THE NETHERLANDS RETHINKS SEX AND DRUGS

AMSTERDAM-In the dim labyrinth of the Red Light district, buxom women
pose in glass cubicles like a Victoria's Secret catalogue come to
life, drawing appraising glances from buyers and nervous smirks from
men too timid to sample the wares.

But cheek by jowl with the punters are groups of solid citizens
tramping the cobbles en route to historic churches, led by guides
dutifully reciting the city's Protestant past.

Across town in the bustling Leidseplein, Amsterdam's most famous
marijuana spot is lighting up for the evening - the Bulldog Palace's
cavernous interior decorated for Christmas with silvery ornaments
twinkling through the gloom.

Amid the sweet-and-sour fumes of pot and beer, a young couple sip
lager, shyly holding hands. A middle-aged twosome share a meal with
their student son. And at an outdoor table, a thin, leathery-skinned
man closes his eyes and sucks greedily at a joint, as though it will
be his last.

The Dutch live life with the curtains open, admirably free of
pretence. But for all their tolerance, they abide by the rules. And
that is why many have had a change of heart about the practices that
have made their society one of the freest in the world.

For decades, the Netherlands has been a haven for a sex-and-drugs
crowd of locals and tourists who boost the Dutch economy by millions
of euros. But criminal trafficking is shutting down the party, as
local and national governments squelch the sex trade and weed out the
marijuana cafes and magic mushroom boutiques.

Since the 2006 federal election brought in a more conservative
government, sobering changes in laws have come into effect.

"It used to be fun, before crime and human trafficking came into the
picture," says Xaviera Hollander, once famous for The Happy Hooker,
her 1971 autobiography. "Now women are forced into the sex trade, and
there are many criminals in the drug scene. It isn't that morality has
changed, but different attitudes have come into play."

Hollander herself is a symbol of change. A former call girl and
upscale Manhattan madam, she lived in Toronto in the 1970s before
returning to a life of sexual adventure in Amsterdam.

Now she's a happy homemaker in her 60s, with a congenial grey-haired
husband, Philip de Haan.

A writer and broadcaster, she runs a bed and breakfast near the city's
museum district and says marital fidelity can be a satisfying lifestyle.

"Freedom started with the Pill and sexual liberation. We went from
nothing to legalized prostitution, and a lot of permissiveness on
television.

"In the 1990s, I was asked to hold parties for about 3,000 in huge
factories, dressed up in leather, and people spent fortunes on fetish
gear. It was overkill. Now they've started cutting back."

In spite of the fizzy image of Dutch permissiveness, says Gunilla
Ekberg, prostitution and fun have not gone hand in hand - at least for
the women in the trade.

"You find that few, if any, of those women are there by choice," says
Ekberg, co-director of the Brussels-based Coalition Against
Trafficking in Women International. "It's a trade that makes
marginalized women available for exploitation."

For the past century, the Dutch tolerated prostitution and it grew
into a thriving industry that was officially legalized eight years
ago.

But trafficking in women also expanded, bringing increased crime and
violence. That has sparked opposition from mayors in about 200
municipalities, including Amsterdam, where Mayor Job Cohen refused to
renew licences of some 30 brothels in 2006.

The city has also bought up some of the former brothels and leased
them free of charge for a year to up-and-coming fashion designers,
aiming to convert the ancient district to an edgy shopping sector.

Eindhoven, a large industrial town, will shut down its sex-trade areas
by 2011, while funding retraining and psychological counselling
centres to give prostitutes a new start.

Not only sex, but drugs have become a headache for the liberal
Netherlands, where North American tourists' jaws drop as they see
marijuana plants displayed next to artistically packaged tulip bulbs
in Amsterdam's thriving flower market. Across the street, shoppers
file into narrow doorways boasting "magic mushrooms" for sale.

That, too, is changing.

The government has banned hallucinogenic drugs and the "smart shops"
that sell nearly 200 varieties of locally grown "shrooms" were forced
to purge them from the shelves at the beginning of this month.

Meanwhile, the Netherlands' famous coffee shops - a euphemism for its
700 marijuana parlours - are also targeted by lawmakers who aim to put
out public puffing with a law that makes it illegal to sell marijuana
within 250 metres of high schools.

That would close at least one-fifth of the coffee shops, including
some of the most popular ones.

The problem is compounded because an unclear law allows selling and
smoking of small amounts of cannabis - five grams per person, or 500
grams per coffee shop - but bans large-scale cultivation and
wholesaling.

That opens the way for back-door sales by criminal gangs to meet the
burgeoning demand and frustrates mayors faced with eliminating
law-breaking cafes that are major tourist earners. The illicit trade
is now worth an estimated $3 billion a year. And in border towns,
police say drug dealers are profiting from more dangerous illegal
substances sold to thrill-seeking tourists.

Dutch mayors have held summit meetings to brainstorm ways of dealing
with these legal and social dilemmas.

"In Eindhoven, we have not just small cafes but places like
supermarkets that employ about 25 people," says Corine van der Putten,
a spokesperson for Mayor Rob de Gijzel. "The amount they can sell is
not enough for the customers.

"If you regulate the trade, you can eliminate crime. Right now, our
main problem is the crime that takes place behind the coffee shops."

De Gijzel has tabled a plan to allow planting of a
government-regulated cannabis crop that would legally supply
customers, a more realistic solution than shuttering the cafes.

Says Rob Sawade, former mayor of an Amsterdam suburb: "The illegal
trade is getting worse and worse. But it's not realistic to shut down
all the cafes. It's the same with prostitution. If you try to stop it,
it will only go underground."

Most Dutch experts agree decades of indulgence won't go up in smoke
overnight, and the lucrative tourist trade in sex and drugs will
continue to boost the economy, in spite of the trend to imposing limits.

There's also the question of Dutch values, which remain largely
liberal. Last week, a tribunal held to find a way forward for drug
policies challenged MPs and experts to produce evidence that the
cannabis ban had a positive effect.

But, says Joep Oomen of the European Coalition for Just and Effective
Drug Policies, there was little effort made to defend it, and "nobody
explained why we should maintain the prohibition." The group is
pushing for a parliamentary debate on legalizing marijuana in the New
Year.

"People come here for sex, drugs and art," says Hollander. "But things
have gotten out of hand. The government knows it must act, but it
can't take away the thing that made the country such an attraction:
its free-spirited nature."