The Netherlands
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I lived in The Netherlands for 15 years. It is a nice, clean, well organized little country. It is a bit larger than some counties in West Texas. To Americans their policies seem a bit strange, but honestly it works.
Except for major high voltage cross country power lines, the entire electricity grid in the country is buried. This makes it substantially more reliable.
Drug abuse is much less of a problem than in America. Honest. This is counter intuitive because you can go down to your neighborhood coffee shop and the waiter will give you a menu of all the kinds of grass and hash that you can legally buy and smoke on the premises. And then when you are ready to leave it is like a Chinese take-out. You can buy some to take home too.
People who are addicted to hard drugs can get clean needles free from the government. The government even drives big vans like portable libraries around to the neighborhoods to make distribution of these needles easy for the drug addicts.
Prostitution is legal. In fact, the whores are unionized so that their employers (pimps) have to exercise fair workplace practices. The rate of AIDS and of teenage pregnancy is far lower in the Netherlands than in America.
For 25 years I was a top manager of companies producing foods for human consumption. Half was in America and ½ of the time was in the Netherlands. So I know the arrogant little Gestapo types who work for the FDA, IRS, and OSHA very well. In America their job advancement and promotions are actually based upon how many companies they bust!
In the Netherlands the Government regulatory officials know that for the country to prosper that people have to have good, stable jobs. This means that businesses have to do well. So the Dutch government regulators really work hard trying to get companies into compliance, rather than fining companies or punishing managers.
If you listen to Bush II and his fellow travellers the American government is pro-business. But this is just so much idle talk. The Dutch government really is pro-people at the same time that it is pro-business.
The Dutch government even recognizes that the tourists who come to the country to smoke marijuana bring in a lot of money. They think this is good for the country.
This article came out today from the Dutch Government sponsored news agency:
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* Dutch run booming soft drugs trade
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In an interview with Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, police commissioner Max Daniel has said that the export of soft drugs from the Netherlands generates two billion euros a year. According to Mr Daniel, 80 percent or some 500 tons of the drugs grown in the Netherlands, is destined for the export market, particularly England, Germany, France and the Scandinavian countries. The demand for home grown cannabis has also increased substantially in the Baltic States. In the Netherlands, some 400,000 people use soft drugs like hashish, marijuana or cannabis on a regular basis.
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