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

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