Drug policy of the Netherlands

The drug policy of the Netherlands officially has four major objectives:

By contrast, most other countries take the point of view that recreational drug use is detrimental to society and must therefore be outlawed. This has caused friction between the Netherlands and other countries about the policy for cannabis, most notably with France and Germany. As of 2004, Belgium seems to be moving toward the Dutch model and a few local German legislators are calling for experiments based on the Dutch model. Switzerland has had long and heated parliamentary debates about whether to follow the Dutch model on cannabis, most recently deciding against it in 2004; as of 2005, a ballot initiative is in the works on the question. A new law came into force in the Netherlands requiring people to have membership cards to gain entry to coffeeshops, these cards are only available to residents of the Netherlands who need to apply for the card, (known as a 'weed pass') this was promptly adopted by several provinces including the cities of Maastricht and Eindhoven, there were proposals for this to apply to Amsterdam in 2012, although after fierce opposition from the Mayor of Amsterdam and many coffeeshop owners in Amsterdam the Government decided to allow the individual provinces to determine their own policy, of which Amsterdam rejected the membership cards and therefore the entry to coffeeshops and the sale of cannabis remains permissible to anyone over the age of 18. By test, a few coffeeshops in the south of the Netherlands were already forced to handle this new law. Residents are complaining about growing criminality problems due to drug dealers in the streets.