Reply #3: No we didn't,....

[LSatyl]

This is just bad reporting. As a regular of Dutch cofee shops, I can tell you that this kind of damage control has happened as long as we have coffe shops (i.e. 35 years). Most of our drug laws and edicts are to pacify the anti-drug hardliners, mostly Americans and French (see, sometimes they are on the same side :evilgrin:). Remember also that drug use in the Netherlands is tolerated/decriminalized, rather than legal. According to the letter of the law I can be convicted for my drug use, legal precedent however says otherwise. Allmost all of the powers concerning coffee shops lie with the municipalities, rather than the governement.

Notice how the sentence stating that visitors will be forced to show identity cards is in its own paragraph. It is not connected to the agreement by the European justice ministers, nor to the words of Donner, the Dutch justice minister. It is not a quote, so where did those words come from?

Donner would reallt like to enforce the existing laws, but then again, his party would also like to abolish abortion, euthanasia, prostitution and gay marriage, all of which have been legalized the past 10 years.

Also note, that while the European institutions try to harmonize drug laws, all member states have experiments. From the free distribution of methadon and heroine to long-time addicts, to the decriminalization of marihuana.

Personally I think the French will legalize sooner than the Dutch would prohibit.

At least, I'll toke to that tonight :evilgrin: