Dutch Take Offensive on Legalizing ‘Soft’ Drugs : Holland: Such action may seem unlikely at a time when removal of the European Community’s internal customs barriers inspires fear of an explosion in narcotics traffic.

To European Community partners that criticize their permissive attitude toward illicit drugs, the Dutch suggest that all EC nations legalize soft drugs together.

“The international community has to choose between two alternatives,” said Robert Samsom, the Dutch government’s main adviser on drugs. “One is to continue on its present course and face failure. The other is to accommodate itself to the existing realities.”

Legalization may seem unlikely at a time when removal of the community’s internal customs barriers inspires fear of an explosion in drug traffic. But a senior EC official, who is not Dutch, believes the integration will ultimately help Holland’s approach gain acceptance.

Although the 12-nation community has no formal mandate to develop a single drug policy, it plans to establish a joint Drug Monitoring Center this year.

“There’ll be a formal structure for comparing strategies, which there’s never been before,” said the EC official in Brussels, who requested anonymity. “The weight of Dutch evidence will be huge.”

Not everyone sees it that way.

A British customs official, who also would not let his name be used, said police in his country are outraged that Holland allows some drugs to be freely available while most other countries try to stamp them out.

Peter Cohen, a University of Amsterdam lecturer, said British officials “are basically just interested in tracking down drug users and locking them up.”

“In general, they overreact wildly,” said Cohen, also a consultant to the United Nations and World Health Organization. “They’re just not capable of a balanced view on the drugs issue.”

Britain ranks the Netherlands as a prime distributor of illegal drugs on a par with Colombia, Pakistan and Thailand.

Dutch law distinguishes between users and traffickers, and between hard drugs and such soft ones as marijuana and hashish.

Use of soft drugs is no longer criminal in the Netherlands and the sale of small quantities is tolerated. Addicts are rarely prosecuted even for possessing small amounts of heroin, but dealing in larger quantities of any drug can bring a long prison sentence, up to 12 years for heroin trafficking.

In Britain, marijuana possession carries a two-year prison sentence, usually commuted to a heavy fine. France makes no distinction between soft and hard drugs in its penalties for possession.

A report on the world drug situation in 1992 by the U.N. International Narcotics Control Board, issued in February, noted that Dutch policy on soft drugs contravenes international drug treaties.

Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers responded in a letter that Holland’s death rate from drug abuse “is very low by international standards.”

Editorials in Dutch newspapers said the report had “serious shortcomings” and was based on “pure ideology.” Algemeen Dagblad of Rotterdam declared: “The U.N. agency is poorly informed as to the true state of affairs” in the Netherlands.

Samsom, former chairman of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs, said that the danger of national economies being corrupted by drug money “far exceeds the threat posed to society by drug abuse.”

In the legalized system he suggests, growers of narcotic plants would be licensed, given quotas and required to sell their crops to a government monopoly. The monopoly would control retail outlets, prices and quality. Soft drugs would be sold with health warnings and directions for safe use.

While Samsom acknowledged that the plan would work only if implemented jointly by several European countries, he said it “could compete successfully with illicit suppliers, reducing their market share and increasing their operational risks.”

Many EC officials already worry about the lifting of internal customs controls that occurred Jan. 1, however, and have little enthusiasm for legalizing soft drugs.

“There’s no doubt more Germans are heading to Holland for drugs now that they’ve seen TV pictures of unmanned customs posts,” said a spokesman for the German federal criminal office.

Police in Arnhem, near the border, reported detaining as many German nationals on drug charges in the first 14 days of 1993 as in the last four months of 1992.

Experience in the Netherlands seems to support the government view that decriminalization does not necessarily mean an increase in drug use.

Although marijuana and hashish are freely available, consumption is low. An official survey in 1990 indicated that only 2.7% of minors used the drugs, compared to 6.1% in the United States reported two years earlier.

The estimated number of heroin addicts in Amsterdam has declined nearly one-third since the early 1980s, and the average age rises each year, suggesting that fewer people are becoming addicted.

Holland’s approach seems to be making some headway abroad. Hamburg, Zurich and Liverpool, England, have adopted some elements of it. Germany’s new National Drug Council plans to consider the “consequences of liberalization and legalization of soft and hard drugs for the prevention of addiction.”

But in general, other countries follow the course of penalties and law enforcement.

Cohen said the barrier is ideological.

“We’re talking about a clash of worlds here,” he said. “They don’t want to listen. Yet where do most people die of drug-related illnesses? Certainly not Holland.”