As of Tuesday, the Netherlands will have its own branch of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (Leap), an international organization of police and judicial staff that advocates a radically different drug policy, because they believe that the war on drugs fails.
Billions of dollars have been spent worldwide to combat drugs for decades. Despite this, drugs are readily available and drug crime is rampant. Take the Netherlands: in five years, cocaine seizures in the port of Rotterdam increased fourteenfold – to more than 70,000 kilos. During that period, street prices remained stable, quality increased, the number of users did not fall and cocaine-related crime escalated.
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Leap promotes a evidence based drug policy that does not aim at harsh repression, but approaches drugs as a public health issue. “You cannot win the war on drugs,” says Alex van der Plas (53), who co-founded Leap Nederland and worked for the National Police until six months ago. “Even in prisons, the country’s most secure places, it is not possible to keep drugs out. What do we think then? That it will work in the port of Rotterdam?”
Van der Plas, currently a safety adviser in public transport, was involved in the fight against drug crime and subversion at a high level at the police. After he came into contact with the Psychotropica Institute, which researches the drug problem, “a turning point followed.”
Did you suddenly see the light?
“It was a dormant process. I have worked in the police force for 32 years – at a strategic, tactical and operational level – and have always felt completely fine fighting drugs and drug crime. But as commander of the approach to undermining in Rotterdam I started to wonder a few years ago: ‘when are we going to tell the real story?’ We bring out big drug busts and say we’re going to pack a punch, but is that true? What is the impact of our work?”
How do you look at it now?
“The main purpose of the police is to protect people from what others do to them, while drugs are something you do to yourself. I think society took a wrong turn a hundred years ago. It was then decided that drugs are the worst thing that can happen to society. But if you compare it to the health damage of alcohol and tobacco, the question is whether we made the right choice.”
Why do active police officers never publicly advocate a different drug policy?
“It’s so deep. I was raised that drinking is not good, smoking is bad and drugs are real evil to be. That image is reinforced by the police, because you are involved with it every day and it improves your status if you catch many drug criminals. Countering drugs is at the core of the police identity, so you have to dare to question your own identity as a police officer. It took me years for that. With Leap, we hope that thinking about a different drug policy will become a topic of discussion with the police.”
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Should drug criminals be left alone?
“Of course not, because they undermine society. Leap is not a party that turns away from fighting criminals, but calls for a different way of looking. That cannot be arranged in five years, it takes decades.”
Do you advocate legalization of all drugs?
Pretending that people won’t use drugs is crazy, it’s part of society. I’m not saying ‘go ahead’, but I think that a model should be considered in which the government controls or regulates the market, just like with alcohol and tobacco. That really takes a mind shift. Dare to think about scenarios to take control of the production and distribution of cannabis and ecstasy. Experiment to see which mechanisms are triggered and how criminals behave when the government takes over the ecstasy market.”
You mention cannabis and ecstasy, but the biggest problem is cocaine, isn’t it?
“That’s right, but regulating cocaine is an even bigger step, partly because it comes from abroad. You simply have the means of production for cannabis and ecstasy in the Netherlands.”
Proponents of legalization argue that the police will then have more time, for example to solve rapes. Do you expect that too?
“The wish is that the police then have more time for other matters. But criminals will always look for new ways to make money, perhaps through different or cheaper drugs. I do not expect that effect in the short term. I’m not into fairy tales.”
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of June 21, 2022
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