DUTCH GOVERNMENT SEEKS BAN ON FOREIGNERS IN COFFEE SHOPS

The conservative coalition led by the Christian Democrats that
currently governs the Netherlands has floated a proposal to restrict
access to the country's famous cannabis coffee shops to Dutch nationals.

The government has said it is responding to foreign pressure, notably
from Germany, whose hash-hungry citizens flood across the border by
the thousands each day to score, but the attack on the coffee shops
fits precisely with the coalition's own anti-drug agenda.

The Netherlands effectively decriminalized marijuana possession in
1976, and in the years since, the country's coffee houses have been
tolerated as a technically illegal but socially acceptable means of
allowing for the consumption and sale of cannabis.

Although down from a peak of more than 1,200 coffee houses a few years
ago, more than 800 are currently open, generating more than $3 billion
in gross sales and nearly $340 million in tax revenues each year. The
coffee shops have generated visible foreign "drug tourism" for at
least 20 years as repressed Americans, Germans, and Britons, among
others, seek to sample what they view as the sweet life.

First notice of the proposed move came last week, when the German
newspaper Deutsche Welle reported on a meeting between German Interior
Minister Otto Schily and Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner to
discuss cooperation in efforts to fight the international drug trade.

According to Deutsche Welle, Germany wanted the Dutch to completely
shut down the coffee shops, and Donner countered with an offer to bar
foreigners from using them. Under Donner's plan, people would need a
pass card or membership to enter the shops, and such cards would be
limited to Dutch residents.

But if initial reactions are any guide, Donner and the Christian
Democrats are in for a battle.

The coffee shops certainly aren't going along quietly. "It's totally
ridiculous. The minister is stupid.

If this system comes in, all the tourists will buy from criminals in
the street," Arjan Roskam, of the Union of Cannabis Retailers, told
the Expatica news service.

The plan is "worthless," he added.

Nol van Shaik, owner of the Willie Wortels coffee shops, was less
diplomatic. "Donner must have been on some strange dope when he
thought this all up," von Shaik fumed in an e-mail bemoaning the move.
"It is too insane to have to respond to this brainwave of a right-wing
Catholic politician." The plan would be unworkable, van Shaik wrote,
not least of all because people like him would actively work to
sabotage it. "If Donner's scheme is accepted and executed, we will
always have a host available, wearing a t-shirt with the following
print: I buy cannabis for foreigners!"

Venlo, a town of 90,000 along the German border that is home to five
official coffee shops, numerous unsanctioned ones, as well as
independent hard drug dealers, is ground zero in the drug tourism debate.

Within 30 miles of some five million Germans, Venlo alone sees some
4,000 German cannabis buyers each day. While the town has complained
of unruliness around the drug trade, the Venlo Council has gone on
record as opposing the ban on foreigners, agreeing with the coffee
shop union that it would spark an explosive increase in illegal drug
dealing.

The Association of Dutch Municipalities has been cautious, the British
newspaper the Guardian reported.

The association will await definite plans before taking a stand, it
said.

The proposal is by no means a done deal. "The proposal is being
debated these days and the outcome is unclear yet," said Dutch
psychiatrist and drug researcher Frederick Polak of the Netherlands
Drug Policy Foundation. It is uncertain that even the parties that
make up the coalition with the Christian Democrats will go along, he
told DRCNet. "The opposition in parliament comes from not only the
Green Party and the progressive Liberals, but also from the
conservative Liberals. It is unclear yet what the Social Democrats,
the second largest party, will do."

Van Shaik, for his part, had advice for all involved in the scheme.
"Minister Donner should have told off the Germans, the French and even
the UN, if he is a true representative of his country, a country with
the best and only drug policy in the world -- one can hardly call
prohibition a policy. If it is, it is a dictatorial policy," the
coffee shop baron fulminated. "Minister Donner should have told the
German Justice Minister to keep his cannabis consumers in his own
country, by making cannabis available in registered outlets, because
cannabis consumption in Germany is higher than in his country, the
Netherlands, where cannabis is available through coffee shops.

Minister Donner should tell the UN, the US, and France to try and do
something about the growing consumption of cannabis in their
countries, without it being available, except from the dangerous black
market, where all drugs are sold by the same suppliers, without any
control on quality and prices," van Shaik recommended.

"Minister Donner will do none of this -- he just sucks up to the big
countries, with their big drug problems, and he will just try to close
as many coffee shops as he possibly can, following the line of his
political party, blind as a mule, deaf as a mole, and as dumb as an
ass," van Shaik predicted.

And, of course, eliminating the coffee shops is in line with Christian
Democrat policies.

Prime Minister Balkenende vowed to do as much before he was elected,
and his government has given sign after sign it wants to crack down on
drugs.

Interior Minister Johan Remkes not long ago tried to ban Dutch police
from frequenting coffee shops
(http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/302/dutchcops.shtml),
the government has been busy building "emergency" jail cells for drug
smugglers pouring into Schipol Airport, and Minister Donner is now
threatening to withdraw the landing rights of any airline found to be
regularly carrying drug mules from the Caribbean. And now he wants to
keep the foreigners out of the coffee shops.

According to the Guardian, the Dutch government will introduce a new
general drug policy proposal in December. Stay tuned.