Changing Drug Treatment Policies and Practices Netherlands - Research Paper Example

The table above is taken from the article by Abraham (1999) and provides a general picture of hard drug use in the Netherlands. The figures support other findings and ideas provided by Abraham, Kaal & Cohen (2002) and Hartgers et al. (1991) and suggest that cannabis is still the most frequently used drug in the country. In 1997 alone, almost 16 percent of the Dutch 12 years of age and older tried cannabis at least once during their lifetimes, and almost 3 percent had done so just one month prior to the interview (Abraham 1999). 2.1 percent of the Dutch confessed that they used cocaine at least once during their lifetimes, while ecstasy was used by 1.

9 percent of the respondents (Abraham 1999). It should be noted, that while lifetime prevalence for ecstasy and cocaine are much lower compared to those for cannabis, these hard drugs reveal other similar patterns of use. For example, ecstasy and cannabis display similar levels of continuing use (14.0 and 15.8 percent accordingly) and are much higher than the continuing use of cocaine (only 10.0 percent) (Abraham 1999). Among cannabis users, more than 30 percent recognize that they tried it more than 25 times during their lifetime, with 25 percent for ecstasy and 22 percent for cocaine (Abraham 1999).

More often than not, users try cannabis at age of 19, while ecstasy and cocaine are usually tried later, by the age of 23 (Abraham 1999). When it comes to the hard drug use picture of Holland in the international context, it is clear that, contrary to public beliefs, the situation with drugs in the Netherlands is not the worst in the world. The lifetime use of cannabis is the lowest for Sweden (only 9 percent) and is the highest for the United States – 33 percent (Lemmens & Garretsen 1998).

In the Netherlands, the rates of lifetime cannabis use are similar to those in Germany, the United Kingdom, and is higher than that in Sweden (Lemmens & Garretsen 1998). Unfortunately, it is not always possible to compare the rates of hard drug use in the Netherlands to those in other countries, due to the differences in research and survey designs.