HAZE OVER HOLLAND'S LIBERAL DRUG POLICY

MAASTRICHT - Aboard the Mississippi Boat, moored off the banks of the River
Maas, the management has suddenly gone publicity shy.

"No interviews in here", says a burly, long-haired man propping up the
bar, "We don't have anything to do with journalists."

One of Holland's most popular, cannabis selling coffee shops, the
Mississippi Boat, serves several hundred thousand people each year,
making its stream of customers the envy of many a Dutch retailer.

But Holland's famously liberal drug policy is about to confront its
biggest challenge in decades. The council in Maastricht plans to make
it technically illegal to serve foreigners in the city's 16 coffee
shops, a move that could drive many of them out of business.

If the policy is upheld in the courts, it could, eventually, be
extended nationwide. The idea is just one of three controversial --
and contradictory -- schemes designed to curb the social problems
produced by Holland's unique drug laws.

Their fate is likely to determine the future of Dutch policy toward
cannabis.

The fact that these experiments are taking place in this historic city
is no coincidence. Within easy driving distance of Belgium, Germany
and France, Maastricht has proved a magnet for smokers eager to take
advantage of liberal laws. In their wake, a thriving trade in illicit
cannabis and harder drugs has grown up, accompanied by a rise in crime.

'Some of the coffee shops are in residential areas; people no longer
like living there.'

Spurred by complaints from police and residents, the mayor of
Maastricht, Geerd Leers, has decided that enough is enough. If Leers
gets his way, a new bylaw will soon require all those who visit coffee
shops to show identity cards proving they are residents. Initially,
the law will be enforced only in one coffee shop which will, if
necessary, take the case all the way to the European Court of Justice.

But if it loses, foreigners could be banned from all 750 coffee shops
in the Netherlands.

In Maastricht's sprawling modern, municipal headquarters they have
been debating for years how to deal with the special effects of the
country's liberal drugs policy on a border city. Though they still
support the principle of legalizing limited use of cannabis, they
believe bold steps are needed to tackle its unwelcome consequences in
Maastricht.

Ramona Horbach, one of the mayor's two drug advisers, argues: "People
who visit Maastricht are responsible for a lot of problems, from
parking problems to urinating in the streets. There is intimidation,
there are efforts to persuade people to buy (hard) drugs. They are
trying to sell cocaine, ecstasy or heroin."

Most of the coffee shops are to be found in the relatively small,
historic, centre of the city, concentrating the problems in one,
compact and highly visible zone.

But a small number are in other neighbourhoods, provoking local
opposition.

Horbach's colleague, Jasperina de Jonge, adds: "Many tourists come to
try to buy soft drugs here in the Netherlands that you cannot buy in
Germany, France or Belgium.

"Too many people are visiting. Sometimes there is rowdy behaviour.
Some of the coffee shops are in residential areas and people no longer
like living there."

Parents of young children feel particularly threatened by the
combination of rising traffic and a reduced sense of security.

Naturally it was not meant to be like this; the whole point of coffee
shops was to bring the use of soft drugs out of the sphere of
influence of the criminal gangs.

Though several nations have relaxed their laws on soft drugs, the
Netherlands leads the way in regulating their sale. Coffee shops are
licensed and no alcohol can be sold or consumed in them.

According to the Dutch government's own guide, the policy has been a
success. "Use of cannabis in the Netherlands is comparable to that in
other European countries, whereas in the United States it is
substantially higher," it says.

But this has been achieved through a contradictory law. Technically
all drugs are illegal in the Netherlands though coffee shops are
permitted to sell a maximum of five grams of cannabis without facing
prosecution. While it is an offence to produce, possess, sell, import
or export hard drugs or cannabis, it is not illegal to use drugs.

That means it is legal for a customer to buy five grams of cannabis in
a coffee shop, but it is illegal for the shop to acquire the stock to
sell.

While the law has decriminalized those who use cannabis in small
quantities, it has not done the same for those who grow it or buy it
for their coffee shops.

Maastricht is in the front line because of the massive demand from
German, Belgian and French day trippers.

According to the police, the south Limburg region of the Netherlands
has an estimated 1.2 million drug tourists every year.

Peter Tans, head of communications for the Maastricht police, says of
the estimated 21,000 people charged with crimes this year in south
Limburg, 4,500 will be foreigners.

To supply the demand at coffee shops -- inflated by foreigners --
Maastricht now supports a massive, subterranean, cannabis-producing
industry.

In the city this year 78 kilos of cannabis has been seized and 43,000
adult cannabis plants destroyed. Much of this had been farmed out to
low income households under the supervision of gangs. Police raid
homes around the city when alerted by the power companies of
electricity surges of the type required to run the grow lamps for
cannabis plants.

According to police calculations, a producer can make huge profits by
cultivating just 18 square metres with cannabis plants.

More alarmingly, the police fear that this subculture is making
Maastricht fertile territory for gangs dealing in hard drugs. Between
January and October 2005, a series of police raids netted 10 kilos of
heroin, 1.5 kilos of cocaine, 12,000 ecstasy tablets, $200,000 US in
cash and 11 firearms.

Tans says: "It can't go on like it has been for several years now. We
hope that the city's experiment will be successful because the
problems here give us a huge workload. It means 100,000 man hours
every year if 100 policemen are needed just to deal with the drugs
problem."

Prompted by mounting complaints, the city authorities, which have
extensive powers under Dutch law, have taken several initiatives. The
first was to clamp down gradually on the number of coffee shops. Each
one must be licensed and Maastricht has refused new approvals so that,
when owners leave or die, their businesses close. In the early to
mid-1990s Maastricht boasted 30 coffee shops; it now has just over
half that number.

But with that failing to solve the problem, the city is adopting two
radically different policies in addition to the effort to stop
foreigners being served in coffee shops.

The mayor is leading a push to shift some of the coffee shops out of
the city centre. Leers wants to create three drive-in centres on main
roads away from the heart of Maastricht and from residential areas to
service the demand from drug tourists.

Nicknamed "weedboulevard" or "McDope," this project directly
contradicts the policy of barring foreigners from coffee shops because
it is designed to serve that non-Dutch demand but keep it away from
the city centre.

Nevertheless the authorities know their residents-only policy on
cannabis will not be enforced for at least two years because of the
time the legal test case will take.

Moreover they want to start on the drive-in plans in case the ban on
non-residents proves to be against European law preventing
discrimination against EU citizens.

Finally, and most controversially, the city would like to see a
liberal measure adopted to regulate the so-called "back door" coffee
shop trade. Maastricht has offered to host an experiment in
cultivating cannabis under strict supervision to supply local coffee
shops and put criminal gangs out of business.

Though the logic of their policies suggests that the Netherlands
should allow legal production of cannabis, ministers have always
shrunk from such a step, knowing it would provoke an international
storm. De Jonge says: "The problem of the back door has to be solved.

"Local government recognizes that fact but national government has to
see that that is the next step."

For the coffee shop owners, the city's policies present an
unprecedented challenge. Marc Josemans, who runs Easy Going coffee
shop, accepts that there are difficulties in the city, but says that
"the only people who bring problems are the criminals who are being
attracted by the stream of cannabis clients on our streets."

Josemans, who is president of the society of official coffee shops in
Maastricht, is a fierce opponent of the city's efforts to bar
foreigners and has agreed to be prosecuted so he can contest the case.

He wants to work with the city council to agree a plan for moving some
of the coffee shops out of the city. However he points out that
persuading owners to relocate is impossible if their shops might later
be banned from serving non-residents.

"As long as this pilot (project to ban foreigners) remains in the air,
it is very hard to persuade people to spread out of the city," he
says. "We hope the city will postpone it by two or three years."

One area of consensus is over the city's desire to cultivate cannabis
legally. Because of the tough police line, "the good growers stop
growing", says Josemans. "They say it is too dangerous for them.

"Organized crime has big nurseries where they grow lower quality for
higher prices. The idealism of our growers has gone. The guys we used
to work with for 25 years are drawing back more and more." But while
local government and the coffee shops agree that this is at the root
of their problems, power to permit such an experiment rests in The
Hague.

Maastricht's plan to legalize the "backdoor" looks likely to be
blocked by national government. And that will leave the city trying to
manage the consequences of a flawed drug law with two, contradictory,
policies.

It will start creating coffee shops for foreigners outside the city
centre, while putting in place a law that could ban them from buying.