From: [lamon t g] at [u.washington.edu] (Lamont Granquist) Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs,rec.drugs.misc,alt.drugs Subject: Dutch to review their controversial drug policy Date: 12 Sep 1995 09:22:56 GMT AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuter) - After a 20-year experiment which has enraged neighboring countries and turned Amsterdam into a mecca for European youth, the Netherlands is about to tighten the world's most liberal drug policy. [...] European Union partners are demanding a tough stance. France has threatened to block the Schengen agreement on open borders, claiming the flow of drugs from the Netherlands is unstoppable. [...] Instead, the government is expected to clamp down on the number of coffee shops and close those they even vaguely suspect of links with organized crime. But it will continue to treat addicts as people who need help rather than as criminals and will also maintain distinct policies on hard and soft drugs. In short, residents and tourists alike will still be able to smoke a joint with impunity. [...] -- Lamont Granquist ([lamon t g] at [u.washington.edu]) There comes a point, I'm afraid, where you begin to suspect that if there's any _real_ truth, it's that the entire multidimentional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of manics -- Douglas Adams