“I’m curious if anyone on this forum has had any experience with the situation in the Netherlands”
I don’t know about the Netherlands, but if you do a google search on Portugal you can see their experience with legalization. They offer non-mandatory counseling/rehab instead of jail sentences. I can’t remember the details but awhile back someone posted an article about Portugal and apparently the use of drugs has not significantly increased since the new policy.
I remember that post. It just so happens I lived in Spain during the early 1980s when that nation decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use.
The result was a crime wave.