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Article: Assessing the relationship between marijuana availability and marijuana use: a legal and sociological comparison between the United States and the Netherlands.
- Article from:
- Journal of Alcohol & Drug Education
- Article date:
- December 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 American Alcohol & Drug Information Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Abstract
The United States and the Netherlands have antithetical marijuana control policies. The United States' laws criminalize the possession of even small amounts of marijuana, while the Netherlands have maintained, over the past several decades, two relatively liberal marijuana policies implemented during the 1970s and 1980s. According to the literature on environmental drug prevention strategies, the Dutch policy should result in increased marijuana use because of the drug's amplified availability, while the United States 'policy should result in reduced marijuana use. The empirical evidence addressing these hypotheses, however, is sparse.
The ...