Toleration for soft drugs only extends so far, and in the case of hashbars or coffee shops, they need to follow some simple rules to continue being tolerated. They are not allowed to advertise, sell hard drugs, sell to people under 18, sell more than 5 grams per sale, also sell alcohol or be within a certain distance of a school or the Dutch border. Each local government area sets the level of toleration exercised by its authorities. Some have stopped coffee shops being within metres of schools while others have pushed that boundary up to metres.
Some municipalities have specially marked outdoor areas where cannabis use is tolerated, while others have areas where it is not tolerated. A recent law change in the Dutch Parliament will mean that coffee shops need to operate as a private club. They will need to have members, their Soft drugs, like cannabis, are tolerated for personal recreational and now medicinal use. Hard drugs, like cocaine and heroin, are not tolerated. There is a public health consideration in tolerating cannabis.
As we see in New Zealand, legality is not really a barrier to use. Toleration within narrow boundaries creates a set of conditions that minimise the harm caused to the individual and to society. Toleration also allows the Netherlands to monitor the health of people who use drugs and provide comprehensive and successful recovery programmes which has seen cannabis use overall decline in the Netherlands over the past decade.
Peter Cluskey Amsterdam. Smoking cannabis in a coffee shop in Amsterdam. Commenting on The Irish Times has changed. To comment you must now be an Irish Times subscriber.
The account details entered are not currently associated with an Irish Times subscription. Please subscribe to sign in to comment. You should receive instructions for resetting your password. When you have reset your password, you can Sign In. Please choose a screen name. This name will appear beside any comments you post. Your screen name should follow the standards set out in our community standards. Screen Name Selection. Only letters, numbers, periods and hyphens are allowed in screen names.
Please enter your email address so we can send you a link to reset your password. Your Comments. Sign In Sign Out. We reserve the right to remove any content at any time from this Community, including without limitation if it violates the Community Standards.
We ask that you report content that you in good faith believe violates the above rules by clicking the Flag link next to the offending comment or by filling out this form. To combat drug-related crime and nuisance, a new toleration rule was introduced on 1 January only 'residents of the Netherlands' are permitted to visit coffee shops and purchase cannabis there. A resident of the Netherlands is someone who lives in a Dutch municipality and is registered there. Coffee shop owners are required to check that all those admitted to the shop, and allowed to purchase cannabis there, are residents of the Netherlands aged 18 years or older.
They should check these facts, for instance, by asking the person to produce a valid identity document or residence permit, in combination with an extract from the municipal population register. It is against the law to grow marijuana and cannabis plants. In cases where no more than 5 plants are grown for personal consumption, the police will generally only seize the plants.
If more than 5 plants are found, the police may prosecute. In combating cannabis growing, the police collaborate with organisations including housing associations, the Tax and Customs Administration, and energy companies.
0コメント