-Miller-McCune, September 16, 2011 by Emily Badger
http://www.miller-mccune.com/health/the-dutch-can-handle-their-pot-36153/
“But mostly I think we can’t afford to ignore lessons form abroad,” MacCoun said. “We can’t afford to be provincial about this because we’ll never learn anything about how to make better policy unless we actually study countries that are trying different things.”
-Reason, September 16, 2011 by Jacob Sullum
http://reason.com/blog/2011/09/16/did-cannabis-cafs-make-the-net
“Cannabis consumption in the Netherlands is lower than would be expected in an unrestricted market,” MacCoun says, “perhaps because cannabis prices have remained high due to production-level prohibitions.”
-The Huffington Post, September 21, 2011 by Carly Schwartz
http://huff.to/nxDkBJ
“For me, that was the most tantalizing result,” he said. “The Dutch have actually come up with a way to regulate cannabis use while minimizing its harms.”
-East Bay Express, September 22, 2011 by David Downs
http://bit.ly/os87pb
It’s a trade-off, but the Dutch were probably thinking it’s a fair trade-off, because they initially set out to reduce hard drug use by separating the soft drug market from the hard drug market, and the data in the paper suggests that seems to have worked.
-High Times, September 24, 2011 by Mark Miller
http://hightimes.com/news/mmiller/7311
In fact, Prof MacCoun found that cannabis consumption in the Netherlands is actually lower than would be expected for a nation with defacto legalization, which he attributes to the high pot prices created by the coffeeshop’s “cannabis monopoly” that exists on the retail level, as opposed to outright legalization, which would inevitably drive prices lower due to increased production and competition.
-The Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2011 by Christopher Shea
http://on.wsj.com/pQLqmv
The United States figures are higher still, but “roughly equivalent” statistically, MacCoun writes—the main difference between U.S. and European-style prohibition being the use of prison as a deterrent: We incarcerate many more drug users.