MAASTRICHT'S BAD EXPERIENCE WITH CANNABIS

One Town in the Netherlands Has Become a Magnet for Smokers From
Around Europe. but Now the Council Has Had Enough.

Stephen Castle Reports on a Crackdown That Could Herald the End of
Dutch Liberalism

Aboard the Mississippi Boat, moored off the banks of the Maas river,
the management has suddenly come over 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 towards 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 trade in illicit
cannabis and harder drugs has grown up, accompanied by a rise in crime.

Spurred on by complaints from police and residents, the Mayor of
Maastricht, Geerd Leers, has decided that enough is enough. If Mr
Leers gets his way, a new by-law will soon require all those who
visit coffee shops to show identity cards proving that 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 for 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 drugs policy on a border city. Though they still support
the principle of legalising limited use of cannabis, they believe
bold steps are needed to tackle its unwelcome consequences here.

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.

Ms 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 government's own guide, the policy is 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 grammes 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 grammes of cannabis
in a coffee shop, but it is illegal for the shop to acquire the stock to sell.

While the law has decriminalised those who use cannabis in small
quantities it has not done the same for those who grow it or buy it
into 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
drugs tourists every year.

Peter Tans, head of communications for the Maastricht police, says
that, 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 78kg 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 lamps for cannabis
plants (usually power supplies are diverted illegally). According to
police calculations, a producer can make €97,640 (UKP67,000) profit a
year by cultivating 18sqm of 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, police in the city made 193 arrests in 23
raids, seizing 10kg of heroin, 1.5kg of cocaine, 12,000 ecstasy
tablets, €171,000 in cash and 11 firearms.

Mr 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. Mr 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 "weed boulevard" 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 straight away on the drive-in plans in
case the bar 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. Ms De Jonge
says: "The problem of the back door has to be solved. Local
government recognises 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 the 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." Mr 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 Mr Josemans, "they say it is too dangerous for them.
Organised 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 legalise 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.

Just a few yards from the Mississippi Boat at Smoky's floating coffee
shop, half a dozen people are sitting, smoking, sipping soft drinks
and listening to loud rock music. Cannabis is on sale for between
€4.50 and €15 a gram and there is little support for any crackdown on
the trade.

Most of the allegations against the coffee shops are false, says one
client, adding: "You've heard about bar fights but no one's ever
heard of a coffee shop fight".

Smoky's sells less than 8 per cent to clients from Maastricht and
places like this know the new law could drive them out of business.
The man behind the bar has one word for the city's plans: "stupid".

Aboard the Mississippi Boat, moored off the banks of the Maas river,
the management has suddenly come over 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 towards 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 trade in illicit
cannabis and harder drugs has grown up, accompanied by a rise in crime.

Spurred on by complaints from police and residents, the Mayor of
Maastricht, Geerd Leers, has decided that enough is enough. If Mr
Leers gets his way, a new by-law will soon require all those who
visit coffee shops to show identity cards proving that 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 for 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 drugs policy on a border city. Though they still support
the principle of legalising limited use of cannabis, they believe
bold steps are needed to tackle its unwelcome consequences here.

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.

Ms 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 government's own guide, the policy is 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 grammes 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 grammes of cannabis
in a coffee shop, but it is illegal for the shop to acquire the stock to sell.

While the law has decriminalised those who use cannabis in small
quantities it has not done the same for those who grow it or buy it
into 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
drugs tourists every year.

Peter Tans, head of communications for the Maastricht police, says
that, 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 78kg 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 lamps for cannabis
plants (usually power supplies are diverted illegally). According to
police calculations, a producer can make €97,640 (UKP67,000) profit a
year by cultivating 18sqm of 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, police in the city made 193 arrests in 23
raids, seizing 10kg of heroin, 1.5kg of cocaine, 12,000 ecstasy
tablets, €171,000 in cash and 11 firearms.

Mr 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. Mr 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 "weed boulevard" 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 straight away on the drive-in plans in
case the bar 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. Ms De Jonge
says: "The problem of the back door has to be solved. Local
government recognises 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 the 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." Mr 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 Mr Josemans, "they say it is too dangerous for them.
Organised 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 legalise 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.

Just a few yards from the Mississippi Boat at Smoky's floating coffee
shop, half a dozen people are sitting, smoking, sipping soft drinks
and listening to loud rock music. Cannabis is on sale for between
€4.50 and €15 a gram and there is little support for any crackdown on
the trade.

Most of the allegations against the coffee shops are false, says one
client, adding: "You've heard about bar fights but no one's ever
heard of a coffee shop fight".

Smoky's sells less than 8 per cent to clients from Maastricht and
places like this know the new law could drive them out of business.
The man behind the bar has one word for the city's plans: "stupid".