New effort to iron out drugs conflict

Date: 16/05/1996

By Thomas Klau

FRANCE and the Netherlands are trying to step up cooperation in the fight against illegal drugs in a bid to defuse the dispute over liberal Dutch legislation which has soured bilateral relations at the top political level.

While the Mayor of Amsterdam has announced a new initiative to enforce a strict ban on the sale of alcohol in coffee shops (where cannabis may be legally sold in limited quantities), French police officers have been cooperating with their Dutch counterparts to improve the detection of hard drugs, such as heroin or cocaine, being smuggled to the continent via Rotterdam.

The French authorities are unhappy about what they say are insufficient searches at Europe's biggest port, which experts now identify as the largest point of entry for illegal substances to Europe.

The Franco-Dutch tussle led to the cancellation of a drugs summit in March, with French and Dutch leaders describing each other's stance as unacceptable. Attempts to reschedule the summit have been put on hold until some common ground emerges, but experts have been meeting in Paris and The Hague in an attempt to smooth out differences.

The dispute has also held up progress in getting the Schengen Agreement abolishing passport controls between member countries implemented in full, more than a year after it came into force.

France still insists that it will not dismantle its border controls until the Dutch agree to modify some of their existing policies. Paris contends that Dutch acceptance of cannabis consumption undermines the French prohibition policy, as thousands of young French cross the border to shop for the soft drug.

French politicians also maintain that the Dutch policy has facilitated the emergence of organised criminal networks dealing in hard drugs.

While accepting French calls for closer cooperation, the Dutch have so far refused to modify their drugs policy, which they claim is the best in Europe. “With our policy, we openly acknowledge what we are doing,” say Dutch sources in Brussels.

As a Commission-requested report prepared for the Union's drugs conference in December underlined, most member states effectively tolerate the private consumption of cannabis to the extent that a ban on the drug is no longer enforced through the courts, as long as offenders do not engage in large-scale dealing.

According to a recent study - the results of which the Dutch are planning to use as a negotiating tool in their talks with the French - one million French citizens consume cannabis every weekend, with a further 900,000 smoking it every day.

“You cannot lock up all these people, and forbidding the stuff has not deterred them either,” a Dutch expert points out.

The Dutch authorities further defend their policy by pointing out that death and HIV-infection rates amongst heroin users are lower in the Netherlands than in many other European countries. Their tolerance of cannabis, they say, is bolstered by medical evidence that even regular consumption of this substance is far less harmful than the abuse of the legal drugs, nicotine and alcohol.

With Paris insisting on a stricter prohibition policy, the Franco-Dutch dispute is, however, unlikely to be solved in the foreseeable future. The Hague is pinning its hopes on the first report on drug consumption in Europe, which the European Drugs Observatory in Lisbon is to release late this summer.