No pity for drug smugglers

The Netherlands is the country with the greatest number of citizens in prison in other countries in the world. According to a study, most of them were caught smuggling drugs to pay off debts. The political weekly Elsevier writes that they deserve no pity: "Yet people insist on making martyrs of these people, who should be allowed to serve their sentences in the Netherlands if at all possible. Needless to say the sentences would be shorter and served under more comfortable conditions. You would think people would realise that there can be no more effective campaign against smuggling drugs than letting Dutch smugglers ... live out the rest of their miserable lives among rats and without even a mattress. But the opposite is the case. As soon as they are released from foreign prisons they are given a hero's welcome. The government should change its policy of tolerance. It has caused the Netherlands ... to be dubbed Europe's 'narco-state': the leading producer of cannabis and the top trading centre for cocaine and heroine."

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