The Netherlands’ conservative Government has just unveiled a scheme to restrict access to the country’s drug-selling coffee shops to Dutch residents only. Coffee shops would be restricted to members, with membership permits sold only to local people.

The Dutch city is renowned as the drugs capital of Europe, having become the destination of choice for revellers looking for the high life. Hundreds of coffee shops openly offer menus for different types of resin and grass.

However, the Government is keen to clean up the country’s image and has been under pressure from its more puritanical neighbours, particularly France and Germany, whose citizens flock across the Dutch border to buy cannabis.

“We are willing to do something about tourists and foreigners buying hashish in coffee shops. One option is having permits for customers, and then you don’t give permits to foreigners,” a spokesman for the Justice Ministry said.

The announcement has dismayed Britain’s normally laid-back cannabis-users. “We are devastated,” Alan Buffry, of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, said. “It’s always been a refuge where you can smoke and relax without having to look over your shoulder. It was like a holiday from the police.”

The proposals have also triggered vehement protests from the Dutch coffee shops, which are fully licensed by local authorities and pay millions of pounds in tax. “It’s totally ridiculous. The minister is stupid. If this system comes in, all the tourists will buy from criminals in the street,” Arjan Roskam, of the Union of Cannabis Retailers, said.

The plans, which are to be confirmed by Christmas, were put forward by Piet Hein Donner, the Justice Minister, during a visit to Germany, which has criticised the Netherlands for not doing enough in the war on drugs. The proposals are aimed specifically at curbing cross-border drug-trafficking. German dealers, for example, drive across the uncontrolled border, stock up at coffee shops and then return.

About 60 per cent of sales at coffee shops near the German border are to Germans, while in Amsterdam in summer about 40 per cent of coffee-shop trade is with tourists.

Local authorities are responsible for licensing coffee shops and it will be up to them to implement the scheme. The Association of Dutch Municipalities said that it would wait for the full publication of the plans before commenting. The authorities have already closed some of the less respectable coffee shops and restricted sales to 5 grams of cannabis to each customer at a time. Shops have to limit their stock to 500 grams.

The conservative Government has said that it wants to halve the number of coffee shops, which have fallen from a peak of nearly 2,000 in 1997 to 782. This year, the coffee shops survived a proposed smoking ban in all restaurants and cafés, which would have wiped them out. The ban was dropped at the last minute.

Phil Kilvington, editor of Britain’s Weed World magazine, was philosophical. With Britain downgrading cannabis to a Class C drug, he said: “It’s going to be easier to smoke here than go to Amsterdam. It’s not even very high quality there — you can get better quality here in the UK, and people are starting to realise that.”

Different smokes, different folks

Explore Health News

• Swine flu

Times Recommends

• The Olympics: you need brass to go for gold
• The new must-have accessory: 3-D specs
• Does Dame Helen Mirren need a Face Lift?