Decriminalise cocaine to beat crime, says Amsterdam mayor

Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema has told the Financieele Dagblad in an interview that the sale of cocaine and other drugs should be decriminalized and regulated, to squeeze out organised crime. The international struggle to defeat the drugs trade – the so-called war on drugs – is both “perverse and counterproductive”, Halsema told the paper ahead of a one-day conference on drug-related crime in the capital. The time has come, she said, to “regulate and manage” rather than try to end the...