CommanderSock CommanderSock:
The USA <b>is</B> too harsh. Legalize marijuana, concentrate on fighting addictive drugs only.
Has the persistence of locking so many people up for minor offenses made the USA....ah fuck it......I'd rather have our drugs and prostitution laws in line with those of Germany/Holland than the USA.
Not sure about Germany, but in Holland, a countrywide smoking ban (covering marijuana, too) will take effect in July 2008, likely degrading the coffee shops to mere selling counters. Last year Holland's health secretary even predicted the end of the Dutch exception. "The image of Holland as extremely tolerant toward drugs is less and less in keeping with reality," Hans Hoogervorst, who stepped down in February, told an international audience of addiction experts. "People are weary of the happy-clappy liberalism of the 1970s." In fact, the conservative ChristenUnie party has proposed shutting down Amsterdam's famous red-light district and converting it into a "second Montmartre," with restaurants and art galleries.