AMSTERDAM | A policy barring foreign tourists from buying marijuana in the Netherlands went into effect in parts of the country Tuesday, with attention focused on the southern city of Maastricht, where a cafe was warned about violating the ban and an estimated 200 smokers marched in protest.
Marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, but it has been sold openly for decades in small amounts in designated cafes known as “coffee shops” under the country’s well-known tolerance policy.
Under a government policy change, as of May 1, only holders of a “weed pass” are allowed to purchase the drug in three southern provinces. Nonresidents are not eligible for the pass, which means tourists are effectively banned.
The policy is expected to take in effect in Amsterdam, which has about a third of the country’s coffee shops, next year. But it may never be imposed.
The city opposes the idea, and the conservative national government collapsed last week, raising questions about whether a new Cabinet will persevere with the policy change after elections are held in September.
Most attention Tuesday was on the city of Maastricht, which borders both Belgium and Germany and which has felt the effect of a constant flow of traffic from more than a million non-Dutch Europeans driving to the city annually just to purchase as much marijuana as possible and drive back home.
Most shops in Maastricht plan to refuse to use the pass and they kept their doors shut Tuesday.
There was one exception. The Easy Going shop of Marc Josemans, chairman of the coffee shop owners’ association, which remained open just long enough to provoke two legal conflicts he hopes may ultimately derail the policy.
First Mr. Josemans turned away a group of foreigners who oppose the rule and who went to the police to file a discrimination complaint. Then he started selling marijuana to anybody willing to buy, without checking for passes.
“The police paid me a visit about a half an hour later and warned me I was violating the new rules, and if I do it again, I’ll be closed down for a month,” he said in a telephone interview.
An estimated 200 protesters marched though Maastricht protesting the policy. Mayor Onno Hoes said at a news conference that the coffee shops closing all at the same time was a “rude” move.
“They’re disrupting society like this,” he said.
A former chairman of the Netherlands’ Police Union, Hans van Duijn, told reporters in front of the Easy Going shop that he believes the new policy’s negative side effects will outweigh any benefits and that enforcing it would waste precious resources.
“Everyone who is rejected here will walk a few yards down the street to the drug dealers who drive over from Rotterdam, among other places, and ride around in large numbers,” he said.
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