Travel Forum / Destinations / Europe / July 2008

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - This city's many fine coffee shops have faced
many problems over the years and are still going strong. But, on July 1,
the Netherlands will be one of the last European countries to ban
smoking in bars and restaurants in compliance with EU law.

The Health Ministry says the ban will apply to cafes that sell
marijuana, known as coffee shops. But this being Holland, which for
centuries has experimented with social liberalism, there's a loophole:
The ban covers tobacco but not marijuana, which is technically illegal
anyway.

But that still leaves coffee shops and their customers in a bind. Dutch
and other European marijuana users traditionally smoke cannabis (both
pot and hash) pot mixed with tobacco.

"It's the world upside down: In other countries they look for the
marijuana in the cigarette. Here they look for the cigarette in the
marijuana," said Jason den Enting, manager of coffee shop Dampkring.

Shops are scrambling to adapt. One alternative is "vaporizer" machines,
which heat weed smokelessly. Another is to replace tobacco with herbs
like coltsfoot, a common plant that looks like a dandelion and that
smokers describe as tasting a bit like oregano.

But most shops are just planning to increase their sales of hash
brownies and pure weed — and are hoping the law isn't enforced.

Michael Veling, owner of the 4-20 Cafe and a board member of the
Cannabis Retailers' Union, said he expected a small decline in sales as
smokers are forced to separate their nicotine addiction from their
marijuana use.

But he expects the long-term effects to be minimal. "It's absurd to say
that coffee shops will go bankrupt in the second week of July.
Nonsense," he said.

Veling is instructing his staff to send tobacco smokers outside, but he
doesn't expect all coffee shops to do the same. He said some owners will
ignore the ban — and will probably get away with it, at least for a
while... coffee shops were illegal for years after all.

But "if obeying the smoking ban becomes a condition of renewing your
business license, just watch how fast it will happen," he said. "That's
the way things work."

Chris Krikken, spokesman for the Food and Wares Authority, charged with
enforcing the ban, said his agency won't be targeting coffee shops in
particular.

"For the first month we'll just be gathering information about
compliance in a wide range of hospitality businesses. Depending on what
we find, we may focus more squarely on a sector that's lagging," he said.

But he said individual businesses caught allowing customers to smoke
will be warned and definitely checked again. "Repeat offenders will face
escalating fines," he said.

Marijuana possession is illegal but openly tolerated in the Netherlands,
but smokers are not prosecuted for holding up to 5 grams. Around 750
cafes — with almost half of them in Amsterdam — are licensed to have up
to 500 grams in stock at any one time.

The Dutch "tolerance" policy recognizes that some people will smoke pot
regardless of laws, so it might as well happen in a safe orderly way.

Cannabis use in Holland ranks somewhere in the middle compared to other
nations and is lower than in the U.S., France and England, according to
statistics compiled by the United Nations' Office on Drugs and Crime.

The Dutch government, currently led by a conservative coalition with a
religious bent, is slowly squeezing back the number of coffee shops by
not renewing licenses when shops close.

Growers are arrested, leaving coffee shop owners struggling to obtain
their main product.

"The rules are being set to pester us out of business one by one, slowly
but surely," said Richard van Velthoven, manager at The Greenhouse, who
said he feared being shut down for tobacco violations.

"I've taken the cigarette machines out, I'm putting Coltsfoot on the
tables, I've bought extra vaporizers, the staff is watching out — what
more can I do?" he said.

German tourist Lars Schmit said lamented the possible end of an era.

Without coffee shops, he said, "a little bit of Amsterdam will die."