Many doubts in parliament about continuing regulated cannabis experiment

The experiment to sell legally produced cannabis in coffeeshops in ten municipalities is meeting with a lot of resistance in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament. The experiment started at the end of last year, after it had been postponed several times and had been discussed in The Hague for over ten years. There is little enthusiasm for the trial in the new Kamer. The largest party, PVV, even wants to pause it until a coalition agreement is reached. It is unclear whether enough parties support this proposal.

The parliamentary debate was actually about the question of whether the cannabis experiment should be expanded to also include the Amsterdam Oost district. The PVV and Christian parties ChristenUnie, SGP, and CDA are not enthusiastic about the experiment at all, let alone expanding it.

“Not last year, not today, not tomorrow, no experiments with our youth,” René Claassen (PVV) summarized his position. “What signal do we want to send as a government: that drug use is normal or that we should live healthy and grow up healthy.”

Daniëlle Jansen of NSC also has “serious reservations” about the plan to expand the cannabis experiment. However, she does not yet want to say whether she will support the PVV’s plan to freeze the trial. “I will discuss this with my faction,” she said.

GroenLinks-PvdA, D66, and VVD support the cannabis experiment. Ingrid Michon (VVD) nevertheless has doubts about expanding it to Amsterdam Oost. She fears the consequences if cannabis is legally supplied in one part of the capital and not others.

“It is no secret that we see this experiment as an important step towards legalization and better regulation of the coffeeshop chain,” said Joost Sneller of D66. He prefers that the government has insight into how cannabis is produced so that it happens responsibly. He also hopes that it will reduce crime.

The experiment must show whether legalizing cannabis production has these benefits, Michon said. She wants to make “fact-based decisions” based on that. She believes that the opponents of the experiment are too rigid in the discussion and based on “articles of faith.”