I have grown accustomed to the fact that many prohibitionists cannot seem to understand what anti-prohibitionists are saying, but they also seem to be unable to understand their own statements. This is an excellent example of this.

First, a little background. The Dutch public health service provides free outpatient treatment for people who have problems with "addiction" (their term) to various substances and to gambling, which is also legal in Holland.

Many or most Americans who seek treatment for cannabis addiction in DEAland, do so as the result of a court order or as the result of failing an employer mandated "drug" test. Consequently, it is impossible to know how many of these people really do have a problem with their cannabis use.

Also, it is likely that there are people here who might need help, but are kept from getting it out of fear of the law or loss of a job. Ironically, they might also find that much of the limited resources available are being wasted on those who do not really need it.

On the other hand, people in Holland who seek help generally do so voluntarily. There is very little employee "drug" testing and no prosecution of cannabis possession. Consequently, those who seek help probably really do need it and can get it without cost or stigma.

Or if Hassela insists on the old numbers, this would be about one half of one percent. They are in a bit of a bind here, because if they argue that Dutch policies result in a higher level of cannabis use, the less significant these numbers become.

Let us now compare this with DEAland. According to Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, there are approximately "100,000 people being treated for marijuana addiction" in the US.

These numbers are utter nonsense, -- in part for the reasons discussed above -- but in this context, that is his problem.

The population of the Netherlands is around 15,000,000. The population of the DEAlands is around 275,000,000.
There is simply no way of knowing how many "regular" marijuana users there are in America. Prohibition prohibits most people from giving an honest answer to this. There is not even a good way to randomize the sample. Even narks and convicts fail "drug" tests. However, the government claims that there are around 10,000,000. If there are 100,000 in treatment here, that is one percent of total users. This is about the same as in Holland, if the new lower estimates on Dutch use are correct.

Thus marijuana prohibition not only does not prevent marijuana use, it also does not reduce the risk of "addiction" for those who do use it.

And then there is the problem of the other costs of marijuana prohibition. In DEAland there are now over 600,000 arrests per year for marijuana, roughly 85% for simple possession. If the Dutch adopted marijuana prohibition, they could thus arrest approximately 35,000 people every year on marijuana charges. This is ten times the number of people being treated for "marijuana addiction."

Now, it is certain that not everyone who has a problem seeks help so, let’s assume that the problematic use rate is actually up near the alcohol level. The consequences of cannabis dependence or misuse are much less severe than alcohol misuse, and this makes it harder to measure. But never mind.

Using the alcohol model, this would mean that only ten percent of the Dutch people who really are having problems with cannabis are currently seeking help. This would take the number up to approximately 35,000 people, which by an interesting coincidence would be the equivalent to their percentage of population that the US arrests. Thus if the Dutch arrested  the same percentage of their population that the US arrests, 35,000, most of whom did not have a problem, they would – based on the prohibitionist model – increase the number of people who really did have problems, but lower the treatment level for them.