This means that a far more important measure of the success or failure of drug control policies is the proportion of cases where loss of control is apparent - not the prevalence of drug use itself. We might then start to investigate how far possible differences in loss of control between countries with different drug policies are related to these policies or to underlying social and economic situations that are not addressed by current drug policies. We have no systematic data about this because researchers are rarely paid or asked to compare data from different drug climatological areas in the world. But again, I am referring here to building upon the successes of the Netherlands. So, once again I will use some illustrations from the Dutch status quo.
Cannabis is easily and cheaply available in most of the larger Dutch cities.
The Dutch government allows this because of the belief that most cannabis users are very controlled users. Strangely enough, no one in the Netherlands even thinks one needs research in this matter. This means that cannabis users are not arrested, unlike in the UK, for example, where last year over 30,000 people were arrested because they are cannabis users. Furthermore, we have no cannabis users transported to mental hospitals, as is the case in Germany. The knowledge of how to regulate cannabis use has become an inconspicuous part of local Dutch youth culture, because the development of drug use rules was not pushed out of the mainstream and into deviant subcultures.