[420 Girl]

Marijuana has become an entrepreneurial and free market issue in the Dutch town of Maastricht. The border town is a favoured destination as thousands of tourists - several thousand a day from countries such as Belgium, Germany and France, according to the mayor - flock to its coffee shops to buy soft drugs such as marijuana. The Netherlands decriminalized possession of such drugs and, while still illegal, sales are tolerated in the shops.

Foreigners account for 70 per cent of sales, worth about €10-million a year, in Maastricht's 13 coffee shops, according to reports. This was becoming such a problem that municipal officials moved to weed out the foreigners (yes, that was intended) and ban sales to outsiders. But the owner of the aptly-named Easy Going coffee shop, who also chairs the Association of Official Maastricht Coffee Shops, didn't like the ban (his shop was temporarily closed) and challenged it in a local court, which in turn asked the Court of Justice for the European Union for an opinion.

For anyone wondering why this story is in the business section, it's because the shop owner's challenge is based on EU single market rules guaranteeing freedom of movement of goods and/or services. For the shop owner, it's an economic issue, plain and simple.

A court advocate-general, Yves Bot, an adviser to the EU's top court, rejects that argument, though, saying yesterday that the ban is needed to maintain public order. "Advocate General Bot recalls that narcotics, including cannabis, are not goods like others and their sale does not benefit from the freedoms of movement guaranteed by European Union law, inasmuch as their sale is unlawful," the court said in a statement. "... The Advocate General therefore considers that the measure adopted by the municipality of Maastricht does not fall within the scope of the freedom to provide services."


NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: The Globe and Mail
Author: Michael Babad
Contact: The Globe and Mail
Copyright: 2010 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.
Website: Why marijuana might not be a free-market right in the EU


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