Dutch coffee shops face new curbs on cannabis sale

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By Greg Roumeliotis

AMSTERDAM | Sat Oct 8, 2011 8:23am EDT

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Coffee shops in the Netherlands were left wondering on Saturday how to comply with restrictions announced by the Dutch government on the sale of "strong" cannabis, saying enforcement would be difficult given the laws on production.

The Netherlands is famous for its liberal soft drugs policies. A Dutch citizen can grow a maximum of five cannabis plants at home for personal use but large-scale production and transport is a crime.

On Friday, the coalition government said it would seek to ban what it considered to be highly potent forms of cannabis -- known as "skunk" -- placing them in the same category as hard drugs such as heroin or cocaine.

But the industry said the guidelines were not clear enough.

"Commercial cannabis growers are already breaking the law so how can testing be legal? It's not clear what coffee shops need to do," said Maurice Veldman, a lawyer from the Dutch cannabis retailers association who represents coffee shops in court.

A pioneer of liberal drug policies, the Netherlands has backtracked on its tolerance in the last few years, announcing plans in May to ban tourists from coffee shops, which are popular attractions in cities such as Amsterdam.

The government said it would now outlaw the sale of cannabis whose concentration of THC, seen as the main psychoactive substance, exceeds 15 percent.

The average THC concentration in cannabis sold by Dutch coffee shops is between 16 and 18 percent, according to the Trimbos Institute.

"All this will do is lead to people smoking more joints and me selling more grams. But as it's used with tobacco it will damage their health more," said Marc Josemans, who owns a coffee shop in the city of Maastricht.

The Dutch government says high THC content is detrimental to mental health, particularly when used at a young age, and that it wants to send a clear signal that strong cannabis poses an unacceptable risk to users.

(Reporting By Greg Roumeliotis Editing by Maria Golovnina)

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Dutch to Classify High-Potency Marijuana as a Hard Drug

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The Dutch government said Friday it would move to classify high-potency marijuana alongside hard drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy, the latest step in the country's ongoing reversal of its famed tolerance policies.

The decision means most of the cannabis now sold in the Netherlands' weed cafes would have to be replaced by milder variants. But skeptics said the move would be difficult to enforce, and that it could simply lead many users to smoke more of the less potent weed.

Possession of marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, but police do not prosecute people for possession of small amounts, and it is sold openly in designated cafes. Growers are routinely prosecuted if caught.

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Economic Affairs Minister Maxime Verhagen said weed containing more than 15 percent of its main active chemical, THC, is so much stronger than what was common a generation ago that it should be considered a different drug entirely.

The high potency weed has “played a role in increasing public health damage,” he said at a press conference in The Hague.

The Cabinet has not said when it will begin enforcing the rule.

Jeffrey Parsons, a psychologist at Hunter College in New York who studies addiction, said the policy may not have the benefits the government is hoping for.

“If it encourages smoking an increased amount of low-concentration THC weed, it is likely to actually cause more harm than good,” he said, citing the potential lung damage and cancer-causing effects of extra inhalation.

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The Dutch Justice Ministry said Friday it was up to cafes to regulate their own products and police will seize random samples for testing.

But Gerrit-Jan ten Bloomendal, spokesman for the Platform of Cannabis Businesses in the Netherlands, said implementing the plan would be difficult “if not impossible.”

“How are we going to know whether a given batch exceeds 15 percent THC? For that matter, how would health inspectors know?” he said. He predicted a black market will develop for highly potent weed.

The ongoing Dutch crackdown on marijuana is part of a decade-long rethink of liberalism in general that has seen a third of the windows in Amsterdam's famed prostitution district shuttered and led the Netherlands to adopt some of the toughest immigration rules in Europe.

The number of licensed marijuana cafes has been reduced, and earlier this year the government announced plans to ban tourists from buying weed. That has been resisted by the city of Amsterdam, where the marijuana cafes known euphemistically as “coffee shops” are a major tourist draw.

Marjan Heuving of the Netherlands' Trimbos Institute, which studies mental health and addiction, said there is a growing body of evidence that THC causes mental illnesses.

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She said it stands to reason “the more THC the body takes in, the more the impact.” But it has not been demonstrated scientifically that high THC weed is worse for mental health, she said.

Parsons of Hunter College said it remains difficult to be sure whether marijuana causes mental problems or whether people predisposed to, say, depression seek it out as a form of self-medication.

The Trimbos Institute says the average amount of THC in Dutch marijuana is currently around 17.8 percent. It has been declining since 2004 after increasing steadily from 4 percent or so in the 1970s.

By comparison, in the United States the average level of THC in marijuana is around 10 percent and rising, according to the last measure released by the Office of National Drug Control Policy in 2009.

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Heuving agreed with Ten Bloomendal that determining THC levels outside of a laboratory setting would prove difficult, as exact content varies widely from batch to batch and even within a single plant.

“I don't know of any home test,” she said. “How this is going to work in practical terms, I have no idea.”

—By TOBY STERLING

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Dutch doctors urge end to male circumcision

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By Roberta Cowan

AMSTERDAM | Fri Sep 23, 2011 10:49am EDT

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch doctors want politicians and human rights groups to speak out and discourage the practice of male circumcision in the Netherlands because they say it is a "painful and harmful ritual," and a violation of children's rights.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 boys are circumcised in the Netherlands each year, mostly for religious reasons and not always with an anesthetic, according to the Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) which represents surgeons, pediatricians, general practitioners and urologists.

"We want to discourage male circumcision, because it is an unnecessary procedure with complications, which violates the integrity of the child," Lode Wigersma, a spokesman for the association, told Reuters on Friday.

"This is not an innocent procedure, we see complications in about 5 percent of the cases, as well as some long-term and psychological implications," he said.

Male circumcision involves the removal of all or part of the foreskin of the penis. It is a ritual obligation for infant Jewish boys, and is also a common rite among Muslims, who account for the largest share of circumcised men worldwide.

The Dutch medical association has urged religious leaders to find alternative rites of passage that are not irreversible and which are not painful for the child.

The practice of female genital mutation has been prohibited by law in the Netherlands since 1993 for all ages.

Last year the Dutch medical association released a report against the practice of circumcision of male children for non-medical reasons, hoping to initiate a public discussion.

Now it is appealing to Dutch politicians to speak out against the practice to help "gradually change the mentality" in society and among religious groups that circumcise their boys.

The doctors group said that contrary to popular belief, circumcision can cause some minor as well as serious complications including bleeding, infection, urethral stricture as well as panic attacks, which it says are particularly common.

It said there was no medical reason to surgically remove a part of the genitals of healthy babies and young children, who are too young to give their consent to the procedure.

The Dutch doctors are not calling for a circumcision ban, for fear the practice will be driven underground.

"We also understand that it (circumcision) is a deeply embedded religious habit so we don't expect it to be over in a few years, so our appeal is if you want to do it then have it done by a doctor with anesthesia," said Wigersma.

The majority of male circumcisions in the Netherlands are done in special circumcision clinics by doctors using anesthetic on Muslim boys between 5 and 7 years, according to Wigersma.

Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, President of the Dutch Association of Rabbis, said only about 50 male Jewish babies are circumcised in the Netherlands each year.

He disputed the 5 percent complication rate, and said there have not been any problems in the Jewish community due to strict rules about how and when circumcision takes place.

"According to Jewish law, you have to do it (circumcision) the Jewish way," Jacobs said.

The doctors' recommendation to end the practice of circumcision is likely to be controversial given that it involves both Jewish and Muslim traditions.

In a rare show of unity in June, the Dutch Muslim and Jewish communities -- numbering about 1 million and 40,000 respectively in a total population of 16 million -- condemned the government's proposed ban on the religious slaughter of animals as a violation of their religious freedom.

(Reporting By Roberta B. Cowan)

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