Amsterdam for preservation of coffee shop system
Amsterdam proposes the continuation of the current coffee shop system, but with the addition of a supplementary measure. The City urges for better regulation of the supply of drugs to coffee shops - the so-called 'backdoor' - in order to reduce the influence of organised crime. The supply chain should be closed in order to monitor where the drugs come from. Amsterdam also needs to implement the regulations required by the National Government placing a minimum on the distance between schools and coffee shops. These points and more are recorded in the memorandum Amsterdam Coffee Shop Policy 2008, recently drawn up by the Mayor and Aldermen. This memorandum provides a summary of the current coffee shop policy and evaluates the implementation of coffee shop policy in Amsterdam for a period of more than ten years. The memorandum will be released for publication and will soon be discussed in the City Council.
Mayor Cohen: “Regulating the backdoor is absolutely vital”
Although the sale of cannabis is an offence, coffee shops are not prosecuted provided they sell small quantities only and comply with the rules. The aim is to keep cannabis separate from hard drugs in order to protect cannabis users from exposure to hard drugs and the criminal elements who traffic in them. The City strictly enforces this policy of tolerance. Coffee shops are the most strictly regulated businesses in the hospitality industry, and owners applying for permits are subject to evaluations in compliance with the Public Administration Probity Screening Act (Wet Bibob). The city has also made very clear agreements with the coffee shops: they are not allowed to advertise or admit young people under the age of 18. There are no indications that coffee shops create proportionally more public order problems than other hospitality businesses in the city.
However, Amsterdam is concerned about possible organised crime influences in the supply of drugs; the so-called 'backdoor problem'. In the current policy, people who supply the cannabis to coffee shops are subject to prosecution. Mayor Cohen will therefore ask the National Office of the Public Prosecution Service to conduct an investigation into the matter.
The criterion that Amsterdam will implement for the distance between schools and coffee shops is a radius of 200 meters, with a minimum walking distance of 250 meters. There are currently 228 coffee shops in Amsterdam, including 140 in the Urban District ‘Centrum’. Initial estimates indicate that 43 coffee shops, including 26 in Centrum, do not meet the new distance criterion. The city will perform more accurate measurements in the near future. Those coffee shops located within the distance criteria will have until 31 December 2011 to cease operations.
The City government has decided that the distance rule will only apply to secondary education institutions, where the students are generally older than 12. Elementary education institutions have been excluded because elementary education students rarely use cannabis, and this measure would result in the forced closure of too many coffee shops. This would in turn increase the undesirable effects such as street sale of cannabis and place too much pressure on the remaining coffee shops in the city.
More than 25% of all coffee shops in the Netherlands are located in Amsterdam. A significant portion of the demand for drugs in Amsterdam, especially in the city centre, comes from tourists. Surveys among tourists indicate that 23% visit a coffee shop during their stay in the city. This does not result in disturbances to public order on the scale that towns on the border experience, due in part to the Amsterdam's distance from the border.
According to the policy memorandum 'Drug Use Prevention Amsterdam 2008-2011', the percentage of young people who use cannabis must be reduced from the current level of approximately 20% to around 15% by 2011. Amsterdam has planned a number of activities to achieve this goal. One of these is the drug education programme ‘De gezonde school en genotmiddelen’ ('Drugs and a Healthy School), which will be implemented in 70 secondary schools in Amsterdam next year, three quarters of the total number of schools in the city. Another project, ‘CIA’ (Cannabis Intelligence Amsterdam), has been developed especially for young people from immigrant backgrounds. CIA is a ‘peer’-project in which young people provide other young people with information on a voluntary basis. A third project, 'Wiet Wijs' ('Weed Wise'), is geared specifically towards young people involved in anti-truancy projects and social assistance programmes.
For more information on coffee shop policy and Dutch drug policies, see:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (EN)
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DE)
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (FR)
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (ES)
Press release - City of Amsterdam - 24 November 2008
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