The Hague, The Netherlands: Last week, in the major Dutch newspaper NRC-Handelsbad, the Attorney General for The Netherlands severely criticized his country’s cannabis policy as “an ineffective form of law enforcement” and the efforts to enforce cannabis prohibition as “extremely thankless” and that “law enforcement struggles with an unworkable mandate.”
In an as yet unpublished ‘conclusion’ prepared for The Netherland’s Supreme Court of Justice, J. Wortel, Director of Public Prosecutions and a career-long prosecutor, laments that even The Netherlands’ official policy of tolerating small-scale sales and personal possession of cannabis is an “unworkable” policy that undermines other law enforcement activities and public health priorities. Quoting religious leader Tertullianus, Wortel writes, “‘Credo quia absurdum’ (I believe because it is absurd). For a long time I have kept this to myself, as … a respectable law enforcement official. But now I give in to the temptation to [acknowledge] that this [Latin] saying comes to my mind every time I have to do my duty in a law case regarding hashish or weed.”
While not overtly advocating for legalizing cannabis products outright, Wortel chooses to place blame on the Dutch government for creating a prohibition that can not be readily justified to the public and therefore should not be left to law enforcement institutions, such as the police and judiciary, to implement. Wortel points to the subjective nature of cannabis law enforcement by commenting on “a remarkable government anomaly in government attitudes: the human craving for nicotine proven harmfulness levying of excise-duties, while cannabis products continue to be forbidden.”
Wortel further muses, “I am convinced that a future historian describing our period, with regard to our official relationship with cannabis sativa will express astonishment about the money-squandering obstinacy with which we, the law enforcement community, keep struggling with our unworkable mandate.”
“Wortel’s conclusions about the unworkable nature of cannabis prohibition in The Netherlands (and in North America), as the country’s attorney general is notable for it’s basic common-sense approach. Marrying the social acceptance of cannabis to a pragmatic tax-and-control scheme makes perfect sense (similar to both countries’ well-established controls for alcohol and tobacco-related products),” said NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre. “NORML would hope to begin to hear similar public remarks questioning the wisdom of current cannabis policies from elected officials in the United States.”