cannabisnews.com: MPs Favour Legalisation of Soft Drugs MPs Favour Legalisation of Soft Drugs Posted by CN Staff on April 22, 2003 at 10:24:34 PT Top Story Source: Expatica.com Amsterdam — A large parliamentary majority, with the exception of the Christian Democrat CDA, supports a plea from the president of the Maastricht court to legalise soft drugs. The CDA opposes the legalisation of marijuana and hash due to concerns that the Netherlands will be overwhelmed by drug tourists, newspaper De Volkskrant reported on Tuesday. Instead, the CDA has urged for a strict enforcement of the presence policy of toleration. "We must tune our drugs policy to that of surrounding nations, otherwise you will only import more drug troubles," CDA Lower House MP Sybrand van Haersma Buma said. But Liberal VVD MP Laetitia Griffith said her party supported the legalisation of soft drugs because drugs were a part of society and people needed to learn to live with that reality. Since the late 1970s, the Netherlands has applied a policy of toleration towards soft drugs and has allowed the establishment of about 800 coffee shops for the prime purpose of selling marijuana. Despite the toleration, the coffee shop permit system has been more strictly supervised in recent years. But in an interview published on the weekend in the Volkskrant, the president of the Maastricht court, P. P. Lampe, criticised the fact that the judicial system is bogged down by drugs cases. Lampe said more serious crimes remain unpunished or untried because of lengthy judicial delays and the legalisation of drugs, starting with soft drugs, would alleviate the problem. The Labour PvdA, VVD, Socialist Party SP, populist LPF, green party GroenLinks and Democrat D66 parties supported the proposal in regards the legalisation of marijuana and hash. The PvdA had introduced a similar proposal two years ago in Parliament, a proposal which attracted a small majority, but the PvdA, VVD and D66 coalition government refused to amend existing legislation. But PvdA MP Nebahat Albayrak urged the new government — which is yet to be formed following the 22 January elections, but looks likely to be a CDA, VVD and D66 coalition — to take seriously the almost unanimous parliamentary stance in favour of the legalisation of soft drugs. The VVD shares the PvdA's stance and VVD MP Griffith said the Netherlands needed to find supporters across Europe and the globe to campaign for the legalisation of soft drugs. United Nations treaties presently block the legalisation of soft drugs. The third likely coalition partner, D66, has long been a proponent of the legalisation of soft drugs and leader Boris Dittrich said legalisation will cut off organised crime. He also said government supervision is necessary to monitor the THC content of marijuana, the actual substance which gives users the so-called "high". He said marijuana was increasingly becoming stronger. The LPF said the sale of soft drugs should be in the hands of chemists, rather than — for example — having it stocked in supermarket shelves to avoid the situation where all of they nation's youth would be stimulates to smoke marijuana. Source: Expatica.com (Holland)Published: April 22, 2003 Copyright: 2003 Expatica News Contact: feedback expatica.comWebsite: http://www.expatica.com/index.aspRelated Articles:Marijuana Now Legal in Dutch Pharmacieshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15747.shtmlDutch Could Teach Us A Lot About Marijuana Laws http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14974.shtmlDutch Celebrate 30 Years of Legal Pot http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14861.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #1 posted by rchandar on April 25, 2003 at 19:42:19 PT: MPs favor legalisation of soft drugs anyone listening on our side--you've got to take this up, those of you in the netherlands, and make this pro-pot majority count. basically the sentiment of the dutch politicians seems to be, "either let's completely legalize cannabis, or let's completely get rid of it." do the work. legalize. --fqih [ Post Comment ] Post Comment