Pubdate: Wed, 05 Sep 2012
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2012 Associated Press
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388

Netherlands

CANNABIS CAFES MOUNT GET-OUT-THE-VOTE DRIVE

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - With slogans like "Don't let your vote go up 
in smoke," owners of the free-wheeling cafes where bags of hashish 
are sold alongside cups of coffee are mounting a 
get-outthe-stoner-vote campaign ahead of next week's Dutch election.

The campaigners are calling on their sometimes apathetic dopesmoking 
clientele to get out and support political parties that oppose the 
recently introduced "weed pass" that is intended to rein in the cafes 
known as coffee shops and close them altogether to foreign tourists.

At a coffee shop in The Hague, a staff member selling weed wears a 
T-shirt emblazoned with a modified Uncle Sam-style poster calling on 
smokers to "Vote against the weed pass on Sept. 12." Under the new 
system, coffee shops become member-only clubs and only Dutch 
residents can apply for a pass to get in. The cafes are limited to a 
maximum of 2,000 members.

The online vote2smoke.nl campaign offers cannabis and marijuana users 
voting advice by showing which political parties support dumping the 
"weed pass," which came into force in the southern Netherlands 
earlier this year and is intended to roll out over the whole country 
in coming years.

Joep Oomen of the legalize cannabis movement says it is hard to know 
exactly how big the pot-smoking constituency is, but he estimates it 
at around half a million people in this nation of 16 million.

Basically the advice to them boils down to this: Voting for any 
political party on the left is good, and any party on the right is bad.

One champion of the smokers' lobby is Socialist Party leader Emile 
Roemer, a jovial, 50-yearold former teacher whose party is expected 
to make significant gains at the Sept. 12 election.

He said the pass system simply pushes drug dealers onto the streets 
and out of the controlled environment of the coffee shops. However, 
the coffee shops still have a fight on their hands - the conservative 
VVD party of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte is topping polls and 
looks set to become the biggest single party. It was a VVD-led 
coalition that introduced the weed pass and it is standing by the policy.

Coffee shops have long been tolerated in the Netherlands because 
authorities believe they keep dope smokers away from street dealers 
of more dangerous and outlawed drugs like cocaine and heroin.

The cafes have become tourist magnets in Amsterdam, but Rutte's 
government clamped down on them because they are blamed for crime, 
traffic and parking problems in towns and cities close to the Dutch 
borders with Germany and Belgium.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom