In the Netherlands, you can legally test your drugs at health institutes. They do this to monitor the illegal drug market, they only test for consumers and solely drugs bought the Netherlands. It shows the priority the Dutch government gives to health and addiction. Practically, you can take a maximum of 1 gram or 10 ml to be tested in a lab. The institute will notify you if the drugs are safe to use. There is no minimum age for testing drugs.

The test service is a symbol for the attitudes of drug use among authorities. Lewis* illustrates how for example the police can react. "I was home alone. The police came in through the back door. They'd already rung the doorbell a few times, but we didn't hear it. The music was too loud. We turned down the music, and exactly that moment someone came downstairs shouting 'we just did cocaine!'. We held our breath. The police? Didn't say anything, they glared over the table full of weed and only said: 'could you guys please smoke under the range hood? We could smell it across the street". "I like the attitudes of the police," Lewis explains, "apart from the neighbours, we're not bothering anyone. We don't break things, we aren't hurting people."

A profit of at least 18.9 billion euros. Last year, the Dutch organized drug production of synthetic drugs made a profit of at least worth NASA's annual budget. Accordingly, drug-related crimes and corruption are on the rise. Why does this happen in the Netherlands? Yes, there might be a tolerant attitude towards the use of drugs – especially MDMA, but this doesn't explain the disproportionally big production. To begin with, according to science journalist and America-expert Thijs Roes, this tolerance is a bit overestimated. "It's perfectly normal to talk about drugs with your friends from the city – but it's not normalized. It's not public, you don't want to be seen on television with while being high on MDMA." Something else than just the use must explain the disproportional production of MDMA in the Netherlands.

Paula and Lewis are not alone in having experience with illegal drugs. In 2017, 370.000 people in the Netherlands older than 18 used ecstasy – that's 2.7% of the whole population. This is according to the Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction. That's around 80.000 people taking a pill every month. The use of XTC in the Netherlands has been stable for a few years and higher than in other European countries.

But the use is not so much higher than in the rest of Europe. To illustrate, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) publishes in its report that drug use in Europe is quite equal. Take cannabis for example, possibly the country's number one touristic attraction. In 2016, the prevalence among young adults between 15-34 was just below 16%. France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Greece, the Czech Republic. The European average? 14.1%.

For cocaine and MDMA, the two other most used drugs besides alcohol in the Dutch night scene, it's a bit less evenly spread out. Only Denmark, Ireland, Spain, The United 85 Kingdom and the Netherlands, according to the EMCDD reported prevalence among young adults of 2.5% or more. For MDMA, European numbers swing between 0.2% in Portugal and Romania to 7.4% in the Netherlands. Here, the Netherlands is a 'leading' country. Ireland comes second with 4.4%, and third the Czech Republic with 4.1%.

"The thing is, we are not hurting anyone", Lewis pointed to the lenient attitudes of the police. "If we're not bothering anyone, they don't care". The general attitude among most of the users: if using it isn't harmful, then producing isn't either. This is one of the ways the drug debate is flawed. Users in the Netherlands don't seem to realize that behind their tolerant attitudes toward drugs, there's a whole other world of criminality and a huge parallel, illegal, economy. Politics also isn't reacting to the rights issue, according to Thijs Roes. "The debate is based on the wrong premises."

The debate is troubling. Drug users aren't causing or explaining entirely a big drug production. The illegal trade could develop partly because "criminals could piggyback on the legal economy", Luuk Olsthoorn from the Dutch Institute for Crime Prevention and Security explains. The Netherlands has an established legal economy, with big ports, a good infrastructure and a long history of trade. And where there is legal traffic, there is illegal traffic. We've seen this with cocaine.


Last month, for example, De Telegraaf reported that at least thirty suspected fruit sellers were excessively checked on cocaine trafficking. Not only the business climate is ideal for criminals; also the punishment is mild. And this attracts foreign demand. "Why would an Australian drug dealer produce his own MDMA if he can get it in the Netherlands; cheaper, better quality, and with lower risk?" asks police academy researcher Pieter Tops in a 2018 report. As a result, the Netherlands is the number one supplier of MDMA and amphetamine for the rest of Europe, according to his report.

A second big problem related to the illegal production of drugs is waste. According to the national police, in 2017 forces found drug times 292 times in nature, residential areas or on streets. In 2016 this was 207 times. The waste obviously is harmful to the environment. It's dumped along the road, in nature reserves, discharged into the water or the sewer, and sometimes even leaked out on the road from driving vans. Because the production is illegal, there is no legal place to dump the waste, which causes these problems.

Another factor that could qualify the Netherlands as a narco-state: corruption, criminals undermining decision-making in a democratic country. No less than one in five mayors reported that criminals were undermining their power. This appears from a 2015 report issued by the Ministry of Justice. Their measures include threats, bribery and infiltration – drug dealers going into politics to influences decision-making in their favour. In 2017, 24% of the questioned mayors said they had been threatened. Effective infiltration occurs in around 8% of all Dutch municipalities.

The heart of the production of MDMA and speed in the Netherlands is a province in the South, Brabant. This no coincidence. Not only is it close to the port of Rotterdam and the Belgian as well as German border, but it also has a lot to do with mentality.

"Fuck the elite, fuck the authority, fuck the big cities", Thijs Roes describes the attitude in the region. This mentality is also very much explained by history. When different Dutch provinces united in the late 16th century united, Brabant was excluded. They have always been the middle child; not fully belonging to the Netherlands, not fully belonging to Belgium. This causes an attitude that turns against the establishment a bit. The province also has a history of smuggling and illegal trade. Here, there really is a logic of supply and demand; whatever the people want, Brabant supplies. Whether it's butter, alcohol, 150 fireworks, or MDMA. In de last case, there is a close market, and together with the history of smuggling and close networks, Pieter Tops suggests that Brabant is the pivot in the Dutch production of synthetic drugs.

"At a political level, Roes mentions, there is only some noise of dissent. No one really wants to advocate in favour of drugs or of drug policy reform, but no one really wants to shout from the rooftop that they are against either." The government doesn't have very strong arguments either for or against drugs in this case. Therefore, they are stuck in 'non-intervention', which is not helped by a fragmented democratic parliamentary system based on an abundance of checks and balances. The government is fighting criminality by minimizing the supply of raw materials – but never wants to undercut the legal market.

But why does politics react the way it does? How come they are struggling with decision making? Are they keeping the production processes in place? Before answering that, let's go back in history a bit. Along the way, keep in mind the stereotype of tolerance, a real Dutch cultural element.

Illustrative to the Dutch attitude is the fact that the government time and again, only changed policy if there was a pressing demand from other countries. Amphetamine? Prohibited in the early '70s in most countries, only in 1976 in the Netherlands under Swedish pressure. Dutch exports were bothering Swedish politics. Mdma? The U.S. prohibited the substance in 1986, the Netherlands in 1988. The American pressure in the 90's – the country was dealing with a lot of exports from the Netherlands, led to stricter drug policies and more efforts from police and government authorities.

However, after one wave of a move towards zero-tolerance policy, the approach slackened. Each time, the few extra years gave Dutch criminals the time to set up networks and most importantly, discover how profitable the drug was. "It's that Dutch thing," Roes suggests, "you don't do anything about things that aren't your business. Politics don't do anything, they're scared to be publicly shamed". "It's that Dutch thing. You don't do anything about things that aren't your business.

"The political debate is based on fairy tales." Thijs Roes emphasizes that too often, debate and policies are focussed on fighting drug use instead of fighting the criminality behind it. "It's like prohibiting extreme sports", Roes argues, "the result would be that people would still do it, but that there were no rules. This is not necessary at all. They could easily be regulated, and you'd know exactly what is going wrong. With drugs, the point is that people, politicians, often assume that regulating is the same as promoting drugs. This shouldn't be the case".

The most famous example of a fight against drug use is the American war on drugs. The Dutch war is comparable, but in the U.S., they tackle the problem on a bigger level, more radical, thorough. The system is the same, but in the Netherlands, policies are more lenient. "We always have this grey area, the tolerance policy", Roes analyses. This is perfectly illustrated by Paula who could test her drugs, Lewis who got away with doing cocaine.

Tolerance, after pot the number one Dutch stereotype. They share some traits; being chill about everything, accepting everyone regardless of their views, everything regardless of their nature. As is always the case with stereotypes, this is based on something, yet not entirely true. "Tolerance should be understood as the acceptance of things you dislike rather than the approval of it", writes psychosociologist Marjoka van Doorn. As researchers from the University of Minneapolis suggest, cultural values can translate into politics through the logic of cultural politics, a theory clarifying the ways culture and politics are intertwined and come together into national policies.

Let's go back to the start. The users. Take Lewis, having fun with his friends. Take 210 Paula, not being aware of the maximum tolerated quantity of pills. The process starts with tolerance among users. And it's important to remember: people take drugs because they like it. "People that have used for example MDMA, have in most cases experienced such a peaceful and nice evening, that they don't understand why it's illegal in the first place", Roes touches upon societal embedded preferences. "Normalized drug number one, alcohol, cause much more trouble."

Arguably, fighting users doesn't help. Keep in mind this Dutch tolerance and how this is transferring to different parts of society. As the Minneapolis researchers suggest, politics is cultured, and policies only reflect the societal norms and values. – everyone 220 should decide for their own after all, that is the tolerance being one of the explaining factors in the drug production. And this drug production happens to be a very profitable business branch.

The most famous example of gedoogbeleid, best translated as tolerance policy, is the way the Dutch government has been handling cannabis since the '70s. In 1976, a law 225 was passed that very briefly, entailed that the buying and selling of cannabis are legal, but that the buying of large quantities is not. "This stimulates criminality", Olsthoorn says.

There are similarities between the formal tolerance policy towards cannabis and the informal lenient attitudes towards the production of synthetic drugs. There is a grey area; not what between what's allowed and what's not, but between what's checked upon and what's not checked upon.

This cultural process just adds to the other factors that have made the production of synthetic drugs in the Netherlands so big; a history of trade, the late prohibition of certain drugs, a low priority of fighting the use of MDMA, the establishment of criminal circuits because of this and the tolerance policy with cannabis. On top of that: low punishment and a struggling police force, the latter due to recent financial cuts.

"Prohibition is based on the assumption that drugs are dangerous. However, the most problems we have now are because of this prohibition", Roes concludes. A solution would be a regulated market for at least some drugs, let's start at cannabis. Criminality is then no longer tolerated but monitored. And the users? They would probably continue doing the same – without confusion about grey areas and more safety.