Legalize Cultivation of Weed?

The city council of Amsterdam wants to legalize the cultivation of weed. Doing so would reduce criminality in the supply of coffee shops. Also, because selling soft drugs is legal but growing is not, it would make Dutch legislation more logical. Parool.nl reports that Amsterdam joins municipalities like Groningen, Utrecht and Rotterdam, which insisted on the legalization before. The leader of political party Groenlinks, Marieke van Doorninck, said that municipalities do not have to cultivate weed themselves. “But when it’s legal, we could control the quality and supervise the industry.” The government parties will vote on Wednesday for the freedom of municipalities to regulate weed cultivation themselves. The chance that Amsterdam will liberalize the current policies is small since Minister of Justice, Ivo Opstelten, is not a proponent.