Just over half the Dutch think the next government should put up taxes on cigarettes and tobacco products, according to research carried out for anti-cancer charity KWF Kankerbestrijding. And two in three think the next government should take further steps to stop children taking up the habit, the charity's research, which involved 1,000 people, said. Charity spokeswoman Marsja Meijer told news agency ANP: 'In practice, we know that an increase in taxes is the most effective way of discouraging the use of tobacco. When the price of a packet increases 10%, consumption falls 4%.'   More >

The image of ecstasy as an innocent party drug is wrong and although many people end up in hospital after taking a pill, few ever go public about their experiences, researchers from the Trimbos addiction institute said on Thursday. One in 250 users end up being treated by first-aiders, researcher Esther Croes told the NRC. But users tend to dismiss the issue, arguing that sensible use of the drug does not cause problems. The research was carried out on behalf of the health ministry after pills with extremely high doses of the active ingredient MDMA started turning up. The researchers looked at the period 2006 to 2015 and found that just 3% of the Dutch use ecstasy and there has been a drop off in minor incidents. However, the Dutch forensic institute has identified 21 deaths which can be directly attributed to the drug and 47 further deaths in which it played a role. Deaths That might not be many – 7.5 deaths a year – if you consider 380,000 Dutch people took a pill in 2015, but ‘these people did not have to die’, Croes said. ‘Ecstasy is not an innocent substance,’ she said. ‘The problem is under-estimated.’ However, the number of instances of poisoning have risen sharply, totaling almost 8,400 between 2009 and 2015 and now account for a third of all recorded drugs incidents. Most people who do get into trouble with ecstasy are reluctant to talk about it, because they are embarrassed, Croes said. Ecstasy has an innocent image so people don’t talk about the problems, such as extreme jaw clenching, she said. 'And that only shores up its reputation.'  More >

Despite government efforts to discourage smoking, the Netherlands still has a considerable tobacco-related industry and the number of producers and wholesalers has remain virtually unchanged over the past 10 years. According to figures from data company BoldData, the Netherlands currently has 80 tobacco wholesalers and 20 producers of tobacco products. While the number of producers had gone down by 2014, by 2017 the industry had recovered and is now at the same level as in 2007. The only real decline is in the number of tobacconists stores, now down at 1,205, compared with 1,310 in 2007. This too is a rise of 25 on 2014, BoldData said. The CBS published new figures on Wednesday which show that the government's efforts to discourage smoking have had more of an impact on people with university and college degrees than on the low-skilled. The number of graduates who smoke has gone down from 34% in 1989 to 18%, the CBS said. Among the low-skilled, the drop has been from 38% to 28%.  More >

The sperm bank run by Rijnstate hospital in Arnhem has broken the rules and allowed one donor to father 50 children, the Volkskrant said on Friday. The paper bases its claims on a confidential report drawn up by health inspectors  in 2014. Currently, sperm donors in the Netherlands are allowed to father no more than 25 children. However, 15 donors to the Arnhem centre had an average of 36 children each. In total, the 15 fathered 548 children to 369 mothers. The Volkskrant said the hospital broke the rules because many women wanted a second child by the same father, but that sloppy administration procedures were also to blame. Registration 'Our registration system was not properly set up to deal with multiple births from one donor to the same woman,' the hospital told the paper in a statement. However, the hospital failed to inform all the women and children involved about the problem to 'spare them unnecessary damage', the paper said. Next week judges will rule in the case of a sperm bank doctor who is accused of fathering dozens of children himself. Women who suspect he fathered their children are demanding a dna test to find out the truth.  More >