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The Netherlands' battle with coffeeshopsOver the past few months, the Dutch coffee shop policy once again was a topic of debate in the press on account of several policy documents, motions and reports. The debate primarily focused on the question whether the time was ripe to semi-legalise the ‘back door'. After all, the front door of the coffee shop already was being tolerated. Semi-legalisation of the back door would then mean that the provision of coffees hops was going to be decriminalised. At the same time, several people argued and still argue that the Dutch tolerance policy no longer leaves room to manoeuvre and that there is even talk of complete derailment.Surprisingly, also the man who is generally seen as being the ‘architect' of the Dutch drug policy expressed criticism about this policy. In a recent interview of the Dutch newspaper Trouw, former senior official at the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports and currently senior official in Brussels, Eddy Engelsman, strongly criticised the current number of coffees hops in the Netherlands. He speaks of proliferation. Cause: the lack of policy regulations. Engelsman did not always have this critical attitude towards the Dutch drug policy, however. For sixteen years, he had been defending the Dutch approach but now he states that the Dutch cannabis policy has been severely neglected and that matters have gone out of hand. Engelsman: "There are too many coffee shops and they all create nuisance. The cannabis trade is no different form the hard drug trade in criminal countries whereas our original aim was to decriminalise this substance by not persecuting the coffee shops. What makes things more complicated is that there was no coffee shop legislation that could regulate matters. In the meantime, we have been caught up by reality." Engelsman also states that the politicians were not overly concerned at the time. "They should have been and they could have been. We could have given more information and organised more information evenings but many people were strongly against that because it would express a moral judgment: do not do it, it is not right. The notion that you should not be too preoccupied with cannabis was too dominant." Meanwhile, the cannabis trade has become big business. The Dutch Union of Cannabis Retailers (BCD) claims that it has more than a million satisfied customers. Engelsman's findings are confirmed by a report of the Research and Documentation Centre (WODC) of the Dutch Ministry of Justice about organised crime in the Netherlands. "Due to the tolerance policy regarding soft drugs, a tangent plane is created between the judicial and the illegal scene. This does not only cause an illegal market to be maintained but also creates obscurity about the illegal aspect of the trade. In the lee of the tolerance policy, a number of Dutch groups have been able to develop into wholesale dealers in soft drugs. Only because of incredible efforts of police and justice, tracking down and persecuting these extensive criminal organisations has been successful. [...] Especially criminal organisations seem to benefit from the twilight zone that is being created by tolerating what is forbidden by law." Above-mentioned critical comments regarding our tolerance policy are uttered in a time during which there is more talk about a further extension of the tolerance policy for coffee shops. In October 1999, twenty mayors of medium-sized municipalities, led by the mayor of the Dutch city of Tilburg, Johan Stekelenburg, expressed their approval of a letter written by the chairman of the Dutch Drug Policy Foundation and fervent supporter of legalisation, Raymond Dufour. In this letter, he argues for also tolerating the supply of Dutch marijuana to coffee shops. Later, forty other mayors joined this group. Before that, Stekelenburg had already conducted a little experiment in his own city. At a meeting for the foundation of an interest group for coffee shop keepers, he launched the plan to let coffee shops in Tilburg be supplied by weed cultivators who are recognised and controlled by the municipality. The chief public prosecutor in the Dutch city Breda was absolutely opposed to this plan, as was the then Dutch minister of Justice Benk Korthals. In 1996, however, his predecessor, Winnie Sorgdrager, had already indicated during a debate in the Dutch Lower House about her Drug Policy Document that room should be given at the municipal level for such experiments. She said that she would have a sympathetic approach to them. Also, it would just fall inside the legal outlines. In April 1999, Mr. Korthals presented the policy document The road to the back door (Het pad naar de achterdeur), in which he made short work of his predecessor's ideas. In this policy document, Korthals indicates that he does not mean to finish with the current tolerance policy or to close all coffee shops but that he believes that legalisation of Dutch weed cultivation will not solve the mayors' problems. Moreover, the Netherlands has bound itself to international regulations to combat weed cultivation, Korthals said. According to him, it is necessary to conduct more research after the causes and effects of the discovered problems. If municipalities face problems in the area of crime and nuisance, these problems must be dealt with by letting law enforcement take place at a higher level, by means of criminal law as well as administrative law. Korthals also wants the Netherlands to continue making efforts to extent international support of its own drug policy. Furthermore, the government will continue to give high priority to the stimulation of innovative approaches towards education and prevention aimed at discouraging cannabis use amongst young people. By the way, many of these conclusions where already reached during the closed ‘Symposium about the (im)possibilities for ‘back door' experiments' of the Dutch Support and Information Point for Drugs and Safety (SIDV) which took place on 13 January 1999. The symposium aimed at collecting as much information as possible for the benefit of this policy document, including information about the problems on the local level regarding the supply of soft drugs to coffee shops, i.e. the ‘back door'. People thought about this subject from three different points of view, i.e. local government, crime and law enforcement. The government's credibility will be affected if it tolerates the use of soft drugs on the one hand but prosecutes the purchase of soft drugs. "This happens at the cost of the citizens' willingness to abide by the law - also in other cases. People's awareness of standards and values will diminish because of this," the symposium's report states. The problem of cultivation is especially pressing in the districts of medium-sized municipalities. These districts contain many weed cultivators. Especially for benefit recipients, the illegal cultivation of weed provides much additional income. Sometimes, weed is cultivated by order of ‘professionals', who promise the cultivator large amounts of money and to pay for possible fines if the cultivator is being exposed. The report indicates several dangers of illegal cultivation (see also framework 1) but it does not necessarily believe that the legalisation of Dutch weed cultivation is the best solution: "Generally, it is recognised that regulation of the ‘back door' - whether in the form of an experiment or not - does not necessarily mean that the criminal scene would be affected by it. The report also stresses that the profits of weed cultivation are attractive and that weed cultivation, trade and sale is controlled by people for whom commercial profit is top priority. "The question remains whether tolerance will ensure a better grip on that market as long as it remains commercially profitable." Furthermore, the report indicates that the majority of Dutch weed and other soft drugs are being sold outside coffee shops: "Such signs are based on the fact that large-scale municipal actions against weed cultivators hardly affect the supply of Dutch weed to coffee shops in those particular municipalities. Therefore, the impression is that more Dutch weed is being produced than is being sold in the coffee shops. It is not clear what is being done with this surplus. Probably, it is meant for export or there exist other national markets apart from the coffee shops. In connection with this, it is stated that the use of soft drugs amongst young people under the age of eighteen is increasing. In principle, they cannot get their soft drugs in the coffee shops due to the age limit of eighteen years. Then, the interesting question remains where they do get their drugs." And what about the other kinds of soft drugs? After all, the regulations that have been proposed only apply to Dutch weed and not the foreign weeds. Therefore, coffee shop keepers have already rejected the proposal. Despite all arguments against the legalisation of weed cultivation, several members of the Dutch Lower House tabled a motion in favour of this plan. In this motion, members of the Lower House Anastasis Apostolou of the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA), Boris Dittrich of the Dutch Democratic Party (D66) and Femke Halsema of the Dutch left-winged Environmental Party (GroenLinks) called on the government to develop regulations based on which the production of Dutch weed and its supply to coffee shops could be controlled (see also framework 2). In fact, it was a call for further legalisation of soft drugs, i.e. non-prosecution of the suppliers. According to Dittrich, this supply should meet certain requirements, however: "Only the locally tolerated coffee shops may be supplied, the quality of the product should be controlled, environmental legislation should be followed as well as legislation regarding spatial planning, the Dutch Pesticides Act and Working Conditions Act and other relevant legislation. Obviously, it is not allowed to export weed. Finally, weed cultivators must meet requirements regarding packaging and conduct of business as well as participate in prevention programmes that would be set up." This all sounds wonderful. However, the result of the votes was a close call. Before the vote, it was clear that the parliament was neatly divided in two: 75 in favour and 75 opposed. Opponents of the motion - Dutch Christian Democratic Party (CDA), People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the small Christian parties - felt that it attested to a large amount of naiveté. Member of the Lower House Wim van de Camp wondered how the petitioners would implement the motion in practice. "Is the mayor of Tilburg going to be personally responsible for the quality control of the hashish in his coffee shops? Is Mr Apostolou himself going to check which cultivators do and do not belong to his elite group?" Van der Camp also expressed caution for the so-called island idea: "The Netherlands is not an island, whether or not this applies to women trade, weapon trade, asylum seekers or serious crime. It also applies to soft drugs. If we go into this direction, I think that our ministers will have to do a really tough job abroad." Other opponents expressed similar notions. Eventually, the motion was carried by 73 against 72 votes - caused only by the fact that one more supporter was present. It had not really been a glorious victory. Furthermore, Korthals, supported by Dutch prime-minister Kok, made clear that he would not implement the motion - to the outrage of the petitioners. Korthals especially has objections against the implementation of the motion because the Netherlands would threaten to become isolated. The Netherlands would further distance itself from the international community. Korthals also had outspoken doubts about the extent to which the motion could be maintained: "We will continue to be dependent on imports and they could not be stopped if this motion would be implemented. In my opinion, therefore, much more control and regulation will be necessary in the implementation of this motion than is currently the case. The new legal cultivation will have to be controlled and maintained and the illegal production and trade will also have to be maintained. This is almost impossible to accomplish." In the news weekly Groene Amsterdammer, fellow petitioner Halsema called on the mayors to display civil disobedience: "The purple government is developing the nasty habit of disregarding decisions made by the Lower House. This debunking of the democratic majority is not appropriate. What happened to our motion takes the cake and is unacceptable. I expect, therefore, that the final word has not yet been said about this subject. In my opinion, the municipalities that have opted for the regulation of the cultivation and sale to the coffee shops' back doors, are now free to conduct experiments in this area." Mr D'Hondt, mayor of Nijmegen, is planning to do this. D'Hondt: "The municipalities will continue to conduct their own policies. The government's rejection will have an adverse effect on openness. As local administrators, however, we experience problems with coffee shops from which we cannot hide." Dutch prime-minister Kok in his turn warned the mayors not to begin such experiments and to think that they can ignore current regulations because in doing that they would override current legislation. "Everybody must abide by the law, including the mayors,' Kok said. Apostolou does not understand Kok's reaction. According to him, it is legally possible to experiment with the legalisation of weed cultivation. Therefore, there is no reason to hold back. So, it should be clear that opinions differ in the Netherlands. Practice becomes rule and it becomes increasingly more difficult to turn back developments. However, the Netherlands has stretched to its limits. Trying to reach over these limits would cause the Dutch government to loose credibility, nationally as well as internationally. And nobody would want that to happen. Published in De Hoop Magazine, no. 5, 2000 |
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