October 2011 Archives
Coffee Shop Hysteria: Uncovering Media Gossip
The TRUTH Behind Dutch Regulations on Cannabis
Thomas & I took a day trip to Maastricht Netherlands this past Saturday October 1st. After 7 hours on the train, we deeply anticipated getting there and having a smoke! First stop, Easy Going. Showed valid identification but was informed that their new policy, the “Neighboring Country Criterion” went into effect, starting that day. This means no admission for anyone living outside of the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, ages 18 & over. Really? Unbelievable. We traveled a very long distance to be rejected because I’m American? Wow, that was a bit shocking!
The only thing I could do was chuckle thinking; “After all the times I was served in the last 2 years, they can’t be serious.” Much to my surprise, I was not being punked, lol ~ Their reason for the change states,
“They expected that, by now, other countries would have their own system for the sale & consumption of cannabis products. This has not happened, so more and more people from other countries are visiting the Maastricht coffee shops. These visits are causing serious traffic congestion in the inner-city and are a nuisance to the people of Maastricht.”
The majority of the visitors who come to Maastricht are from Germany & Belgium yet they still have the luxury of consuming cannabis in Maastricht even though it is not legal in their country. For a moment, I was a bit dumbfounded ;o … So, we decided to weigh both sides before forming an opinion.
For the fun of it we decided to go to a different coffee shop, the Kosbar, to check if they abide by the same policy. From our experiences while we lived there you never know what you’re going to get! It was definitely worth trying because they allowed me to enter & purchase marijuana. They also had the same poster up explaining the change in policy, saw my Pennsylvania driver’s license, and still served me. I’m not sure if the man checking ids couldn’t speak English or if it was only the 1st day & no authorities were expected to bother them? So, one shop turned me away and one let me in. I needed a tie breaker!
After leaving the Kosbar we made our way over to our favorite coffee shop, The ‘Smoky’ aka ‘The Boat’.
The Smoky Coffe Shop Maastricht
I was almost positive they would not reject me, the usual doorman knew us and normally doesn’t even check our ids anymore. Unfortunately, he was not working and I couldn’t get in.” Oh well, it’s not as if I wasn’t allowed to smoke it, so we sat by the river and ‘got our smoke on’. Picture perfect scenery! Despite the minor inconvenience we had a great day, returned home and searched for hard facts online.
An article posted Oct. 1st from CNN.com which explains the issue pretty well but has a negatively misleading title; “Dutch city’s coffee shops close doors to most cannabis tourists.” Most cannabis tourists are from Belgium/Germany, so this is incorrect. Marc Josemans, president of the Society of United Coffee Shops and owner of the Easy Going, told CNN ”The visitors put a lot of pressure on the city when they come here and make it very busy on our narrow streets. So the city said that something had to be done about the traffic and nuisance.” He then continues, “But the biggest nuisance isn’t the number of coffee shops or the clients, but the illegal drug runners that can be quite aggressive and start fights and rob the tourists.” Do they honestly believe that refusing to sell cannabis to tourists from other countries will decrease the amount of people that purchase drugs from illegal drug runners or will the amount of illegal drug sales increase? I guess no one will find out for about a year, whenever the statistics are officially calculated.
For some time now, journalists have been reporting on law changes in the Netherlands and not many articles we’ve found have thoroughly provided a correct understanding of how things work since marijuana has been liberalized. Many media circuits continue reporting false and/or misleading information pertaining to cannabis in the Netherlands. Many media networks are slandering cannabis making it more & more difficult for people not educated on the topic to accept that this plant is not harmful.
Let’s look at the specific guidelines permitting the sale of soft drugs:
Under the guidelines issued by the Public Prosecution Office on 1 January 2001, coffee shops are not prosecuted for selling cannabis providing they observe the following rules:
- they may not sell more than five grams per person per day
- they may not sell ecstasy or other hard drugs
- they may not advertise drugs
- they must ensure that there is no nuisance in their vicinity
- they may not sell drugs to persons aged under 18 or even allow them on the premises.
If the 5 above rules are not observed, the premises will be closed down and the owners or management possibly prosecuted. Under the official drug guidelines, coffee shops may have an inventory of no more than 500 grams of cannabis without facing prosecution.
Municipalities may impose additional rules on individual coffee shops in order to avoid nuisance within the community.
Is the Dutch government going to change its traditional tolerance policy towards soft drugs?
No. While cannabis remains illegal, the authorities turn a blind eye towards the sale of small amounts in coffee shops. On the other hand, the law is still enforced against those growing marijuana and supplying the coffee shops. The Dutch authorities see an advantage in selling soft drugs in coffee shops, as it stops many users from having to make contact directly with drug dealers in the criminal underworld, thus limiting the chance that they will be persuaded to move on to hard drugs.
Who administers the drugs policy in the Netherlands?
To achieve a cohesive strategy, various ministries share the responsibility for drugs policy. The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport is responsible for overall co-ordination, prevention and care. The Ministry of Justice is responsible for law enforcement, while matters relating to local government or the police are dealt with by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. The ministries are assisted at the country’s borders by customs officers and the Royal Netherlands Military Constabulary.
Most Important is the implementation of the set policy…
The Dutch take a pragmatic approach to social problems. Recognizing that it is impossible to prevent people using drugs, their solution is to allow the controlled use of small amounts of soft drugs, thus decriminalizing a large proportion of soft drugs use, and divert resources to go after the criminals who profit from drugs, and those who supply hard drugs. It’s a policy that has worked well within the Netherlands for decades, but is coming under strain due to the free flow of people within the European Union.
Since 2004, it has become clear that organized crime is involved in large-scale cannabis cultivation in the Netherlands, and the authorities are now trying to catch and convict the offenders. As well as the ministries and other public bodies, parties such as energy companies and housing corporations are now actively involved in helping to identify and take action against the criminals. The guilty now run the risk of eviction from their homes, tax bills for undeclared income, bills and fines for theft of electricity, cuts in social security benefits, and penalties for not having the right permits.
The Dutch government tries to keep good relations with foreign countries. For them, it makes no difference if foreign citizens smoke marijuana or not. However, most foreign countries declared that the use of cannabis could be harmful and has criminalized it! The true opinion of the Dutch government is: They have absolutely NO DESIRE to eliminate coffee shops in Maastricht, or anywhere in the country for that matter. In order to protect their own interests, in addition to no longer having further conflict with countries that do criminalize the use/sale of marijuana, they chose to utilize their right to free will and as a result decide not to sell to anyone who poses a potential negative impact on their community. They feel other countries should have already taken the necessary steps to liberalize marijuana but have not. If cannabis tourists wish to smoke marijuana they have the ability to press the issue with their local government instead of traveling to Holland.
How did the Dutch Supreme Court declare the new policy as not discrimination?
The Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the new policy change will not be considered discrimination considering there are no Dutch laws which state it is illegal to NOT sell marijuana to any certain people. It is actually their right to refuse the sale of cannabis to anyone without even giving an explanation. Remember, cannabis is not legal in the Netherlands, it is gedogen, or liberalized.
This Dutch verb is not fully translatable into English or any other language. The term is Dutch; the concept is Dutch and only works in the Netherlands. The nearest approximation of “gedogen,” in English, is “to tolerate.” Although, tolerance is a passive term and Gedogen is active. Gedogen is an open-eyed tolerance and a matter of governmental policy. If there is a social matter that will not allow a concrete solution, the Dutch will “gedoog” it, which in turn means they allow an exception to the rule — not by turning a blind eye to the violation, but by accommodating it.
The Dutch acknowledge, officially & with intensive debate that sometimes eradication of a problem is impractical — therefore, it may be an inappropriate objective. Indeed, the concept of “problem” is a matter subject to interpretation. Predisposed morality colors the debate about the supposed “problems” of paid sex and socially-benign drugs. There are also many others in which the act of “gedogen” acknowledges. Predisposed morality is a major factor!
Are there differing views within the government about the way forward?
There certainly are. Dutch governments are invariably coalitions and the three coalition parties in the current government have long disagreed about the overhaul of the drug policy. The Christian Democrat CDA had called for an end to the tolerance policy and the orthodox Christian Union supported that position, but senior coalition partner, the Labour Party (PvdA), believes banning coffee shops will not solve the problems of crime, nuisance and health. In September 2009, a compromise was announced, designed to stem the flow of ‘drugs tourists’.
The city of Maastricht is a tourist city, so why would they turn away potential revenue? It seems to us like a political ploy to make the population think they are doing something about the problem. ”We need to drastically reduce the number of visits to our coffee shops.” The majority of their customers are residents of Netherlands, Germany or Belgium and exactly the ones who are not affected. The amount of tourists which come to Maastricht just to buy marijuana is very, very small, which totally contradicts their explanation. They will most likely not even notice a negative impact of profits in the future.
Anyone traveling long distances to come to Holland to smoke are most likely to go to Amsterdam, not Maastricht, so it is honestly not affecting many foreigners either. Coffee shops will be allowed to continue operating, but the cabinet wants to introduce measures to stem the flow of tourists. The final decision about whether and where coffee shops may be opened belongs with the local authorities. Mayors will have the power to keep coffee shops small and turn away tourists. To avoid that the local authorities can play the nuisance card on them, theVereniging Officiële Coffee shops Maastricht (VOCM) then decided to proactively do something. The VOCM is an interest association of Maastricht coffee shops that, since 1999, is trying to clarify the sense and nonsense of cannabis for civilians, local authorities and government. This results in a more realistic cannabis policy with less undesirable side effects and a better acknowledgement of the public health aspects.
In Maastricht, they are planning to move half of the coffee shops located in the inner city to the outskirts, keeping the German & Belgium visitors separated from the tourists who come for shopping and site-seeing. Maastricht is one of the oldest cities in the entire country and the inner city streets are very narrow. Many tourists do not come simply to get high. All in all, this seems to be a Win-Win situation for everyone. They’ll have the rich tourists who come for the shopping, history, carnival etc. in one section and the potheads in another. The inner city streets will be less crowded so the voters/politicians get what they want without actually affecting their community. More coffee shops will be closer to the boarder of the two adjoining countries so people coming from Germany & Belgium don’t have to get caught up in the inner city tourist traffic nightmare just to grab a smoke after work.
There are currently 14 coffee shops in Maastricht, in 1993 there were 31. So why the 50% decrease? Is this system not working? Honestly, the government was losing control of the population and in order to regain that control they passed a law allowing only 1 coffee shop per 10,000 populations. Also, the national government now has a policy where coffee shops are not allowed to operate anywhere within 250 meters of a school. At that time, Amsterdam’s city mayor Job Cohen insisted the city was standing by its three-decade old policy of tolerating ’soft drug’ sales. Many people may assume that this is the beginning of eliminating coffee shops altogether in the future. This will NEVER happen!! The Dutch government rakes in an estimated 470 million Euros annually from the 730 marijuana-selling coffee shops and thousands of jobs have been created. Maastricht is nothing like Amsterdam. It is a very wealthy, upper class neighborhood and the 1st/only city where a decision is made to self-regulate and temporarily not sell to foreigners. This policy will only be temporary and once a compromise on which shops will relocate is made (approx. early 2013), they intend to re-evaluate then most likely re-allow everyone to purchase marijuana in their shops once again.
Bicycles are the #1 form of transportation due to narrow city streets
Maastricht is extremely liberal & extremely neutral when it comes to human rights but yet very conservative in their ways. As long as you are on their soil you are considered to be under Dutch law and have the same rights as their own citizens. You, the individual, have the free will to make your own decisions as long as it is not conflicting with their law.
Let me give you an example:
- Holland is one of the few countries where euthanasia is legal. Since there are no Dutch laws forbidding outside citizens to travel to the Netherlands and have the services provided. They would most likely honor your wishes as long the legal criterion are met. Current Dutch law states – Euthanasia by doctors is only legal in cases of “hopeless and unbearable” suffering. Of course, if someone asks you to help them commit suicide and they do not meet the qualifications of the current Dutch euthanasia law, it is considered illegal.
- If you have the urge to march around the city dressed as Adolph Hitler singing those forbidden words of the national anthem, there is a good chance you will have a few Euros in your pocket when you get home. Now, if you got did that in Germany and got caught, you would go directly to jail! However, they do have a law against naming your child Adolf Hitler. Past historical events linked with his name may drastically pose a negative effect on that Childs future and possibly change their life path with no choice. Rightfully so!
Overall, after residing in Maastricht for a short time and a little research, we conclude…
The Dutch soft drugs policy can only result to strict regulations. This is the only way to keep in from being controlled by the government. There will be no law changes restricting foreigners from having the same rights as Dutch people, however, in order to maintain the privilege of selling an illegal product by law, legally, the local authorities and coffee shops must compromise then adhere to the self-regulations, particularly in border regions. Our thoughts in the case you want to make backpack smoke tour through the Netherlands, is to first research the possible exceptions of interpretation in the Drug Policy for foreigners. Policies on the sale of cannabis products may vary depending on location. They do what works for them and has proven to work for many years! It would be perfect if there were more local governments who collaborate with the population to compromise on the regulations within their local community. It just makes sense. And as always, when traveling to Amsterdam rest assure ~ Amsterdam will always stay Amsterdam!
Photo taken in 2009 Maastricht NL
From our experience living in both situations where cannabis is acceptable and also where it is not, we were able to determine that the ability to freely purchase marijuana in legal shops significantly decreases the anxieties which come with the requirement to purchase marijuana illegally. If someone wants to smoke, they are going to do it whether it is legal or not! Decriminalization in most countries will pave the way for a better future.
More on this topic in a future blog ……