The Netherlands is “hopelessly behind” on neighboring countries when it comes to tackling designer drugs, new drug variants that fall outside the opium law. The police and the Public Prosecution Service stated this in an appeal to politicians on Friday. “We are a kind of free state, where the law allows producers and traders to do their thing,” says Willem Woelders, who is responsible for combating drugs at the police. The House of Representatives should therefore hasten new legislation that makes it possible to combat new drug variants.
Designer drugs are often legally available because manufacturers regularly adjust the chemical composition and therefore avoid applicable legislation. A bill that should ban three different groups of active substances instead of individual substances has been before the House of Representatives since March 2020. The consideration of that proposal has already been postponed three times.
This law is necessary to effectively cooperate with other countries in the fight against drug trafficking, Woelders says. “We cannot always help with requests for legal assistance in international drug investigations, because the stuff is not prohibited here. That does something to the reputation of the Netherlands in the field of drug control.” Other countries are said to view the Dutch situation “with amazement and sometimes even great frustration.”