AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - There's a whiff of crisis in the air at the Dutch Health Ministry: It's sitting on a pile of pot that it just can't sell. The Netherlands rolled out a program last year that allows patients to buy prescription marijuana at any pharmacy. Some medical insurance policies cover at least part of the cost, but often not enough to offset the pharmacy price. In a country where any adult can walk into a "coffee shop" and smoke a joint for much less than the government price, many say the experiment is a bust. [continues 353 words]
Legal There, but Trouble Persists NAALDWIJK, Netherlands - James R. Burton, who once served a year in a U.S. federal prison, still gets a kick out of the signs at his marijuana plantation here reminding employees whom to call in the event of an emergency: the Dutch police. Sixteen years ago, Burton did time in the maximum-security prison in Marion, Ill., and lost his family farm in Bowling Green, Ky., after being caught with an estimated $112,000 worth of marijuana that he said he needed to stave off glaucoma. Last year, the Dutch government gave him a five-year contract to grow more than 10 times that much. [continues 872 words]
NAALDWIJK, Netherlands: -- James Burton, who once served a year in U.S. federal prison, still gets a kick out of the signs at his marijuana plantation here reminding employees whom to call in the event of an emergency. The Dutch police. Sixteen years ago, Burton did time in a maximum-security facility in Marion, Illinois, and lost his family farm in Bowling Green, Kentucky, after being nabbed with an estimated $112,000 worth of marijuana that he said he needed to stave off glaucoma. Last year, the Dutch government gave him a five-year contract to grow more than 10 times that much. [continues 707 words]
Naaldwijk, The Netherlands -- James R. Burton, who once served a year in federal prison, still gets a kick out of the signs at his marijuana plantation here reminding employees whom to call in the event of an emergency: the Dutch police. Sixteen years ago, Mr. Burton did time in the maximum security jail in Marion, Ill., and lost his family farm in Bowling Green, Ky., after being caught with an estimated $112,000 worth of marijuana that he said he needed to stave off glaucoma. Last year, the Dutch government gave him a five-year contract to grow more than 10 times that much. [continues 1122 words]
There is no scientific proof that cannabis use induces schizophrenia, Dutch scientists say, questioning recent research and an argument the Dutch government uses to crack down on marijuana selling "coffee shops." In an article in this week's Magazine for Psychiatry, the three authors say that on the basis of currently available data "there is no justification for the proposed closure of coffee shops." Subsequent Dutch governments have tightened rules on the sale of marijuana in government-regulated coffee shops, resulting in a significant reduction in the number of cannabis cafes. [end]
AMSTERDAM - There is no scientific proof that cannabis use induces schizophrenia, Dutch scientists say, questioning recent research and an argument the Dutch government uses to crack down on marijuana-selling "coffee shops." In an article in this week's Magazine for Psychiatry, a peer-reviewed journal, the three authors say that on the basis of currently available data "there is no justification for the proposed closure of coffee shops." Often the first symptoms of schizophrenia occur during adolescence, when people start to experiment with drugs, but the scientists believe cannabis use only has a negative effect on people already genetically predisposed to the mental illness. [continues 102 words]
Following the recent controversy in the pages of The Sofia Echo about Bulgaria's new law that will mean that even those caught with only a single dose of marijuana could be sent to jail, two Dutch-born expat contributors to The Echo, MARLENE SMITS and KOOS SCHOUTEN, give their perspectives. Marlene Smits: IN 1976, the Dutch government decided to decriminalise marijuana for basically two reasons; to counter illegal trade and criminality, and in order to separate the soft and hard drug markets. [continues 1432 words]
Amsterdam - Los Angeles writer Ellen Clark and I became hopelessly lost while searching for a store that sold toothbrushes. That fact alone made wandering Amsterdam's narrow streets strange. But the walk turned weirder still when we stopped to ask directions from a kind bicycle repairman. His advice? "Turn left at the penis." Having seen a stone fountain of the male sex organ an hour before while visiting the Cannabis College in the heart of Amsterdam's famous Red Light District, we knew exactly where to go. [continues 712 words]
Move's Afoot to Crack Down on Amsterdam's 'Coffee Shops' Amsterdam, Netherlands - Red lights blink, beer flows and smoke floats. And floats. And floats. At ubiquitous "coffee shops" - the popular term for places that legally sell hashish and marijuana - college kids and Bohemian types lap up this city's famous free-and-easy lifestyle. But in an increasingly conservative Netherlands, a new review of drug laws may bring an end to Amsterdam's anything-goes reputation. Dutch government officials are to release a "cannabis letter" to parliament this week proposing a ban on the sale of the country's strong home-grown cannabis. [continues 473 words]
PLANS to tighten up the Netherlands' famously liberal attitude towards cannabis have met with strong resistance by local authorities across the country. The ruling conservative coalition drafted the new tougher drugs policy in the face of evidence showing a sharp increase in the potency of marijuana openly sold in many towns. The prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende's cabinet proposed to reduce the number of "coffee shops" where marijuana is sold and to ban sales of cannabis to foreign tourists in border areas. [continues 441 words]
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. [continues 276 words]
THE sale of certain types of cannabis could be banned in the Netherlands amid concern that they have become so powerful they could have the same addictive and psychological impact as hard drugs. The Dutch Government said that it would ban the most powerful forms of cannabis, such as "skunk", after research showed that they had doubled in strength in the past few years and could now be classified as a hard drug. Levels of THC -- tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychologically active ingredient -- in skunk have almost doubled from 9 per cent in 1999 to 15 per cent now, according to the Trimbos Institute, a drug research institute that monitors cannabis sales for the Health Ministry. The rise is due to new professional growing techniques. The institute said: "It has almost doubled in strength but we don't know what the effect on public health is." [continues 191 words]
The Dutch Government Is Considering a Ban on the More Highly Potent Forms of Cannabis Tourists who flock to Amsterdam to smoke cannabis in its "coffee shops" without fear of prosecution may find their choice curtailed as part of a proposed review of liberal Dutch drug laws. The Dutch government is considering a ban on the sale of highly potent strains of cannabis under the proposed review, cabinet sources said Tuesday. The center-right government in the Netherlands, where cannabis smokers can openly buy and smoke the drug in hundreds of government-regulated "coffee shops," is to discuss the proposed review in cabinet Thursday. [end]
Law Allows Doctors To Prescribe Drug GRONINGEN, Netherlands - With a lever controlled by his left arm - the only part of his body he can still move - Peter Boonman maneuvers his motorized wheelchair across the floor of his spacious apartment to a table where he keeps a vaporizing pipe and small plastic pharmaceutical containers of pungent marijuana. Getting high makes Boonman's life bearable these days. Since his multiple sclerosis was diagnosed at the end of the 1980s, his robust body has slowly deteriorated. At 52 years old, he is almost entirely paralyzed and is confined to his wheelchair or bed. [continues 222 words]
GRONINGEN, Netherlands -- With a lever controlled by his left arm -- the only part of his body he still can move -- Peter Boonman maneuvers his motorized wheelchair across his spacious apartment to a table where he keeps a vaporizing pipe and small plastic pharmaceutical containers of pungent marijuana. Getting high makes Mr. Boonman's life bearable. Since his multiple sclerosis was diagnosed at the end of the 1980s, his body has slowly deteriorated. At 52 years old, he is almost entirely paralyzed and is confined to his wheelchair or bed. [continues 499 words]
Smugglers arrested with less than three kilos of cocaine at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport will not be prosecuted under plans by the Dutch Government. The policy is designed to ease pressure on the judicial system due to a rising number of arrests of drug couriers. They are mostly from the Caribbean islands of the Netherlands Antilles. Some MPs fear the new policy will make the Netherlands a target for criticism. But the government says it is the only way to deal with the growing problem. [continues 137 words]
Public health researchers in the Netherlands now believe that there is "converging evidence" to show that using cannabis is a risk factor for schizophrenia. Researchers from the Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction warn that cannabis approximately doubles the risk of schizophrenia and that the risk increases in proportion to the amount of the drug used. The researchers draw their conclusions from a review of five longitudinal studies recently published in four medical journals, including the British Medical Journal (Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde 2003;44:2178-83). [continues 379 words]
The conservative coalition led by the Christian Democrats that currently governs the Netherlands has floated a proposal to restrict access to the country's famous cannabis coffee shops to Dutch nationals. The government has said it is responding to foreign pressure, notably from Germany, whose hash-hungry citizens flood across the border by the thousands each day to score, but the attack on the coffee shops fits precisely with the coalition's own anti-drug agenda. The Netherlands effectively decriminalized marijuana possession in 1976, and in the years since, the country's coffee houses have been tolerated as a technically illegal but socially acceptable means of allowing for the consumption and sale of cannabis. [continues 919 words]
A thick pall of sweet-smelling hashish has hung over the Netherlands since the first "coffee shop" opened its doors in 1972. Since then, the country's famously relaxed drug laws have attracted droves of weed lovers from across the globe and earned the country a sometimes controversial reputation for unparalleled liberality. At its peak in 1997 the country's network of coffee shops ran to almost 1,200 cafes where anyone over 18 could exercise their legal right to buy up to five grams (a sixth of an ounce) of marijuana at a time. But thirty years later, the novelty appears to have worn off and the increasingly conservative Dutch authorities are drawing up plans to turn back the clock. [continues 586 words]
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Faced with massive smuggling of ecstasy, a U.S. official said Friday the Dutch government needs to give authorities the power to use wiretaps and infiltrate criminal gangs to crack down on its production. The Dutch government "isn't serious enough" about closing down laboratories that ship tons of synthetic drugs to the United States, said John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Walters, attending a conference in Rome, spoke by telephone with The Associated Press. [continues 575 words]
Inside Netherlands
