Freedom works in the Netherlands! Lately that has become something of a mantra at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORMAL). The Dutch government recently announced that it's forging ahead with its succesful separation of cannabis from "hard" drugs by regulating the sale of cannabis-products.

Since the mid-1970s, the Dutch have "tolerated" the sale of small amounts of cannabis-products in "coffee house" settings. But recent changes in the Dutch government now pave the way for an end to legitimizing sales "at the front door," while prohibiting production "at the back door." This is very important for Americans to know about and to understand, for there are many valuable lessons to be learned from the Dutch policy on cannabis.

Back home in America, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) recently announced a massive and expensive public advertisement campaign aimed at reducing teenage consumption of cannabis. If the past can serve as prologue, the PDFA's cannabis prohibition campaign will likely fail. Why? Because it's nothing more than a prohibitionist propaganda dressed up as "public education." The PDFA's anti-pot theme is predicted on a U.S. government-sponsored survey of American schoolchildren that ask them to fill out long questionnaires, in their parents' homes, about their own drug use. The U.S. government's own General Accounting Office recently noted that these drug use surveys, which are based on self-reporting, are notorious for under-reporting teen drug use.

Even with questionable data, a comparison in the rate of admitted cannabis use between Dutch and American teens is a startling revelation. Teens in the Netherlands, who have much greater access to cannabis, report a much lower rate of cannabis use than teens in the United States.

In the last statistical year, 1993, the government estimates that 30.7 percent of American high school seniors used cannabis in the last year. A recent survey conducted for The Netherlands Institute on Alcohol and Drugs (NIAD) reports that under 12 percent of Dutch high school seniors have ever used cannabis. That's a huge difference -- statistically, it appears American teens use cannabis at rates many times that of Dutch teens. It appears to me that the Dutch are on to something.

If our society really cares about teenage use of cannabis, then it should consider a policy similar to that of the Dutch. At least their policy appears to be working, as compared to this country's 57-year debacle known as marijuana prohibition. If you don't believe me, travel to Holland, you will soon discover -- freedom works!