Cannabis clubs are no solution

A national government commission has called for coffee shops where the sale and consumption of soft drugs is allowed in the Netherlands to be closed down and replaced by so-called cannabis clubs. The liberal daily NRC Handelsblad is sceptical about the idea: "The carefree subculture of soft drugs of the past has gone to be replaced by a hard business that has nothing soft about it. … But the commission has not hit on the ideal solution. … Even the commission is trying to balance the need to protect the private consumption of cannabis and the need to combat its negative spin-offs. … The cannabis clubs are a bid to restrict consumption to the domestic market. But it seems improbable that they will be able to ban citizens from other EU states from signing up as members. … Such solutions [like that of legalising cannabis production] require a political consensus within the EU. Because the question is: Is cannabis consumption among adults socially acceptable or not? This question is too big for the Netherlands alone to answer."

» full article (external link, Dutch)

» To the complete press review of Friday, July 3, 2009