Does anyone really think this ban on foreigners buying pot in the Netherlands is going to work out? A judge there today upheld the proposed ban, which starts May 1 in the country's southern provinces before coming north in 2013, but we (and others) have some big doubts about its future. After all, the trade-loving Dutch (tulips!) have a long history of doing what is best for business.
To start, there are enforcement issues already arising in the south, where coffee shop owners in the southern city of Maastricht have said they plan to "disregard the new measures, forcing the government to prosecute one of them in a test case." The mayor of Amsterdam, where the bulk of the pot-dealing coffee shops are located, is also trying to figure out a compromise. And also, there is reality.
The new rules, created to stop "a rise in criminality linked to the Dutch drug trade," will require coffeeshops to only sell weed to card-carrying locals, and only 2,000 of them per shop. Because that's going to stop the stoners? As a lawyer trying to stop the ban on behalf of shop owners points out, regarding drug tourists, "If they’re not going to get it, they will ask Dutch people who actually have a pass for the coffee shop to buy it. Or they will fall into the hands of the illegal street sellers." And the whole reason the country's lax rules were created in the '70s was to get rid of those street peddlers!
So, yeah, the next year might not be the best one to go pot vacationing in the country's south. But we'll be really surprised if people's trips to Amsterdam stop including a spliff (or five) and a trip to Anne Frank's house (tree, RIP). Worse comes to worse, coffeeshops will just have designated tourist drug-buying locals hanging out at all times.
