From The International Herald Tribune:
Trying to take high out of holidays
BY DAVID JOLLY
AMSTERDAM
— The scene at the 420 Cafe on a recent Friday was typical of what many
travelers have come to associate with Amsterdam. Behind the bar, Janne
Svensson, 34, a self-described ‘‘cannabis refugee’’ from Norway, weighed
out small quantities of marijuana and hashish for her customers, many
from foreign countries. They sat quietly, smoking and sipping coffee, as
familiar strains of Jimi Hendrix drifted softly from the stereo and
giant manta rays cavorted in a nature video on a big-screen television.
While
there are many attractions that draw visitors to the Netherlands —
including the friendly and straightforward people, world-class museums,
charming architecture and elegant canal scenes — nearly a quarter of
this city’s more than four million foreign tourists a year will visit
its world-famous ‘‘coffeeshops,’’ where the sale of small quantities of
cannabis, though not alcohol, is tolerated.
But Amsterdam’s days
as a destination for hazy holidays may be numbered. Prime Minister Mark
Rutte’s rightist coalition is pushing to restrict the operations of the
coffeeshops sharply and to bar them from selling to foreigners. If the
measures survive a court challenge and the opposition of local
officials, the first phase would begin May 1.
‘‘I think that by
the end of next year, there will be no drug tourism in the
Netherlands,’’ Ard van der Steur, a member of Parliament who is a
spokesman for Mr. Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, said
in an interview in The Hague. ‘‘We have created an incredible criminal
industry that we need to get rid of.’’
Strictly speaking, the sale
of marijuana and hashish (a resin extracted from the cannabis plant) is
illegal. But a longstanding policy of tolerance — essentially a set of
instructions from the Justice Ministry to the police — means that
licensed coffeeshop operators are not prosecuted so long as they deal in
limited quantities and keep hard drugs and minors out. The Dutch are
also allowed to cultivate up to five marijuana plants each for personal
use.
In some respects, tolerance appears to have been successful:
despite the easy availability, the Dutch are less likely than Americans
or many other Europeans to smoke marijuana,
U.N. data show.
Alex Stevens, a drug policy expert at the University of Kent, argues
that the tolerance policy has reduced the harm caused by prohibition, in
part by separating the markets for hard drugs like heroin from the
market for marijuana, and by getting cannabis dealers off the street and
into a regulated environment.
The impetus for changing the policy
originated with, of all things, a parking shortage. In Maastricht, a
southern city sandwiched between the German and Belgian borders,
hundreds of drug tourists drive in daily from elsewhere in Europe to
purchase marijuana, creating an infuriating traffic nuisance.
Spotting
an opportunity, clandestine dealers have begun offering foreign drivers
the option of buying their cannabis without ever leaving their cars.
Even local residents who support the coffeeshops are unhappy that drugs
are back on the streets.
Mr. Rutte’s justice minister, Ivo
Opstelten, has said that, as of May 1, coffeeshops in the southern
provinces are to be turned into members-only clubs, limited to 2,000
Dutch clients each. They are to maintain a registry and check IDs.
Coffeeshop owners who break the law will face criminal prosecution. The
remainder of the coffeeshops are to follow suit on Jan. 1.
Mr. van
der Steur said the main problem with the current policy was that
marijuana production had led to the creation of an expansive black
market. No one knows the exact value of Dutch cannabis exports, he said,
but they are thought to be greater than the annual flower exports,
worth $6.6 billion.
‘‘We now function as a supplier of drugs for
the rest of Europe,’’ he said. ‘‘We never intended to become one of the
major exporters of cannabis to the world.’’
Additionally, almost
all the hashish in the coffeeshops is imported, illegally, from
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon or Morocco, rankling the government.
Mr.
van der Steur said the government would begin treating high-potency
marijuana as a hard drug, in the same category as heroin and cocaine,
prohibiting its sale in coffeeshops. Growers now cultivate marijuana
that is almost three times stronger than it was a few decades ago, he
said. ‘‘The product changed totally, but the policy didn’t,’’ he said.
In
theory, Mr. Rutte’s coalition with the Christian Democrats and their
parliamentary ally, the far-right Freedom Party of Geert Wilders, have
the votes to push through the changes: 83 of the 150 seats in the lower
house. But the change is not assured.
Coffeeshop owners have so
far failed in court to overturn the ban on sales to foreigners, but
another lawsuit is being brought by the Cannabis Retailers Association,
which represents the country’s 680 coffeeshops. It should be heard
within the next few weeks.
Parliament is also wary of treading on
the prerogative of local officials, who worry that it will bring a
return to street dealing and crime. Others argue that the Netherlands,
which is struggling to reduce its budget deficit in a time of austerity,
cannot afford to alienate tourists.
Eberhard van der Laan, the
mayor of Amsterdam, opposes the change on safety and health grounds,
even though he supports the goal of reducing soft-drug use, said Tahira
Limon, a spokeswoman for the city. Ms. Limon said the mayor was talking
with the national government about other approaches.
Coffeeshops
are not really an issue for Amsterdam, she said. ‘‘The problems we have
with substance abuse are almost always related to alcohol,’’ she said.
‘‘That concerns Dutch people as much as foreigners.’’
Michael
Veling, 56, owner of the 420 Café and the spokesman for the Cannabis
Retailers Association, said he was skeptical that the government would
get its way. More likely, he said, the policy change will be struck down
in court or the issue will be left up to municipal councils. But if the
law changes, he said, he would not go along.
‘‘I’m not going to
build a register,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m not going to discriminate on the
basis of nationality. I’ve only ever discriminated on the basis of
behavior. I’ll go back to selling alcohol and go back to selling bags of
weed under the counter.’’
His customers were dubious as well.
Kenny and Sean, American students on a tour of Europe while studying
abroad, acknowledged that the availability of marijuana was part of the
reason they decided to visit Amsterdam. (The two asked not to be further
identified so as to protect their future job prospects.)
‘‘We wanted to try Amsterdam because our friends all said it was awesome,’’ Sean said.
Kenny
agreed. ‘‘If you smoke weed, you have to go to Amsterdam before you
die,’’ he said, adding: ‘‘This place would die if they changed the weed
laws. We know that. We’re business students.’’
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