With cannabis use on the rise in Belgium, a trio of academics argue that a regulated legalisation of marijuana is more beneficial than criminalising its use

An economist, a toxicologist and a criminologist put their heads together to come up with a plan. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but that unlikely get-together was the first in a series of steps that led to the development of a comprehensive blueprint to legalise marijuana in Belgium.

The trio, employed at the London School of Economics, the University of Leuven and Ghent University, respectively, make a coolly rational plea for the regulated legalisation of marijuana in their new book Cannabis onder controle, hoe? (Cannabis Under Control, How?).

The simple realisation that federal drug policies are failing is what motivated the three academics – Paul De Grauwe, Jan Tytgat and Tom Decorte, each of whom have studied drug use in their respective disciplines – to get together. “It wasn’t a particular incident or occasion, but we happened to find each other at a particular moment in time,” explains Decorte.

Their book is the latest in a growing, but still timid movement that has argued for legalisation of marijuana, the most popular drug in Flanders. Its proponents include the youth wings of parties of SP.A and Open VLD, as well as aid workers and NGOs working around substance abuse.