 | Pot Culture: Drug Tourists Go Dutch |
 By Megan Farrington, AlterNet Posted May 27, 2005.
A Dutch official hopes the creation of "cannabis boulevards" will help
alleviate the problem of drug tourism in the Netherlands.
Gerd Leers was once a staunch prohibitionist in the Dutch Parliament,
but three years as a local leader have changed his perspective. Leers,
now the Mayor of Maastricht, a Dutch border city, is calling for the
creation of "cannabis boulevards" in border areas to ease problems
associated with cross-border drug tourism. He also seeks regulation of
the supply of marijuana to coffee shops to eliminate a robust black
market created by the fact that production of the plant is illegal in
the Netherlands.
Border areas attract a large number of "drug tourists" from Germany,
Belgium and France. Maastricht has 1.5 million visitors every year, the
majority of whom come not only to enjoy the pleasant atmosphere of the
city, but also to buy marijuana. The demand created by these tourists is
accompanied by an increase in drug-related crime. Because it is illegal
to grow marijuana in the Netherlands, police in Maastricht spend a great
deal of time removing home-based grow operations. Small plantations
exist mostly in the houses of low-income families, but are overseen by
professional criminals.
This strategy allows those running the plantations to take smaller
losses when the grow operations are raided, while impoverished families
take the fall. This "cottage industry" also gives rise to turf wars
among the groups running plantations. In addition, border towns wrestle
with crime related to the illegal sale of larger amounts of marijuana
than are available in the official -- strictly regulated -- coffee
shops, and crime related to the sale of illegal drugs such as cocaine
and heroin.
Leers advocates legalization of marijuana production, and supports the
idea of centralized locations where people can buy marijuana --
"cannabis boulevards" -- to alleviate the impact of drug tourism on
border cities. Last month, the Netherlands' Minister of Government
Reform and Inner City Problems, Alexander Pechtold, spoke out in support
of the "cannabis boulevard" approach, and advocated loosening European
Union (EU) policies around marijuana as a long-term solution.
Pechtold's position -- at loggerheads with that of the more conservative
Minister of Justice, Piet Hein Donner -- was backed by the mayors of 20
of the 30 most populous cities in the Netherlands. In the wake of
Pechtold's comments, the Dutch Parliament held a debate about possible
experimentation with marijuana policy, which resulted in two motions:
one instructing the Dutch government to approach other EU governments
for their views on a more liberal marijuana policy, and the other
telling the government to develop experiments exploring the regulation
of marijuana growth to supply coffee shops.
Leers recently convened a conference of experts and local authorities
from the area as well as the adjoining German and Belgian provinces to
work toward a regional liberalization arrangement that could also serve
as an example for other European regions, given that an EU-wide
arrangement does not seem likely any time soon.
Speakers at the conference (among them law professors, representatives
of the treatment sector, the Lord Mayor of the Belgian city of Liege and
the President of the Association of Maastricht Coffeeshops) stressed the
advantages of the Dutch public health approach to drug policy, which
results in generally lower problematic drug use than is seen in the
neighboring German and Belgian provinces. They also presented statistics
that they said demonstrate the superiority of this approach to more
repressive policies practiced in countries like the United States and
elsewhere.
The conference adopted a resolution calling for closer regional
cooperation on law enforcement and experimentation with strictly
regulated and certified marijuana growing at the regional level. A
follow-up conference with more concrete proposals will take place later
this year.
This strategy by authorities at the local and regional level has a
parallel in state-based drug policy reform work in the United States.
The traditional "laboratories of democracy," states often blaze the
trail for the slower-moving federal government to embrace reform.
Similarly, regional reforms in Europe initiated by Leers and others who
recognize that repressive policies do not work can pave the way for
common sense drug policy reforms in the EU as a whole.
Megan Farrington is the web content assistant at the Drug Policy
Alliance in Washington, DC.
|
|
|
|
| |
| Login |
|
You can register for some special extra features. | |
| Article Rating |
Average Score: 4.25
Votes: 4
| |
|
