According to some, the Netherlands, a country famous for four-AM food runs and the particular smell of its coffeehouses, should be running rampant with stoners. Those same "some" would probably be surprised to hear that, in fact, if they want to find a bunch of people who often giggle for no apparent reason, they'd be better off looking just about everywhere else in Europe:
The Dutch are among the lowest users of marijuana or cannabis in Europe despite the Netherlands' well-known tolerance of the drug, according to a regional study.
Among adults in the Netherlands, 5.4 per cent used cannabis, compared with the European average of 6.8 per cent, according to an annual report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, using latest available figures.
A higher percentage of adults in Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic and France took cannabis last year, the EU agency said, with the highest being Italy at 14.6 per cent. Usage in Italy used to be among the lowest at below 10 per cent a decade ago.
