Coffeehouses Oppose Dutch Government’s New ‘Weed Passes’

The era of Dutch tolerance of marijuana use may be going up in smoke.

The Dutch government will soon issue “weed passes” to a limited number of Dutch residents wishing to score pot in traditional coffeehouses.

The new law’s intended to keep away “drug tourists” but coffeehouse owners say the law’s unfair and will cut into their profits.

Nol van Schaik manages Indica, one of 16 coffeehouses in the Dutch city of Haarlem that plans to openly defy the new law.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: The Dutch may have another economic concern. They’re about to lose some tourism. There’s a certain group of visitors who come for Holland’s famously relaxed drug rules. Some of you may even know who I’m talking about. But soon you’ll have to get a weed pass to score cannabis in Dutch coffeehouses, and only Dutch residents will be eligible for those passes. A court upheld that law today in the Netherlands. It’s intended to crack down on drug tourists. So let’s get a reaction from the owner of the Indica coffee shop in the Dutch city of Haarlem. Nol van Schaik, what is on the menu today at your coffeehouse?

Nol van Schaik: Good afternoon. On the menu we have White Widow, the world famous cheese Amnesia Haze. We have Pakistan genetic Moroccan grown. We have Isolator hash. We have Shiva Gold. We have a huge menu.

Werman: What are your thoughts about this idea of weed passes that will essentially exclude foreigners from buying pot in your coffee shop?

van Schaik: I think it’s going to ruin us. We held an inquiry; I’m also the secretary of the coffee shop entrepreneurs, 16 coffee shops in Haarlem united, and we held an inquiry six weeks ago. And that shows that 87 percent of our customers, locals, don’t want to register as a cannabis consumer.

Werman: How soon will these weed passes be issued, and are you planning to go along with the plan or fight it?

van Schaik: Next Tuesday. After we did the inquiry showing that we will go bankrupt if we introduce the weed pass, we decided not to do it with all 16 coffee shops in Haarlem. Closing the coffee shops is no option.

Werman: Why did the Dutch government decide to issue these weed passes? What’s the point?

van Schaik: I don’t know what the point is. I can imagine that in the border areas, the cities that have coffee shops, they are flushed with tourists. But it’s not so much a drug problem, it’s a parking problem. Because the tourists clog up the cities; the locals can hardly do their shopping and things like that. So I think that is more of the problem than a drug problem being caused by the coffee shops as such.

Werman: The Dutch tolerance approach to cannabis, as you know, began in the ’70s as a way to reduce street dealing. With the policy now becoming more intolerant, do you think street dealing and crime is going to make a resurgence?

van Schaik: Oh yeah. It will. In the town of Venlo there’s rumor that groups of people are already buying places to be able to serve the market that will be refused by the coffee shops, to be able to sell weed to foreigners that don’t have a weed pass.

Werman: What are the customers at Indica, how have they been reacting to the ruling? The Dutch customers.

van Schaik: They don’t want to register.

Werman: They’re not going to register.

van Schaik: No.

Werman: What do you object to most? That weed passes will cut into your profits, or just the whole nagging bureaucracy of this idea?

van Schaik: Both. It will cut into my profits, of course. But we have to check ID on people already, to see if they’re 18 when they’re coming in. And we can only have 500 grams, so I have to drive up and down 20 times a day to refill a cup of weed, because if you have a big menu you can only have 30 grams of each strain available. And if it’s sold out you have to bring in a new bag. So it’s “ we already have a lot of things to do, running a coffee shop, and I don’t think we need all those unpleasant stories of having to turn people down at the entrance. I don’t like that.

Werman: You know, slowly states in the U.S. are beginning to realize the benefits of medicinal marijuana. Strangely, the Netherlands is going in the reverse direction.

van Schaik: Yeah, that’s what I say. At the moment the world starts following Holland as a model, Holland is killing the model.

Werman: Thank you very much, Nol.

van Schaik: You’re welcome. And you’re welcome in my coffee shop next year as well, because we just are not going to do it.

Werman: Nol van Schaik, who runs the Indica coffee shop in Haarlem in the Netherlands.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.