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Amsterdam 'forced' to shut cannabis cafes

Friday 21 November 2008

Amsterdam is being forced to close 43 of its 228 cannabis-selling cafes to meet national regulations, report various newspapers on Friday.

The cafes, known as coffee shops, have to be closed down by the end of 2011 because they are less than 250 meters from a secondary school.

One of those set to vanish is the famous Bulldog cafe on the city’s Leidseplein which is housed in a former police station and was opened over 20 years ago. It is too close to the city's prestigious Barlaeus high school.

In an interview in Friday’s Volkskrant, Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen makes it clear that he is following the government’s directive under duress.

Regulation

Like the majority of mayors in towns where coffee shops sell cannabis, Cohen is happy with the existing policy on soft drugs but would like to see regulation of the whole cannabis trade.

At present the authorities turn an official blind eye to the sale and consumption of cannabis but ban the large-scale cultivation of marijuana plants and the wholesale trade.

Cohen is to call for the legalisation of cannabis production at a ‘cannabis summit’ of local councils in Almere later on Friday. This will make the sector easier to control and reduce the involvement of organised crime, he tells the Volkskrant.

Around 25% of tourists coming to Amsterdam visit a cannabis cafe, says the Volkskrant. But Cohen says that these tourists cause much less of a nuisance than foreigners who drink alcohol.

Cohen says too that the Netherlands should not be afraid of the reaction of other countries to its tolerant policy on soft drugs. ‘We have cast iron arguments…. A total ban on coffee-shops really will not reduce the use of drugs,’ he said.

For yesterday’s story on two surveys which indicate that mayors want to legalise the production and wholesale trade of cannabis, click here

Should Dutch soft drugs policy be reformed. To take part in our poll, click here

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Readers' comments

teens can go in the bar and get stupidly drunk at 16, they are not allowed in the coffeeshops til they are 18. maybe they should close all the bars within 250 meters of schools instead

By mr.haze | November 21, 2008 11:14 AM

Why not move the Barlaeus?

By hanneke | November 21, 2008 11:29 AM

The statement by Mr Cohen, that a total ban on coffee-shops will not reduce the (ab)use of drugs goes right against the proven market principle, that the easier goods are available the more they sell. One wonders why a mayor of such a major town talks such rubbish.

By Frans van Pallander | November 22, 2008 8:57 AM

Are they also planning on closing down shops within 250 meters of schools which sell alcohol?

By Pip | November 22, 2008 1:18 PM

I like Mayor Cohen for standing-up and stating the obvious.

How many of these tourists are seriously ill patients, from countries with policies that ban both the recreational and medical use of cannabis?

Recently I was in a country along the border with Holland, where they have mayors who like to regularly complain about Dutch soft drug policy (tolerance of cannabis and Coffeeshops to be precise), and where many of the patients in this country tell me that their Drs advise them to, "pop across the border to Holland and use the coffeeshops". It's not just in Holland that patients get told to use the coffeeshops as their alternative 'Apotheeks.'

By Gerard | November 22, 2008 7:08 PM

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