SIDELINES //

And The World Begins To Weep – Holland Tightening Cannabis Industry

by Jesse Cooper

The sad news is coming in that two towns in the Netherlands, Roosendaal and Bergen-op-Doom, will be shutting down their cannabis cafes after evaluating that they could no longer cope with the approximate 25,000 “drug tourists” swarming in from France and Belgium.

“Soft drug tourism is the motor of criminality linked to (harder) drugs,” they said in a ‘joint’ statement. “It has an overwhelming negative effect on public order.” The towns are blaming the influx of out-of-towners for everything from traffic problems to the illegal selling of drugs. The eight clubs are all scheduled to be closed February 2009.

Until the closures take effect, coffee shops will be limited to distributing just two grams of bud a day to each customer, more than halving the current limit of five grams (also the legal possession limit in Holland). Neighbor town Terneuzen is considering taking similar measures in May, vowing to also limit opening hours for clubs as well.

Needless to say: What a bummer.

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Related topics: News, Sidelines, The Netherlands

About the Author


Jesse Cooper is a young writer living out of his backpack and bouncing around from place to place. After traveling through Mexico and all over California, he's currently trying to make a home for himself in Colorado. He can be reached via his blog, Documenting Failure.

Share Your Thoughts

I wonder how this will affect tourism. Will there be a steep drop, a slight one or none at all? This will really tell you what people go there for.

Carlo
October 28th, 2008

Like all good things, it comes to an end. I don’t blame them though…kudos to them for being liberal enough to have these laws in the first place. Unfortunately, as is usually the case, a few bad apples spoil the bunch.

On another note, I do like your use of ‘joint’ as a pun…I’m a sucker for a good pun. The cheesier the better.

[...] towns in Southwestern Netherlands will be closing down their cannabis cafés. Rosendaal and Bergen op Zoom intend in this way to stop the massive influx of “drug [...]

george p
February 11th, 2009

where else in the world allows the occasional smoke. I know it isn’t too hard to smoke in canada

Carlo
February 12th, 2009

There’s a reason Vancouver’s nickname is Vansterdam.





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