The amount of political time and press coverage being devoted to the Netherlands’ 700 cannabis-selling coffee shops could lead the observer to believe that the entire population spends its time puffing away on marijuana cigarettes.

This is very far from the truth. Surveys show that about 5% of the Dutch as a whole smoke weed – half the percentage which indulge in this drug in the US, Britain, Italy, Spain and France.
Families who are posted to work in the Netherlands are often paranoid that their teenage children will be lured into drug-taking. But they need not fear.
Dutch teenagers might drink quite a lot, but they are less likely to smoke marijuana than many of their European peers. Yet at the same time, marijuana is one of the country’s biggest cash crops and attracts an awful lot of tourists.
And yes, coffee shops in border areas are a big draw for very short-stay visitors. But then, one in four holiday-makers in Amsterdam will find their way to a coffee shop as well – though some doubtless have stumbled in looking for a cappuchino.
The Dutch policy of turning a blind eye to soft drugs might be hard to explain – how do you get the marijuana into the coffee shop if it is illegal to grow it? But it works. There are plenty of more serious problems the government could be tackling.