Going Dutch

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12226
• Author: Craig Reinarman
• Date: 01 August 2016
• Published date: 01 August 2016

POLICY ESSAY

DRUG MARKET CONFLICTS IN

AMSTERDAM

Going Dutch

Drug Policy at the Crossroads

Craig Reinarman

University of California—Santa Cruz

Since the 1970s, Dutch drug law and policy have moved away from punitive prohi-

bition toward a harm reduction model, with the objective of minimizing the harms

associated with both drug abuse and drug policy. Scott Jacques, Richard Rosenfeld,

Richard Wright, and Frank van Gemert (2016: 843–875) investigate whether the de facto

decriminalization of cannabis in the Netherlands, with its semi-licit system of licensed retail

sales in “coffeeshops,”reduces the crime and violence often found in illicit drug markets. I say

“de facto decriminalization”and “semi-licit system” because, as the authors note, the Dutch

have made it effectively legal for anyone older than 18 years of age to walk in the front door of

coffeeshops and buy small amounts of cannabis, but it remains illegal to bring supplies of that

cannabis in the back door of coffeeshops. This “back door problem,” as the Dutch call it, has

caused trouble for coffeeshop owners and growers and no shortage of debate in Parliament.

But for decades, coffeeshops have functioned reasonably well within this legally ambiguous

space, with cannabis finding its way to consumers with few problems and little policing.

To contextualize Jacques et al.’s (2016) contribution, it may be useful to recall how

cannabis was criminalized and why the Dutch departure from criminalization is historically

significant. Until the Netherlands shifted its drug policy toward harm reduction (avant

la lettre) in 1976, cannabis was prohibited around the world on pain of criminal punish-

ment (Levine, 2003). Cannabis criminalization began with “the malevolence assumption”

(Gusfield, 1996: 38–43), which still serves as its logical fundament. In national legislative

histories, deliberations over the United Nations’ (UN’s) drug control treaties that global-

ized cannabis criminalization, or current claims by those who still defend it, one finds the

same premise: Cannabis is so dangerous it cannot be allowed to be legally available. Dutch

cannabis policy is interesting largely because it challenges this premise.

Direct correspondence to Craig Reinarman, Department of Sociology, University of California—Santa Cruz,

College Eight 303, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (e-mail: craigr@ucsc.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12226 C2016 American Society of Criminology 885

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 15 rIssue 3