One toke over the line

Pot may be coming of age in California but it is falling out of favor in Europe. From the Financial Times:

Dutch look at weeding out cannabis caf�s
Coffee shops legally selling cannabis have been a feature of Amsterdam�s streets for more than 30 years, both a magnet for younger tourists and a symbol of the Dutch brand of liberal exceptionalism.

But the fragrant haze found in the city�s 200 or so establishments could be dispersed under plans by the incoming government, which is looking to roll back the �tolerance policy� that has allowed such coffee shops to operate since 1976.

Coinciding with a tightening of laws around prostitution � another tolerated industry � the authorities� new stance on cannabis is raising questions as to whether Dutch society is moving away from laisser-faire traditions, which have included some of the earliest gay-friendly policies in Europe and the provision of free contraception to teenage girls.

Certainly the outlook for coffee shops is bleak. Among the few policies that the three parties in the new coalition agree upon is the need to cut back on, if not entirely abolish, coffee shops. The governing agreement released last week laid out plans that will force them to become member-only clubs and shut down those located within 350 metres of schools.

They are also advancing the idea of prohibiting the sale of cannabis to non-Dutch residents, which amounts to a death knell for many coffee shops, particularly in Amsterdam, the Netherlands� biggest city.

�It�s a head-on attack,� says Gerrit Jan ten Bloemendal, vice-chairman of the Netherlands Cannabis Platform, a lobby group opposing the proposal, and himself a coffee-shop operator.

The coffee-shop crackdown comes as part of a broader law-and-order drive promoted in particular by Geert Wilders, the anti-Islam firebrand whose far-right Freedom Party (PVV) made the biggest gains in the June elections. Though the PVV is not formally part of the incoming coalition, it helped draft parts of the legislative programme as part of a deal to support the government.

Wilders seriously rocks -- there are a lot of people who think that he is a neo-Nazi but he is about as far from any kind of National Socialism as you can get. You must not forget that the Nazi party was the National Socialist German Workers Party and they were hardline big-government, confiscatory taxation and government dole to the masses.