Amsterdam, Netherlands – A field reporter for a new Dutch television talk show plans to use heroin and other illegal drugs on the air during the weekly program on issues that concern young people, producers said Wednesday.
The announcement of “Shoot Up and Swallow,” scheduled to premiere as a late-night show Oct. 10, sparked an outcry.
Even in the liberal Netherlands, where marijuana is sold and used openly, the proposed drug use by reporter Filemon Wesselink is illegal.
“This is dangerous and it sets a bad example,” said Pieter Heerma, spokesman for the governing center-right Christian Democrat party. “We’re going to ask the justice minister for his view on what the law says about this, and his view on the dangers and risks involved.”
Justice Ministry spokesman Ivo Hommes said it was not immediately clear whether Wesselink could be prosecuted. Possession of any amount of heroin is illegal, but in practice police usually do not arrest anyone with less than a half gram of the highly addictive narcotic.
“The actual taking of drugs is a health problem, not a criminal act, though it’s obviously hard to take drugs without possessing them first,” Hommes said. “In any case, it’s not something we endorse, and doing it on television is undesirable.”
For one episode, Wesselink, 26, plans to smoke heroin, said Ingrid Timmer, spokeswoman for the show’s producer, BNN. For others, he plans to go on a drinking binge in a series of pubs and to take the hallucinogenic drug LSD – on his couch under the supervision of his mother.
“It’s not our intention to create an outcry. We just want to talk about subjects that are part of young people’s lives,” Timmer said.
