According to an evangelical foundation for drugs care called "The Hope," children in Dutch schools have increased their use of alcohol and drugs. The headline mentions "blowen," which is the Dutchified version of the English verb, and which refers to (unless I am terribly mistaken) to the use of marijuana. They base this on a survey of 14,000 kids in the ages of 13-18 or so (it says "voortgezet onderwijs," which encompasses roughly that age group). 6 out of 10 drink alcohol, while 13% did drugs. This is up from 50% and 6% respectively in 1998. About 26% smoke cigarettes and 11% gamble.

What puzzles me is the additional statistic that 28% claims to have learned about the consequences and dangers of drug use, but a full 40% says that they decided never to use drugs as a consequence. How is that supposed to work? Assuming all those who decided never to use drugs as a result of a visit by The Hope to their schools, that still leaves 12% who did not learn anything and still decided not to use drugs anymore. Weird.

On a related note, there's a discussion in the comments at England's Sword in the comment section about the negative effects of drug use on one's health. Those in favor of drug legalization are trying to undermine the validity or credibility of the research cited. This smacks of protesting too much, without passing judgment on the research that the blog referred to. It's the wrong argument they're trying to win. Trying to establish that drugs have no ill effects is futile. The real question is whether the negative effects of trying to interdict drug use and trafficking are outweighed by the positive effects of saving users from themselves. I don't think they are.