Dang! The Dutch Caved In!

[eridani]

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20031127-013137-1860r.htm

But only Dutch residents with identity cards will be allowed to use the cannabis cafes.

Dutch justice minister Piet Hein Donner said his government would restrict coffee shop owners from selling soft drugs to non-residents, in order to combat drug tourists

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Obedience to the Law is Virtuous

(Note for the easily angered: This is a dryly ironic post. Set phasers on 'gripe')

In Amsterdam, nobody gets busted except people who are making a ruckus, or are "drunk and disorderly". Most of them are drug tourists. I think they want to be able to whisk the imbeciles off to the drunk tank for the night and discourage rowdyism.

Soccer also fosters rowdyism that the local burgomeisters are keen on suppressing. I can't say I blame them. An velvet glove, iron hand, a painful-but-fair fine and some well-trained cops, and I think it would work fine.

That's in theory, of course ...

--bkl
Cut the cops a break. Stay home when you get high.

[Paschall]

2. I'm very skeptical about this report

According to this source, discriminating between Dutch residents and foreigners would be a violation of the Dutch constitution.

Here's the press release (PDF) from the EU justice ministers' meeting, which makes no mention of this agreement.

I've seen this report on Reuters, too, but the report filed the same day as the UPI story above indicates only that Holland was "considering" making sales to non-residents illegal. There was talk earlier of setting up coffee shop memberships, but the coffee shops and certain municipal authorities were very vocal in their opposition.

[LSatyl]

3. No we didn't,....

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:

[Paschall]

4. From your lips to God's ear

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

Chirac's conservative government has continued the Socialist policy of reducing penalties. Well, actually, the Socialists had simply stopped prosecuting "personal use" possession cases, but left the law intact. Though he is cracking down on public use, Chirac has changed the law and actually lightened the penalty for possession for "personal use."

Meanwhile, the government is scrambling to find money to assuage the country's tobacco shop owners who are being forced out of business by new tobacco taxes. So far no one seems to have suggested it, but the solution to their trouble seems obvious enough to me. ;-)

By the way, thanks for the clarification from Holland! :hi: