Draft legislation sweeps away the Netherlands' traditional policy of tolerance, writes ISABEL CONWAYin Amsterdam
MARIJUANA IS the Netherlands’ biggest cash crop behind tomatoes and cucumbers. But a major clampdown on all aspects of the country’s soft drugs industry is looming and could eventually wipe out all but a few of the so-called coffee shops as legislators move to make everyone involved in the supply chain culpable and liable to heavy fines and up to three years in jail.
The draft legislation introduced by Dutch minister of justice Ernst Hirsch Ballin sweeps away the traditional policy of tolerance – which has long infuriated neighbouring countries Belgium and Germany, as well as France – by stating that all preparations “making it possible for illegal marijuana growing will be a criminal offence”.
With elections in June, the proposed changes are seen as an attempt to achieve a lasting legacy for Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende and the Christian Democratic Appeal party coalition partners, who have waged a battle for zero tolerance, arguing that organised crime is supplying and running many of the 650 soft drugs dens commonly known as coffee shops.
Those who will be targeted under the new law range from equipment suppliers who stock seeds, growing kits and lamps for marijuana cultivation, and often export their goods abroad via the internet, to couriers and even electricians who install the necessary systems for illegal plantations.
The Netherlands decriminalised the consumption and possession of less than 5g of cannabis in 1976. But cultivation remains illegal and, according to police, is effectively in the hands of the criminal underworld.
At its peak, the Netherlands’ network of coffee shops ran to 1,500 cafes, where anyone over 18 could buy up to 5g of marijuana at a time. But 35 years on, increasingly conservative governments are turning back the clock.
A “Canna-pass” will soon be introduced in the southern province of Limburg in a bid to discourage drug tourism. Those wishing to buy cannabis must be registered at a coffee shop, which issues them with a pass allowing them to buy a maximum of 3g of marijuana a day. To prevent customers – especially dealers – from hopping from shop to shop, the outlets will be hooked up to a system which bans them from accepting multiple orders.
Crucially, customers must pay with a Dutch debit card, effectively cutting off tourists, the authorities hope.
In two other southern border areas, councils have vowed to prohibit the sale of cannabis in a bid to cut down on drug tourists, which number some 25,000 a week.
In Amsterdam, famed for its coffee shops, the smoking ban has driven the thick pall of sweet- smelling hashish out into public parks and alleyways.
With figures showing a disturbing growth in use among teenage boys and a corresponding drop in school performance, coffee shops close to schools have been shut down. Coffee shops linked to organised crime and money laundering in the famed red-light district have also disappeared.
In a landmark case last month, a Dutch court fined the Checkpoint marijuana bar in the southern town of Terneuzen near the Belgian border €10 million for overstepping a rarely enforced limit on the amount of soft drugs it could have in stock.
Police raids on two occasions netted 200 kilos of cannabis. Such large quantities of drugs had turned the coffee shop into a criminal organisation, the judges ruled.
Although growing marijuana plants is technically illegal, the public prosecutor’s office traditionally does not take action against those who grow up to five plants.
In theory the coffee shops are supplied by these “home” growers, but supply chains have always been a grey area, with successive justice ministers admitting that what happens “at the back door” of coffee shops is a major problem.
Huge plantations and imported shipments involving some the country’s most notorious crime networks are regularly uncovered. It is also estimated that up to 80 per cent of the ultra-strong homegrown cannabis is trafficked abroad.
According to justice ministry figures, the Dutch marijuana growing industry has a turnover of between €2.5 billion and €5 billion a year.
Last spring Dutch police unveiled a new weapon in their drug crime-fighting arsenal: a specially designed robotic mini helicopter that hovers over fields. It is equipped with odour and video detection, which can trace cunningly disguised cannabis hemp plantations in remote locations.
But police authorities are under increasing pressure to crack down on the mass growing of marijuana. The justice minister says the new legislation will grant them greater powers.