MAASTRICHT, Netherlands – A young man at a bus stop hisses at a passer-by: “What you looking for ... marijuana?” It’s a scene of street peddling that the Netherlands hoped to stamp out in the 1970s when it launched a policy of tolerating “coffee shops” where people could buy and smoke pot freely.
But Maastricht’s street dealers are back, local residents complain. And the reason is a crackdown on coffee-shops triggered by another problem: Pot tourists who crossed the border to visit the cafes and made a nuisance of themselves by snarling traffic, dumping litter and even urinating in the streets.
This exchange of one drug problem for another has become a headache for Maastricht – and may give reason for pause in Washington and Colorado, the two states that recently allowed the sale of marijuana for the first time. The Netherlands, the world pioneer in pot liberalization, has recently taken a harder line toward marijuana, with mixed results seen particularly in border towns such as Maastricht.
The central government clampdown has involved banning people who live outside the Netherlands from coffee shops, and shuttering shops that are deemed to be too close to schools. There was even a short-lived policy that said smokers had to apply for a “Weed Pass” to get into a coffee shop. The new rules were rolled out across the country between the middle of 2012 and the beginning of last year.
But while the central government made the rules, it’s up to local municipalities to enforce them – and most are embracing only part of the policy.
Amsterdam – with about 200 licensed coffee shops, one-third of the nationwide total – still lets foreigners visit them, although it is closing shops near schools.
One city that has embraced the crackdown whole-heartedly is Maastricht, in the southern province of Limburg, close to the Dutch borders with Belgium and Germany.
Its mayor, Onno Hoes, says he enforced the legislation to halt a daily influx of thousands of foreigners who crossed the borders to stock up on pot at its 14 coffee shops. That effort to end so-called “drug tourism” has been successful, local residents say, but the flip side has been a rise in street dealers like the man who recently tried to sell pot to an AP reporter in Maastricht.
Carol Berghmans lives close to the River Maas, whose muddy waters bisect the city, and whose banks are frequented by dealers he sees as he walks his dog each day.
He says there were certainly problems before the crackdown as cars filled with pot tourists poured into the cobbled streets of central Maastricht – but he described the atmosphere as “gezellig,” a Dutch word that loosely translates as cozy or convivial.
Since coffee shops were banned from selling to nonresidents, the numbers of foreigners has dried up. But the atmosphere in town has turned darker as street dealers now aggressively badger any potential clients and fight among themselves, Berghmans says.
“Now the drug runners are trying to sell on the street to anyone,” he says. “They are bothering everybody.”
Maastricht city spokesman Gertjan Bos said the problem of street dealing is not new, but concedes it has become more visible since the city’s crackdown reduced the number of drug tourists.
“We have a feeling our approach is working,” Bos said, “but we do still have to work on the street dealers.”
Netherlands rethinks pot
AMSTERDAM – The Netherlands may be known as home to one of the world’s most liberal drug policies, but it isn’t totally freewheeling. There are plenty of rules and regulations smokers and weed-selling coffee shops must stick to. Here are five things to know about drug laws in the Netherlands:
PERSONAL USE: The Dutch policy allows citizens to own small amounts of weed and cultivate a few cannabis plants. The maximum amount of weed you can carry is 0.2 ounces and you can grow no more than five cannabis plants.
COFFEE-SHOP RULES: Selling weed in coffee shops remains technically illegal but is tolerated by police and prosecutors so long as owners stick to the rules. No selling “hard drugs” like heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines. Do not cause a nuisance in the neighborhood. Do not sell weed to minors – that’s anyone 18 or younger. Do not sell more than 0.2 ounces at a time. Do not advertise your coffee shop.
NO FOREIGNERS: That’s not quite what the new tougher drug rules say. The government has mandated that only “residents of the Netherlands” can buy weed in coffee shops. So, in theory, an American who lives in the Netherlands can smoke pot in a coffee shop but a Dutchman who lives in Manhattan could not. Local municipalities are left to enforce this rule and most – including Amsterdam – don’t.
GROWING PAINS: While regular folks can grow up to five weed plants, authorities are very active in trying to stamp out commercial growers, usually criminal gangs, who cultivate cannabis on an industrial scale. One power company even introduced a “scratch-and-sniff” card to some residents in The Hague and Rotterdam so they could identify the smell of marijuana and report possible illicit growers to police.
Associated Press
