Amsterdam closes cannabis shops

ALMERE, Netherlands (Reuters) – Almost a fifth of Amsterdam's popular marijuana-selling coffee shops will be closed down because they are too close to schools, the city council said Friday. Of the 228 coffee shops in the Dutch capital, 43 must close by the end of 2011 because they are within 250 meters of a school, the council said. The Dutch coffee shop policy has come under fresh criticism after the Dutch cities of Bergen op Zoom and Roosendaal, located near the Belgian border, said they will close all their shops within two years to combat drug tourism and crime. Amsterdam, home to a quarter of the nation's cannabis coffee shops that are a big draw for tourists, joined with 32 other Dutch mayors or city council representatives Friday to back a continuation of the Dutch "soft drugs" policy of toleration. But the mayors also called for better rules on the sale and trade of cannabis. They stressed that while a ban on marijuana use was not a solution to the problem, the use of the drug should be discouraged.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081121/od_nm/us_dutch_marijuana