Amsterdam to ban foreigners from coffee shops
Dutch legislators want to ban foreigners
from coffee shops in Amsterdam
Joints for Dutch citizens only
Amsterdam, Holland – Foreign visitors are to be kept out of Dutch coffee shops – where soft drugs are sold legally – by introducing a membership card system for purchasing cannabis. Minister of Security and Justice Ivo Opstelten’s plan has already been approved by the Lower House.
Coffee and a joint – It’s the Dutch way
Not just in Amsterdam, coffee shops in other cities and towns on the German and Belgian borders attract many cannabis users. The majority of local authorities here are against the membership card system, as they fear it will encourage the illegal drugs trade. If the membership card system is introduced, tourists will bypass it by buying drugs in the streets. Some officials think the illegal trade will flourish.
Tourism in Amsterdam should fall dramatically
The mayor of Amsterdam, Eberhard van der Laan, says that if the illegal drugs trade does increase because of the membership system, he doesn’t have the means to adequatly combat it. According to him, 4.5 million tourists from abroad visit Amsterdam every year. Over a million of them also go to the coffee shops. They would then mainly depend on the illegal trade for their weed.
As the plans stand now, coffee shops will become private clubs, each with 1000 to 1500 exclusively Dutch members who all have a membership card. Local authorities are allowed to cut, but not raise the number of members. If it’s up to Minister Opstelten, the membership card system will be introduced in the south of the Netherlands, along the Belgian border, this coming autumn. The other provinces are to follow later.
Chairman of the Netherlands Platform of Cannabis Enterprises, Willem Panders, thinks the measures are “draconian and absurd”. Because introducing the system not only affects tourists from abroad, but also somebody from Groningen who is visiting Maastricht and wants to buy weed, but isn’t a member of a coffee shop in Maastricht. Would a coffee shop be lenient towards this person from Groningen or a foreigner? Mr Panders doesn’t think so.
Things are changing in The Netherlands. Amsterdam, for the moment, is still the heart of liberal Europe.
What if you just want to get a coffee?
I love Amsterdam!