On June 9th, the Dutch get to vote their 28th cabinet. With the economic recession as the main issue, the story of coffeeshops in these elections is grossly overlooked.

For a long time, the use of soft drugs for grown ups has been part of a policy of toleration. Especially the last couple of years, political parties haven been in favor or against coffeeshops. In 2008, the CDA wanted to ban them completely. In February 2010 minister under resignation André Rouvoet (Youth and Family) wanted to raise a minimum distance between schools and coffeeshops. In the same month Job Cohen, then mayor of Amsterdam and now running for prime minister for the PvdA, declared that he didn’t feel for closing down the coffeeshops near schools, which was another plan from the government.

demotix.com