AMSTERDAM -- The government announced yesterday it will ban the sale of marijuana and hashish to foreigners in a border town in a pilot program aimed at curbing "drug tourism."

The southern town of Maastricht is just across the border from both Germany and Belgium.

"We want to end all aspects of drugs tourism, the fact that people come to the Netherlands to use soft drugs or to take them home," said Justice Ministry spokesman Wim Kok.

The liberal Dutch laws on soft drugs, whose use is officially illegal but is condoned in a tacit acknowledgment that there are insufficient police to arrest all offenders, have been an irritant to other European countries.

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