Thursday, May 31, 2007

Want to buy pot? Let's see some ID - Dutch coffee shops get whiff of new code

Want to buy pot? Let's see some ID - Dutch coffee shops get whiff of new code
By Toby Sterling
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune and The Associated Press
Published May 31, 2007

AMSTERDAM -- Coffee shops licensed to sell marijuana in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht will begin fingerprinting customers and scanning their IDs this summer to help prove they're following rules governing such sales.

In particular, the measures are expected to help stores show they are not selling to underage customers and that they haven't sold more than the maximum permitted to a customer on a given day.

"This is not something that we are doing willingly but with pain in our hearts," Marc Josemans, chairman of the Union of Maastricht's Coffee Shops, said Wednesday. Shops in Rotterdam and several Dutch border cities may follow suit, he said.

"We're very afraid we're going to lose customers over this, and to be honest we're even a little ashamed we're doing it, but the city of Maastricht has such harsh punishments that we don't feel we have any choice," Josemans said.

Marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, but cities may license shops to sell no more than 5 grams per customer per day. The shops may not sell to anyone under 18 nor permit drugs other than marijuana or hashish on the premises.

Since Maastricht Mayor Gerd Leers took office in 2002, police have enforced the rules, and shops found in violation are closed for a minimum of three months for a single infraction, six months for a second offense and permanently for a third. As a result, 11 of Maastricht's 26 licensed shops have been closed.

Under the new plan, fingerprints would be coupled with a digital photograph and a scan of a customer's ID cards -- removing all personal information except birth date -- and stored on a computer system at the shop.

Josemans said the electronic system would be tested at his store Aug. 1 and used by all licensed stores by September.

Because of Maastricht's location near the border with Belgium and Germany and not far from France, the city of 120,000 residents gets 4.5 million "drugs tourists" a year who come to buy marijuana and drive home.

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