Pubdate: Mon, 15 Jul 2002
Source: USA Today (US)
Copyright: 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc
Contact:  http://www.usatoday.com/news/nfront.htm
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/466
Author: Donna Leinwand, USA Today

U.S. URGES DUTCH TO TOUGHEN DRUG POLICY

AMSTERDAM - The United States' anti-drug chief and a Dutch police commander 
were touring Amsterdam's red-light district recently when a man approached 
the U.S. law enforcement delegation. "Ecstasy? Viagra? Cocaina?" he 
whispered to a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman. The Dutch cop 
shrugged. DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson grimaced. Drug dealers are bold 
here. Drugs, especially the club drug Ecstasy, are cheap and plentiful. 
Dutch police mostly look the other way, preferring to focus on property 
crimes and public nuisances.

It's added up to a 100 million-pill-a-year problem for the USA, where 
authorities have become increasingly frustrated at how the Netherlands' 
laissez faire approach to drug enforcement has allowed Ecstasy labs to 
flourish here.

The Netherlands has become the dominant supplier of the synthetic 
hallucinogenic drug that has exploded in popularity among U.S. teens and 
young adults. U.S. officials say about 80% of the 2 million Ecstasy pills 
flowing into the USA each week are manufactured on Dutch soil. U.S. Customs 
officers stationed in New York City-area airports, the most popular Ecstasy 
smuggling hubs, say they can make a bust every other day just by targeting 
passengers from flights that have passed through the Netherlands.

The percentage of teens in the USA who use Ecstasy has more than doubled 
since 1995, a survey last year by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America 
showed. In a nationwide survey of 6,937 youths ages 12-18, 12% said they 
had used Ecstasy, up from 5% in 1995. It ranks behind only alcohol and 
marijuana in teen popularity.

U.S. law enforcement officials want the Dutch to become less hospitable to 
Ecstasy's manufacturers and smugglers, but they have little power to make 
that happen. The Netherlands is a wealthy ally that cannot be pushed into 
tougher drug enforcement with the promise of U.S. aid or the threat of 
sanctions. Instead, U.S. officials are trying to politely persuade the 
Dutch to see it their way.

Hutchinson, who visited the Netherlands for two days in June, hopes a more 
conservative Dutch parliament elected May 15 and increasing pressure from 
less permissive members of the European Union will prompt the Dutch to 
pursue dealers and manufacturers more aggressively.

The Dutch have made significant busts since creating a synthetic-drug law 
enforcement division in 1997. In 2000, Dutch authorities dismantled 23 
Ecstasy labs, the U.S. State Department says. Dutch officials say they 
intend to close more Ecstasy labs with five new anti-drug squads. The Dutch 
parliament recently approved a five-year, $35 million program aimed at 
reducing the Ecstasy supply, and the Dutch justice minister has suggested a 
registration system for pillmaking machines.

U.S. officials appreciate the moves. But they say the Netherlands' 
underlying tolerance of drugs undermines the crackdowns. Penalties for 
dealing and manufacturing drugs are not stiff enough to discourage it, they 
say.

"They have a permissive drug policy that has a natural way of attracting 
those who want to engage in illegal behavior, and they have a weak law 
enforcement structure," Hutchinson says.

Ecstasy is illegal in the Netherlands. The Dutch, however, regard drug use 
primarily as a health issue rather than as a crime problem, so they focus 
their efforts on preventing drug use rather than law enforcement. Licensed 
shops in the Netherlands sell marijuana for individual use, and the 
government provides free needles and clean rooms where heroin addicts can 
shoot up. Addicts who become a nuisance are steered toward treatment. The 
large-scale dealers and manufacturers who are prosecuted rarely spend more 
than a year or two in prison.

Dutch officials, when challenged on their priorities, refer to an 
insatiable U.S. demand for drugs. "What we are doing is fighting some basic 
rules of an economic market," says Steven van Hoogstraten, former director 
of drugs policy at the Dutch Justice Ministry. Manufacturers want to 
smuggle drugs to the market willing to pay the highest price, he says, 
alluding to the USA's black market.

An Ecstasy pill typically sells for about 50 cents wholesale and $7 retail 
in the Netherlands; it brings about $15 in the typical U.S. nightclub. Drug 
prices in the Netherlands are the lowest in Western Europe, the United 
Nations Office for Drug Control Policy says.

The Dutch police report that 40% of the Ecstasy they seized in 1999, about 
1.5 million of 3.7 million tablets, was destined for the USA. Police data 
indicate that 8.1 million Ecstasy tablets seized worldwide in 2000 could be 
traced to the Netherlands, a State Department report says.

Manufacturers in the Netherlands usually buy used pill presses from Asia, 
particularly India and Thailand. They import the chemicals from China, the 
largest producer of chemicals used to make Ecstasy. The Chinese say they 
produce the chemicals for making perfume, Dutch officials say.

"There is no legitimate use for the chemical" in the Netherlands, says 
David Borah, the DEA attache based in The Hague. "So we know it's being 
used to make Ecstasy."

Many smugglers who bring chemicals into the Netherlands find cover at 
Rotterdam's port, the world's busiest. About 40% of the 6.5 million 
containers that pass through the port each year contain chemicals. Loose 
European borders mean that smugglers can bring the chemicals and pill 
presses from Eastern Europe in tractor-trailers with little risk of inspection.

Dutch customs officials X-ray 25,000 to 30,000 containers a year, less than 
1% of the 6.5 million containers that pass through Rotterdam each year. 
They say they usually need advance intelligence and luck to find Ecstasy 
pills in containers the size of railroad cars.

"Try to find a bag of 10,000 pills in a 40-foot container of tomatoes," 
says Kees Visscher of Dutch customs.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart