In the Dutch drugpolicy the spreading of factual information has always been an important part of our prevention strategies. In contrast to some other countries where information on drugs and their effects is often considered propaganda and punished as such, people in Holland can freely discuss and write about drugs. As a result the dutch public is relatively well-informed about drugs compared with the public abroad. However, information as such is not sufficient. Education is not the same as information.
Education implies that the information is being placed in a normative frame of reference.
Occasionally establishing norms is confused with moralizing. In such cases it is stated that the use of a drug is bad, with an implicit argumentation on ethical considerations. It has to be stated emphatically that ethical considerations have their own value, but are subjective. In short the goal of our education is harm reduction by giving factual information offered in a normative frame, without moralizing, taking into account the responsability of the individual and his existing knowledge on drugs pretext. This threshold is determined by pharmacological and sociological factors.