Holland's Half-Baked Drug Experiment

The Netherlands' vaunted drug policies -- legalizing the public sale of cannabis products in the now-famous coffee shops and adopting a generally lenient attitude toward drug use -- have turned the country into the narcotics capital of western Europe. Dutch cops admit that Holland is to synthetic drugs what Colombia is to cocaine. Not only is Holland's increasingly potent marijuana not staying in the legal coffee shops, but its illegal export brings in far more money than that traditional Dutch export, tulips. Meanwhile, drug addiction has tripled. There are no easy answers to drugs, but naive Dutch legislators have made a hash of drug policy.