Uncommon Commentary #244: He Left His Brain in San Francisco

At a pre-Grammys party, singer Tony Bennett capitalized the death of fellow singer Whitney Houston to state "Let's legalize drugs like [sic] they did in Amsterdam."  Bennett, who has had his own problems with addiction, must have relapsed if he considers the approach taken by the Netherlands—for I assume that he means that country's official capital, not its namesake in New York—to be a model of how to handle the problem of drug abuse; thanks to the "progressive" policy of the Dutch, whose country is even worse governed than ours, thoroughfares of their Amsterdam are lined with addicts who waste away their lives on substances that destroy the mind and the body.  Anyway, what have "street drugs" to do with Houston's demise, which police preliminarily attribute to a mixing of alcohol with prescribed pills?