He is due to travel to the Netherlands tomorrow, but he may receive a cool reception after his wildly inaccurate remarks. He said the United States had 8.22 murders per 100,000 people in 1995 compared with 17.58 in the Netherlands and that overall per capita crime rates in the United States were 5,278 per 100,000 compared with 7,928 in the Netherlands. The Dutch government's Central Planning Bureau poured scorn on McCaffrey's figures. Official data put the Dutch murder rate at 1.8 per 100,000 people in 1996, up from 1.5 at the start of the decade. The Dutch say the U.S. rate is 9.3 per 100,000.
Dutch law permits possession of up to five grams of light drugs for personal consumption.
Sale and consumption of hard drugs are not legally permitted, but authorities have developed a pragmatic approach, putting the emphasis on stopping drug-trafficking and helping addicts, who are treated as medical cases and not as criminals. The Dutch government should be renouncing them, not siding with them. Com Marijuana News Send a Virtual Hit Search Marijuana. Com Marijuana Myths Esposed Marijuana. Com Stuff Commentary with Richard Cowan Search MarijuanaNews.