The most liberal country in the world has the same low rate (of heroin users) as one of the most totalitarian countries in the world. That disproves the idea that you need totalitarian measures to deal with these problems."

So says Director Jonathan Blank about the utopic look he has created in his new documentary Sex, Drugs and Democracy, an examination of the Dutch vision of a free society. Remarkable in its straightforwardness, Sex, Drugs and Democracy exploits the Dutch concept of personal freedom and responsibility through interviews with pol­iticians,law officers, academics, and others involved in a society that includes a legalized sex industry, the open sale of marijuana, equality for gays, and the distribution of clean syringes and methadone to drug addicts.

Blank, along with producer Barclay Powers, spent months accessing politicians, judges, prostitutes, law enforcement agents and scientists to gain some insight into the remarkable results of the Dutch version of democracy. What they assembled into the feature-length documentary serves to reinforce the concept of `if you tell someone they can't have something, they'll only want it more.' Yet the Dutch populace believes if you allow them to decide for themselves if something like sex or drugs has merit, chances are they won't want it any longer.

Blank: America's war on drugs is a total fiasco.

"That's not to say what works in Holland will definitely work in America," cautioned Blank. "What it is trying to say is the ideas that we run by here (in America) might not be the only ones viable. A 30-year war on drugs we've seen hasn't worked .... I don't really understand how in a capitalist country like ours we can keep pumping so much money down the drain on a war on drugs when, in any other instance, we would say this is a huge waste of money. In a capitalist society, you're supposed to get results. If you're having a war on drugs and you're not decreasing the amount of drugs coming into the country, then your war on drugs is a total fiasco and should be exposed as such. I think in America perception is more important than reality," admitted Blank when faced with the question of why Americans typically resist 90 percent of the film's statement. "I think there's a tendency in our society to avoid looking for solutions. In some sense, creating conflicts is more expedient to people's political goals than finding a solution. It's a closed-mindedness, a feeling of wanting to blame other people rather than seeking a solution to the problem."

Blank and Powers have collaborated previously on the pop-anthropological documentary Collecting America, a film about the multi-million dollar baseball memorabilia business. Sex, Drugs and Democracy has started its wide theatrical release and has been invited to the Montreal International Film Festival this fall. It is their first full-length film and features a driving original soundtrack.