Drug Policy in the European Union
By Steves
Europe has a drug-abuse problem, and they know it. But the way they choose to address it differs sharply from the USA's philosophy. In preparation for a talk I recently gave at the national ACLU convention, I studied the European Union drug policy pages and wove in my own anecdotal experience on the European approach to drug use and abuse. Here's what I came up with:
The European Union, with over 400 million people, figures it has about 2 million drug addicts — a high point historically. Twenty percent of Europeans have tried marijuana; 3 percent have tried cocaine, amphetamines, and ecstasy; and only half a percent have tried heroin. But whereas America tends to treat drug use as a moral and legal issue, Europeans take a more pragmatic approach: Drug addiction is an illness, not a crime.
The EU drug policy is all about harm reduction. It wants to limit the negative impact on individuals (health, antisocial behavior) and the negative impact drug use has on society in general (crime and the costs of health-care and policing). The goals are to reduce use (especially by those under 18); reduce drug-related deaths and health problems (especially AIDS); reduce supply and demand; and reduce drug-related crime. The strategy uses a three-pronged approach: police work to minimize the supply of drugs and identify problem users; anti-drug education to warn their people about the dangers of drugs; and support from the medical community to help addicts get back their lives.
All of the European Union literature on drug policy barely mentions marijuana (which is considered a "soft drug," whose harm to society is minimal). Instead, heroin is the main concern. Of the 7,000 deaths blamed on drugs every year, 70 percent are from opioids (mostly heroin). The nasty thing about the heroin problem is that half of the heroin-users use needles, and the sharing of needles spreads AIDS and Hepatitis C.
The European plan is not to wage a "war on drugs," but to welcome serious discussion beyond the "zero tolerance" and "three strikes and you're out" rhetoric so politically convenient in the USA. Europeans question how effective America's "war on drugs" has been. Before drugs were made illegal around 1900, 1.3 percent of the US population was addicted to hard drugs. When Nixon declared war on drugs in 1970, one trillion dollars spent and millions arrested and imprisoned, today the percentage of Americans addicted to hard drugs is roughly...1.3 percent. Meanwhile, American prisons are crammed with non-violent drug-users (800,000 arrests annually, 90 percent for simple possession, 80,000 people in prison today on marijuana offenses), incarcerated for years at a time at taxpayer expense. And after all that, marijuana use per capita is actually less in Europe (overall) than in the USA.
Many Europeans believe a society needs to make a choice: tolerate alternative lifestyles or build more prisons. While the USA leads the western world in locking people up (and as we privatize our prison system, we'll likely do even better in that regard), for Europe, prison is a failure — something to be used only as a last resort.
Europeans believe that you can't simply legislate drug addiction away. They're determined not to find a "cure" that is more costly than the problem. Europeans do spend tax revenue to deal with their marijuana problem. But, rather than taking the American approach, they embrace the basic philosophy that a wise drug policy reduces harm to society. Europe has learned that for every euro invested in education and counseling, 15 euros are saved in police enforcement and health-care costs.
Action must respect the principle of proportionality. You don't lock people up and ruin lives for smoking marajuana — but laws for trafficking are stiff, even extreme. For instance, selling drugs to a minor in Luxembourg can get you life in prison with hard labor. Even the Netherlands, so famously "easy on marijuana," holds the threat of 16 years in prison for traffickers. (While Europe generally goes easy on "personal use," the amount of a drug allowed to meet the definition "for personal use" varies.)
Europe believes that criminalizing drugs does little to address the problem, but instead victimizes the young, poor, and people of color. When a drug is illegal, its street value is high enough to tempt people on the fringes of society (the poor, immigrants, and so on) to make pushing a career. And these pushers logically target young people. Europe doesn't like the "war on drugs" concept because greater access actually drives street value down, which causes pushers to lose interest, fewer children to be targeted, and drug-related crime to drop.
Each European country experiments with different creative solutions. While some of these might seem outlandish to our clear-cut American sensibilities about drugs, many have been proven successful. (And remember that Europeans find our lock-'em-up approach just as unthinkable.)
Switzerland is particularly innovative. Last time I was in Zürich, I noticed blue lights in the public toilets. Why? So junkies can't find their veins. Zürich once had a famous (or infamous) "Needle Park" where junkies could come for their government-sponsored fix. It was dropped because of the public nuisance caused by its popularity among junkies. But the concept — "maintenance programs" providing pure drugs and clean needles — is still considered sound. Throughout Europe, these programs for methadone and heroine users are considered successful. After millions of injections, there have been no deaths from overdoses. Related crime is way down, stress on the legal system and prisons is down, employment of addicts is up (resulting in less welfare expense), the spread of AIDS is down, and drug use is actually down. The thinking is that when the drug is illegal, addicts nervously "top up" every chance they get — afraid that they may not be able to score a fix later. With the no-stress availability of the drug, use goes down as junkies "manage" their addiction better, with government help.
Some countries offer "cannabis consultation clinics" — non-judgmental, anonymous, and open to all. As they don't push anti-drug propaganda, they are credible. In France alone, there are cannabis consultation clinics in 250 cities. Germany has an online program called "Quit the S***," which offers the same kind of consultation. The assumption is that problem-use clients turn to marijuana for social and psychological reasons that can be dealt with. To find out why, clients are given a "motivational interview" allowing them to explore their values, self-image, objectives, and so on.
The French noticed boys had a bigger pot problem than girls, and figured it might be because they were nervous about approaching girls socially. They actually instituted "communications projects," literally boosting young boys' confidence by giving them training in flirting.
The Dutch are famous for their live-and-let-live attitude. The Netherlands has not legalized marijuana. But since 1976, they have put it in the same category as alcohol and tolerate personal use as long as it doesn't bother other people. My guidebook-research chores include checking out Amsterdam's famous pot-selling "coffeeshops." I enjoy sitting and observing: people are very chatty, the police post warnings such as the latest bad chemical drugs on the streets, customers choose from a staggering array of loaner bongs, grandmotherly types and older professionals (who don't enjoy the edgy ambience of most coffeeshops) park their bike and drop in for a little of their favorite strain of marijuana to go...and when new cakes come out of the oven, they are scarfed right down. It's much cheaper to get high than to get drunk in any town in the Netherlands.
After 10 years of this coffeeshop approach to recreational marijuana use, anti-drug abuse professionals in the Netherlands agree that there has been no significant increase in pot smoking among their young people, and overall drug use has increased only slightly. They know that their American counterparts are frustrated with the reality that it's easier for an American 15-year-old to buy marijuana than tobacco or alcohol (because you don't get "carded" when you buy something on the street).
The Dutch track record since 1979 dispels the notion that easy access to marijuana serves as a "gateway" to harder drug use — which assumes that it's illegal and sold by pushers on the street, who have an economic incentive to get their young customers into harder more addictive and profitable drugs. Instead, there has been no change in heroin use in the last decade in the Netherlands, but the age of the average user is increasing.
Now and then there is a backlash in Europe against the easy approach to personal use of soft drugs. It is motored by local right-wing and Christian groups, and by American foreign policy. A friend who runs a head shop in Switzerland told me they keep a low marijuana profile in the spring because they don't want to earn an Amsterdam-style reputation among travelers. As the year goes on, they loosen up. A Dane recently told me they need to be a little careful on the streets of Copenhagen. He explained, "Every year, we need to arrest a few pot smokers to maintain our 'favored trade status' with the USA."
Many Europeans view recreational drug use by responsible adults as not a problem at all — in fact, it's a civil liberty. From this perspective, an increase in drug use is not necessarily a bad thing. While everyone would agree that an increase of drug abuse is bad, an increase in use could be a symptom of affluence and a higher standard of living (pardon the pun). Consider alcohol. My alcohol consumption is up lately because I have the money and have acquired a taste for good wine. To me, that's a matter of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," which I think is part of being American. If marijuana were legal, and I smoked it a little more, that could be a sign that I've got my pain-to-pleasure ratio in better balance.
When it comes to drug policy, the goal in Europe is simple: pragmatic harm reduction. Marijuana is considered a soft drug, like booze and tobacco — a health problem, important to regulate, but not worth locking people up over. Europe respects the intellect of its society by tackling its drug problem thoughtfully — not by employing a "reefer madness"-type propaganda that erodes the credibility of parents, teachers, cops, and health professions, but by embracing honest discourse that earns the trust of the people who need help. Rather than being "hard on drugs," Europe chooses to be "smart on drugs.