And I don’t care much about cannibis but I would recommend everybody to try some mushrooms, at least once in their lives. I had an amazing experience with psilocybe mexicanas (philosopher’s stones) while in Netherlands and I wish everybody could taste that awesomeness. It’ll probably turn out to be much more awesome than you think it could be.

Also check out some of the studies here: http://www.maps.org/

I’m confident that psychedelics will be an integral part of the culture in the future. They have so much potential and it’s just extremely tragic we’re not making use of them. Imagine our cavemen ancestors finding a forest full of car trees (high-tech fruits) but either they don’t know how to use the cars or they’re too hysteric and afraid about the whole thing and they burn the trees. Thus they can’t take advantage of the transportation power offered by the technology. Similar with psychedelics today. Seriously. But things will change if the awareness can be raised.

I am a Dutch guy and I belong to the 22.6% who has done “grass” and a lot worse.
However! Smoking weed and doing drugs are not socially accepted in The Netherlands –you become a social outcast if you publicly smoke weed.

Now the thing is why do kids (because that is the biggest market of drugs, ages 12-24) result into using drugs?
In my opinion is the social pressure put on kids! Pressure that comes from the corner of the conservative folks.

I was recently in Holland (not Amsterdam, Eindhoven if I remember) and it was very nice over-all, except for nearly being run over every 5 minutes as they could use small motor-bikes on the foot path between my hotel and the venue where I was performing. Of course I wasn’t in the city centre so was unlikely to witness any bank robberies but still….

The point on cannabis might be misleading in two ways:

First of all cannibis is not legal in the Netherlands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlands). Possession and production for personal use is a misdemeanor, but prosecution is not brought for possession of 5 grams or under or growth of 5 plants or under (confiscation on discovery). Coffee shops where cannibis is smoked are popular and are not prosecuted. While I was there I was told that its frowned on to smoke it in public (im not sure what would happen if you did).

Second of all, this policy may well draw criminals in, but a full legalisation of soft drugs (which the majority of the Dutch population supports) would put them out of business. As I have said for a long time, legalisation would empty prisons, improve quality as drug companies produce it, reduce price for the same reason and reduce crime. Not to mention draw in large amounts of tax.