Dutch get green light to ban foreigners from coffee shops

The Netherlands has long been known, particularly by many Americans, as a drug tourism destination. For years, the Dutch have complained that while they support the decision to end the prohibition on marijuana use, the fact that other countries don’t have the same policy means the country has become a magnet for wacked-out partiers and troublemakers.

One Dutch town decided it had had enough, and it banned foreigners from its ‘coffee shops’, the name for establishments that sell marijuana. That town is Maastricht, which says it is particularly vulnerable to drug-tourism because of its geography in the thin Dutch tail at the Southeast of the country. Sandwiched between Belgium and Germany, Maastricht, much like its border neighbor Breda, has gained a reputation as the place where Belgians, French and Germans go to buy weed. So Maastricht banned its coffee shops from selling to foreigners, and when a coffee shop was shut down for selling marijuana to two non-Dutch EU citizens, that coffee shop sued.

Right from when they established the law, Maastricht must have known they would have a legal fight on their hands. Banning EU citizens from other countries from consuming a product which Dutch citizens can consume is a blatant violation of EU free movement law, which stipulates that EU citizens must be given equal treatment to native citizens in any EU country. This right is perhaps the cornerstone of the European Union.