Dutch await backing evidence for Outlandish claims made by UNODC executive
From a text, from Costa’s hand, that was posted on the UNODC’s website, but retracted a few days later, we learned that the Executive Director’s views on Cannabis were confirmed by his trip to Amsterdam. He now even claims to have found that addiction rates to Cannabis in Amsterdam are the highest in the world, three times higher than in other large cities.
“when I was a Berkley Flower kid”
Costa also stated on the UN website that with its (soft-) drug policies, the Netherlands is violating UN conventions according to the International Narcotics Control Board. He also stated that Amsterdam created a health problem caused by marijuana availability, and that this could get worse as cannabis becomes more potent.
Mr. Costa said: “The psycho-active component in cannabis, THC, is (now) more than 15% as against the 2-3 % when I was a Berkley Flower kid”.
The disappearance of this blog-entry, of which Cannabis City News still has a hard copy in its possession, may well be related to rumours that Costa presented a report on his Amsterdam visit to his host the Dutch Ministry of Health, but that this report was considered unacceptable.
Interestingly, not only may one conclude from these words, Costa used Cannabis at University, but scientists say there are no conclusive figures on THC levels over time, to base this conclusion on. The simple reason being that no comparable measurements were ever taken in earlier days when the ‘policy of condones’ (gedoogbeleid) first was introduced.
In contrast to Costa’s findings, studies of the Trimbos Institute, the Dutch Institute for research on recreational drug use, have been monitoring marijuana potency for nearly 10 years and recent studies show a decline of THC levels from 2004 till 2007.
Even though, as we can read in the post, Costa came to Amsterdam to “learn more about the facts- rather than the myths”, his conclusions about the Dutch drugs policies seem to be even more misinformed than before.
Judging from the quality of the questions the UN Under-Secretary had for the Coffeeshop owner he visited (Read article above on the left), FACC is not surprised.
fantasizing about Costa’s evidence selection
In a reaction Dr Polak says: “We wait in tense anticipation of, and fantasizing about Costa’s evidence selection and construction effort, to support this claim.
Polak says: “Based on what we hear now, I know quite a few colleagues, scientists in different fields, who would wipe the floor with these arguments.”of the police’s time and energy
