Amsterdam mayor threatens (again) to ban cannabis for tourists

The mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, is keen to to continue its plans to close the site to tourists the city's coffeeshops, believing it to be the only way to bring the local cannabis market under control.

She believes that there is a «worrying interdependence» between the soft and hard drug trades, and that «money from the lucrative cannabis trade easily finds its way into hard drugs».

«Many of the city's major problems are fueled by the cannabis market: from the nuisances caused by drug tourism to serious crime and violence,» she declared.

«Banning sales to tourists is a necessary intervention... and a first step towards regulation».

Legal tourism

Every year, some three million foreign tourists visit a coffee shop in Amsterdam, a part of the country where cannabis sales are not restricted to residents.

Nevertheless, Femke Halsema argues that the introduction of a ban would be the best temporary measure to ensure that the cannabis market remains manageable while the regulated cannabis production experiments, with legal production, are being set up.

However, the government recently announced that the pilot project had run into a number of problems and that it was ready to move ahead. would not begin until 2023. The project, launched five years ago, was designed to eliminate the grey area between authorized coffee shops and illegal producers.