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For decades, the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, was a paradise for cannabis users from all over the world.

Many Germans still like to make the trip across the border to the canal metropolis.

Because anyone over the age of 18 can legally buy and smoke hashish or marijuana in the coffee shops.

That should now come to an end - after more than 50 years.

At least for tourists.

The Dutch capital wants to ban foreign tourists from accessing coffee shops.

The city announced on Friday that it should put a stop to mass tourism and drug crime.

According to the plan, only residents of the country with a club ID should have access.

The number of sales outlets is to be drastically reduced.

It is still unclear when the ban will come into force.

The city parliament has yet to approve the plans.

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"We want to stop drug tourism," said Mayor Femke Halsema.

"The so-called cannabis tourists cause big problems in the city".

The green mayor is not in favor of a total ban on drugs, but wants an end to the excesses.

In this she is supported by the public prosecutor, the police and many citizens.

In 2019, almost ten million tourists came to Amsterdam

Almost ten million tourists came to the city with around 700,000 inhabitants in 2019.

Many of them probably just to get drunk and smoke weed.

57 percent of the visitors to the red light district in the center said in a study that they came mainly because of the drugs.

"We don't want the tourists who only come here to walk around drunk and stoned," said the mayor.

The first coffee shop opened in Amsterdam around 1970.

A little later the so-called Duldungsgesetz followed.

After that one can buy and consume so-called soft drugs for personal use all over the country.

The coffee shops are still open during the lockdown, but customers have to take the goods with them.

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A good ten years ago, Amsterdam successfully fought against a new law that only residents of the country were allowed to buy drugs in coffee shops.

There was great fear that illegal street traffic would then increase again.

Since then, there has been an exception in Amsterdam.

So tourists are still allowed to buy joints.

To do this, however, the city had to significantly reduce the number of sales outlets.

Number of coffee shops has fallen sharply

The association of coffee shop dealers is strictly against the plans and warns of negative consequences.

“People want to smoke their joint.

If that doesn't work in the coffee shop, then they buy it on the street, ”said spokesman Joachim Helms.

Over the past 20 years, the number of coffee shops in Amsterdam has fallen sharply, from 283 to 166 now. That is still around 30 percent of all coffee shops in the country.

And with mass tourism, the demand for cannabis also increased - by up to 200 percent, as the city reports.

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The stoner tourism increased: You come by car from Germany, Belgium, France and especially with the low-cost airlines from Great Britain.

"Cannabis tourists only come here to sit in the coffee shops," said the green mayor.

According to a study, if they are no longer allowed to smoke their joint there, they will stay at home.

The police are also seeing an increase in drug and money laundering crime.

Because a paradox still applies: while the sale of hashish is legal, cultivation and wholesale are prohibited.

So coffee shops have to get their goods illegally through the back door.

The government in The Hague now wants to change that and is about to start a model test with state-controlled cultivation by selected producers.