up to 1976 was characterized mainly by procrastination, for a number of different reasons. Until the late 1960s hashish and marijuana were relatively unknown substances. No "ideology" existed as to their effects, the hazards involved, or their users. When the use of them sharply increased, then, there was no set ideology to fall back on. As a consequence, widespread uncertainty arose on essential points, and at the same time alternative viewpoints saw their chance to intrude into the debate.

More important, however, was the changing society of the 1960s. Major changes in public opinion, particularly on moral issues, also had their influence on government policy. Drug use formed a compelling problem that called for a clear government position, but the government took on a wait-and-see attitude; uncertainty about the nature of the problem and possible solutions stood in the way of a decisive formulation of policy. Especially because a link was made with the problems of youth, a politics of accommodation emerged. Subcultures formed a particular source of government apprehension, due to the danger of their marginalization. Moreover, law enforcement agencies had increasing misgivings as to the effectiveness of legal measures against cannabis. Owing to the lack of a clear-cut policy, the expediency principle was applied generously. At the same time that, behind the doors of the ministries, officials were disputing about the pros and cons of statutory change, decriminalization of the possession and use of small amounts of cannabis was already a fact in everyday life. With respect to cannabis, the revised Opium Act of 1976 represented a formal adjustment to an already existing situation. At the moment the law took effect, in fact, toleration of small-scale dealing was already under way.

In some part, the lengthy period the Dutch government needed to arrive at a soft-drug policy can be blamed on unforeseen factors, such as the slow pace of the Baan Working Party and the 1973 change of government Most of the delay must be attributed, however, to government procrastination on moral issues. It failed to respond readily to the social changes of the day.

The expectation of 1970s policymakers that cannabis would eventually be legalized has not proved true. It is more due to the liberal application of the expediency principle than to the altering of the law that the use of cannabis has become "normalized" to a large degree in the Netherlands. Following the rapid increase around 1976, cannabis use declined again, and has now become more or less stabilized.(23) That is not to say, however, that an ideal situation has come about. There is still the need for regulation and supervision of production, wholesale and retail trade, and quality. The Opium Act forms an obstacle to such action; for a substance that, notwithstanding large-scale toleration on the basis of the expediency principle, remains officially prohibited can hardly in turn be regulated by means of other government instruments. Legalization would open more opportunities for controlling and channelling the trade in soft drugs, such as quality control under the Commodities Act, a business location policy for coffeeshops, and the levying of excises.

In any renewed debate on legalization, one problem will be absent. The import of foreign cannabis products is no longer a necessity. The quality of the Dutch product, the so-called Netherweed, has considerably improved since the 1970s and is now superior to marijuana from abroad. The Single Convention, adopted more than thirty years ago and founded upon pre-World War 11 beliefs, remains the major obstacle to legalization. We need to ask ourselves whether we must, for the sake of this treaty, keep cannabis in the Opium Act.

2. An inspection team from the International Narcotics Control Board of the United Nations visited the Netherlands in late 1992. According to the board, Dutch soft drug policy was not in agreement with the Single Convention of 1961, especially the tolerance of coffee shops and the production of Netherweed. As a consequence of this report, and by the need for legislative harmonization in European countries signing the Schengen Agreement, the cannabis debate has been revived. Although legalization is widely supported by scientists and some political parties the Dutch government decided stricter measures were needed. At this time, an amendment is being prepared to combat the production of Netherweed more effectively. 

3. See e.g., P. Cohen, "The Dutch Experience. The Place of Dutch Drug Policy in a General Framework of Social Administration." Paper presented at the International CORA Conference on AntiProhibition, September 29-October 1, 1988; A.C.M. Jansen, Cannabis in Amsterdam. A Geography of Hashish and Marihuana (Muiderberg:Coutinho 1991); D. Korf, "Cannabis Retail Markets in Amsterdam," Int. J. Drug Policy 2:1 (1990) 23-27; H. J. van Vliet, "The Uneasy Decriminalization: A Perspective on Dutch Drug Policy," Hofstra Law Review 18:3 (1990) 717-750; C. F. van de Wijngaart, Competing Perspectives on Drug Use, the Dutch Experience (Swets and Zeitlinger:Lisse 1990). 

4. See e.g., H.J. van Vliet. "The Uneasy Decriminalization," 747; Arthur Baanders, De Hollandse Aanpak, 0pvoedingscultuur, Drugsgebruik en het Nederlandse Overheidsbeleid (Van Goroum: Assen, Maastricht, 1989), 140. [The Dutch approach. The culture of growing tip, drug use and Dutch government policly.] 

5. See e.g., P. Bean, The Social Control of Drugs (London: Robertson 1974); Virginia Berridge, "Drugs and Social Policy: The Establishment of Drug Control in Britain 1900-30," British Journal of Addiction 79 (1984):17-29; A. Rutherford & P. Green, "Illegal Drugs and British Criminal Justice Policy" in Drug Policies in Western Europe, ed. H. 1. Albrecht and A. van Kalmthout (Freiburg:MaxPlank-Institut 1989), 383-407. 

6. Jerome L. Himmelstem, The Strange Career of Marihuana. Politics and Ideology of Drug Control in America (Westport. Conn.: Greenwood Press 1983). 

7. M.D. van Wolferen, "Marihuana," Tijdschrift voor Strafrecht (1949), 308-323. 

8. Look H. C. Hulsman, "Die Entwicklung der Cannabisdiskussion in Holland 1964-1980," in Haschisch: Prohibition oder Legalisierung. Ursachen und Folgen des Cannabisverbots, ed. Wilhelm Burian and Irnigard Eisenbach-Stangl, (Basel: Beltz Verlag 1982), 158. ["The evolution of the cannabis debate in the Netherlands 1964-1980, " in Hashish: prohibition or legalization. Causes and conseqences of the ban on cannabis.] 

9. Howard S Becker, Outsiders, Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (New York: Free Press 1963).
   
10. The initial findings of Cohen's study were made public in 1968. The final outcome was not published until seven years later in his Ph.D. dissertation. H. Cohen, Drugs, Druggebruikers en Drug Scene (Alphen aan den Rijn: Samson 1975). [Drugs, drug users and drug scene.] 
    
11. Ruimte in het Drugbeleid. [More room in drug policy.] Report of a working party of the General Central Bureau for Public Mental Health [Stichting Algemeen Centraal Bureau voor de Geestelijke Volksgezondheid]. (Meppel: Boom 1971), 60-61. 
    
12. For an interesting observation of this leniency in youth centers from an U.S. perspective, see Walter R. Cuskey, Arnold William Klein and William Krasner, Drug-trip Abroad: American Drug refugees in Amsterdam and London (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press 1972), 3-50. 
    
13. Van Vliet, "The Uneasy Decriminalization," 731.
    
14. Paul ten Have, "The Counter Culture on the Move. A Field Study of Youth Tourists in Amsterdam," Mens en Maatschappij 3 (1974), 297-315 
    
15. A. Liphart, The Politics of Accommodation.- Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press 1968).
    
16. M. C P. M. van Schendelen ed., "Consociationalism, Pillarization and Conflict-management in the Low Countries," Acta Politico xix, (January 1984).
    
17. Ten Have, "The Counter Culture," 313. 
    
18. Letter from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Public Health to the Ministry of Justice, 24 August 1962. No. 13276, Envelope R1651, Box 017064, FHI Archive on Narcotics Abuse [Misbruik Van Verdovende Middelen], 1958-1968. Ministry of Welfare. Public Health and Culture [WVC].
    
19. Rapport van de Werkgroep Verdovende Middelen, Achtergronden en risico's van druggebruik (The Hague 1972), 70-78. [Background factors and risks of drug use.] 
    
20. The belief that long-term drug use caused an a-motivation syndrome had emerged several years earlier in the United States. See Jerome L. Himmelstein, The Strange Career of Marihuana, 121-136. 
    
21. D. J. Korf, "Twintig Jaar Softdrug-gebruik in Nederland: Fen Terugblik vanuit Pre valentiestudies. Tijdschrift voor Alcohol, Drugs en Andere Psychotrope Stoffen 14 (1988), 81-89. ["Twenty years of soft drug use in the Netherlands: a retrospective based on prevalence studies. " Journal of alcohol, drugs, and other psychotropic substances.] 
    
22. Memorandum [Nota] "Achtergronden en Risico's van Druggebruik." Handelingen der Staten-Generaal, 1971-1972 Session, 11 742, No. 3. [Background factors and risks of drug use. Proceedings of the States-General.]
    
23. Memorandum [Nota] of 4 January 1974. Nederlandse Staatscourant. 8 January 1974. No. 5. [Netherlands State Gazette.] 
    
24. D. J. Korf, "Twintig Jaar Softdrug-gebruik," 83.