Amsterdam mayor warns the Netherlands is at risk of "becoming a narco-state"

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema warned that the Netherlands is at a critical point where national and international drug policy is violently colliding with international drug trafficking, which "has become more lucrative, professional and ruthlessly violent." In an opinion piece for The Guardian, Halsema warned, "Without a fundamental change of course, the Netherlands is in danger of becoming a narco-state."

She again argued that the problems the Netherlands is facing shows that "the war on drugs is counterproductive," saying that international authorities urgently need to recognize this. "The prohibition of drugs is enshrined in international treaties that limit the space for national drug policies, meaning we will have to forge new international alliances that prioritise health and safety over punitive measures," she continued. It may require taking a fresh look at these treaties, and developing a global approach to "innovative, health-centric drug policies."

Her essay in the British newspaper may come as a surprise to those who only associate Halsema with her recent attempts to clean up the Red Light District, and make the old city center more calm by launching ad campaigns telling British partiers not to travel to Amsterdam. But Halsema, who has held her office since 2018, has publicly maintained this position for years. In 2022, she told a conference of ministers from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Spain that the policy of finding drugs and seizing drugs simply is not working. The Amsterdam congress was organized by Dutch Justice Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius. Last year, she warned City Council that drug-related crime will certainly rise in the coming decade.

In her article published on Friday, Halsema noted that the Netherlands is somewhat lenient on people caught with a small quantity of hard drugs. She also explained what happened when international pressure prompted the country to make MDMA illegal as a hard drug included on the Opium Act list, despite her opinion that the "relatively harmless" nature of the drug. "This shift inadvertently contributed to the profitability of illegal MDMA production and created a lucrative business model for criminal organisations, as evidenced by the estimated 18.9 billion euro street value of annual ecstasy production in the Netherlands. This experience reveals how efforts to align with global drug prohibition trends can have counterproductive outcomes," she wrote.

She also demonstrated how the Dutch, and Amsterdam in particular, have had historical success by reducing health risks for drug users. "Since the early 1980s, the introduction of harm-reduction facilities in the Netherlands, such as methadone provision and drug-use areas for heroin addicts, has improved their living conditions, health and quality of life while drug nuisance and crime have decreased."

Without global action, the Netherlands faces a tough road ahead considering the development of the international drug trade. Those developments have had a "disastrous" effect, she said. The violence no longer only targets criminals, as she pointed to the murders connected to Nabil B., a key witness for the prosecution of alleged drug lord Ridouan Taghi. B.'s brother was murdered, as was B.'s attorney, Derk Wiersum. Investigative journalist Peter R. de Vries, who was assisting B., was also assassinated on the street.

Now, children as young as 14 are being caught as they try to help extract shipments of cocaine by sneaking on to Dutch ports. The situation has only gotten worse, she stated. More than 29,700 kilograms of cocaine was seized at the Rotterdam port during the first half of 2023, up from over 22,000 during the same period a year earlier. "While this may seem encouraging at first glance, it actually illustrates the immense scale of what is happening. Our current approach in the fight against drugs is like mopping with the tap running."

With so much drug money flowing through the country, the capital is becoming a hub for drug lords and organized crime leaders to launder money, send it to tax havens, and spread it around real estate, business services, and hospitality businesses, she continued. "If it continues on this current path, our economy will be inundated with criminal money and violence will reach an all-time high," she added.

"If it continues on this current path, our economy will be inundated with criminal money and violence will reach an all-time high. This leads to social disruption, the deterioration of neighbourhoods, generations of vulnerable young people who will be lured into crime and the undermining of the rule of law."

Halsema previously announced the city's Dealing with Drugs conference, which is set for January 26 at the Beurs van Berlage. Speakers will include former Bogota mayor, Claudia Lopez, and Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala.

Alec von Graffenried, who is the mayor of Berne, will also speak about how his city is looking to regulate cocaine and cannabis, and their success with dealing with heroin use in past decades. Experts in drug policy, addiction, and law enforcement will also speak at the event.