Relatively few Americans are aware that recent years have seen a large backlash in the Netherlands against the quasi-legalization of marijuana that their country is famous for. In particular, the “legalization in one country” paradigm has helped generate a lot of drug tourism that Dutch people don’t seem to like very much. But Keith Humphreys reports that the drug tourism issue may not doom the coffee shops after all:
An EU judge has upheld the legality of Maastricht’s proposal to restrict “coffee shop” sales to Dutch citizens. This decision probably saves the coffee shops as a social experiment in the long term despite the fact that the loss of tourist business will make some of them fold. Maastricht and a number of other cities were planning to close their shops rather than continue to experience the problems that come with drug tourism.
Good news for Dutch people. Of course this won’t fly in the USA. If Michigan wants to create legal smoke shops, they’d need to put up with a stream of people from other states coming in to get high. Of course you might see that as a feature—something to draw business in from out-of-town the way Vegas did with gambling back in the day.
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