This is exactly what is being proposed in the Netherlands. As the main objectives of the 1961 convention are the fight of addiction and illegal trade and allowing medical and scientific use of drugs, there is clearly room for a policy emphasising what is best for public health in The Netherlands. Legislation ought to have precisely the same object in view. But although these two spheres have the same end in view, they differ much in their extent. All actions, whether public or private, derive from morals.
Morality guides individuals through life and through all the relationships of society.
Legislation cannot do this, but even if it could, it ought not to try and interfere with individual conduct. Morality prescribes to each individual to do whatever is both personally advantageous and of benefit to the community. But as there are many acts useful to the community which the legislator ought never to command, so are there many hurtful acts, which ought not to be forbidden, although morality may. Legislation has much the same centre as morality, though not the same circumference. Mario Lap is director of the Foundation on Drug Policy and Human Rights.