"Drug
Tourists"
Provoke
Competing
Cries
for
Regulation,
Repression
in
Holland
5/27/05
For nearly three decades, the Dutch approach to marijuana -- with its retail sale through "coffee shops" -- has made The Netherlands a beacon for drug reformers and pot connoisseurs alike. But with Holland surrounded by countries whose marijuana laws are more stringent, coffee shops in some Dutch border cities are doing a huge business with Belgians, Germans, and French who stream across the border in search of 5-gram bags of the Dutch home-grown known as "nederviet" (Netherlands weed).
This state of affairs has historically caused grumbling not only among other European governments, most notably France, Germany and Sweden, but even among some Dutch. The massive foreign patronage of the coffee shops in Maastricht has resulted in problems ranging from chronic traffic jams to illicit hard drug sales, unlicensed "one kilo" houses where buyers seeking more than a personal stash can score, and a raft of unregulated small-scale home grown operations, with all their attendant dangers. Now, the Dutch government appears to be at odds with itself on border coffee shop policy. Justice Minister Piet Donner, of the Christian Democratic party that dominates the government, entered office two years ago vowing to close down coffee shops throughout Holland. But that has not gone over well, and Donner has been reduced to now attempting to implement a threat to bar foreigners from the coffee shops. "We are developing a system whereby people not registered in the Netherlands will not be allowed into coffee shops," said Justice Ministry spokesman Ivo Hommes, according to Reuters. A pilot project will start in Maastricht, he added. "We want to do this to combat drugs tourism and should be able to start the project this summer," he said. But just a month ago, in the immediate wake of a public spat between Donner and Minister for Democratic Reform Alexander Pechtold over Pechtold's call for legalization of the Dutch cannabis industry, the Dutch parliament heard four hours of debate on the topic. Parliament ended by passing two resolutions, one calling on the Dutch government to approach other European governments about supporting its liberal cannabis policy and the other calling on the government to allow and develop local and "euregional" (cross-border) attempts at regulating the cannabis supply for certified coffee shops. The latter move is a direct outgrowth of a call by Maastricht Mayor Leers a month ago at the European Parliament for just such experimental approaches. That call marks an evolution for the former Christian Democratic parliamentarian, who was once a staunch prohibitionist but whose three-year tenure as mayor has caused him to change his views. "This debate illustrated an emerging majority in parliament, if not in the governing coalition, in favor of regulating the cannabis trade," said Jan van der Tas, a former Dutch ambassador to Germany and member of the Netherlands Drug Policy Foundation, who viewed the call for experiments in regulated cannabis supply as much more significant than the announced pilot ban on foreigners. "Justice Minister Donner would like to shut down the coffee shops, but I don't think even a majority of his colleagues in the government want to try that," he told DRCNet. "Donner also knows that society at large and even the majority of local governments, including some from his own political current, will not allow this. So he makes these noises mainly to keep the American drug czar and some of his European colleagues off his back." Even as Donner and the Justice Ministry were announcing the proposed pilot ban on foreigners, Mayor Leers was singing a different tune. "As a member of parliament in The Hague, I thought it was possible to get rid of cannabis by taking hard measures," he told the Maastricht conference, which also included mayors from neighboring Belgian and German towns. "But after having been mayor of Maastricht for three years I see that it does not work," Leers said. "It's a 'water bed effect' if you push down on one part the problems pop up somewhere else," he said. That sentiment was echoed by Marc Josemans, head of the Association of Official Maastricht Coffee Shops, representing the 15 licensed cannabis sellers in the city. "If coffee shops have to carry out controls at the door, people who don't want to register will turn to the illegal circuit. We think nuisance will only increase," he told the conference. He had a better idea, he said. "Legalize it," was his suggestion. That's not likely to happen anytime soon, but proposals for cross-border local regulation of the cannabis trade may sprout this year. "Knowing the Hague will not give him the hundreds of extra personnel needed for a vain effort at repression, Mayor Leers has now asked his colleagues in the euregio to study with him the possibilities for closer regional cooperation in not only more effective law enforcement, but also for an experiment in certified cannabis growing," said van der Tas. "This could serve as an example to other European regions," he said. And in a sign of cross-border solidarity that should begin to weaken the Dutch government's claim that it must heed anti-cannabis pressure from other governments, Maastricht Mayor Leers was joined in calling for regulated cannabis production by the mayors of nearby Aachen (Germany) and Hasselt and Luik (Belgium). Dutch mayors as a group are already ready to go further: A poll last month by the newspaper Trouw found that two-thirds of them were ready to legalize the trade. And it is big business in Holland. According to a report in the Dutch newspaper De Limburger last week, the Dutch marijuana crop is valued at around $5 billion annually, with close to one-quarter of that value being realized in the southern Limburger region. All that money doesn't mean the cannabis industry is a political power, though, said van der Tas. "Although the cannabis market may be worth $5 or $6 billion US, this does not translate into political power, but certainly vested interests emerge." While van der Tas expressed concern about the involvement of the Dutch, Belgian, and German justice ministries in the creation of pilot cannabis regulation projects in Limburger, he remains confident that the essential contours of Dutch cannabis policy -- tolerance and regulation -- will remain unchanged. "You do not really need to despair about the Dutch," he said. "Just yesterday, our foreign minister publicly affirmed that our liberal drug policies would not be endangered by the new European Union constitution, which is soon to be put to a referendum. When he was asked whether his conservative colleague and fellow Christian Democrat might not be tempted to let himself be outvoted in Brussels, he flatly said that such a policy would not find a majority in the cabinet, let alone in parliament."
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