by Don Laigle
Ever hear a liberal or libertarian say that we need to legalize “soft” drugs like cocaine and marijuana because they did this in Holland and it was wildly successful? You know: kids immediately lost interest in these drugs and stopped taking them?
Here’s what Republican Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico said on CNN on Feb 22, 2001:
“Holland has 60 percent the drug use as that of the United States by kids and adults and that’s for hard drugs and marijuana both. So if you want to look at a country that really has rational drug policy, Holland would not suggest that it would be a worse alternative than what we’ve currently got.”
Gary was referring to the fact that Holland had legalized soft drugs and was implying that it wouldn’t hurt American kids a bit to have these drugs available. He was apparently trying to appear “progressive.”
He was not the only one.
The web is awash with the same kind of conclusions, drawn by liberals, that drug use must be legalized because drug laws are antiquated and the more we enforce them, the more drugs kids will use. In fact, a quick search shows that the number of sites that agree with this hypothesis far outweighs the number that don’t [1], [2], [3]. Guess we old fogies need to stop holding up progress, then, right?
I love it when objective information proves what people with common sense knew in the first place. On May 6, the web site for the Dutch paper Volkskrant ran an article on a group of mothers in Holland who are concerned about their kids’ drug habits. Seems drugs are out of control there. Surprise surprise!
The writer says (my translation):
“One out of every 20 kids has at least experimented with hard drugs such as cocaine [note that they admit this drug is not soft!] or xtc. Coke is becoming more and more popular as a starting drug. The mothers have nothing good to say about regular social services, which are usually located too far away.”
The article ends with:
“ ‘The problem is a major one and is prevalent everywhere’ says Bak [one of the moms interviewed]. She gets calls from mothers from all over the region with the same stories. Kids of 12 or 13 who deceive their own parents. School kids tell her that the lockers at the high schools are sold to dealers so that they can deal from them.”
Notice that it seems not to have occurred to any of the mothers to call for making these drugs illegal. They only call for help from mothers themselves tackling the problem. You see: banning drugs is now a dead issue in that part of Europe (and may soon be in other parts as well). There can be no reasonable discussion of legalization of soft drugs. That is “settled law.”
Does this sound like the “enlightened” Europeans are years ahead of us? More progressive? Just remove the barriers and kids will follow their good instincts? Kids only do things that are forbidden, and since cocaine isn’t forbidden in Holland any more, kids will stop taking it, right?
Christians know that man is born in sin. He does not have the sweet nature that European philosophers believe he does. In “L’éducation d’Emile,” Jean Jacques Rousseau recommends letting kids do whatever they want to when they are very young. For example, he says that it is foolish to tell a child not to break a window. The child should be allowed to break one so that he can see that breaking windows is not a good thing.
Today’s Europe is proof enough that trusting in human nature simply doesn’t work. And that whenever people try social experiments, it is the young who pay the heaviest price.
Let’s pray that Europe starts to see how much they need God before it is too late.
Truly it can be said of Europe: eyes they have but they do not see (Psalms 115: 5).
Don Laigle
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