Mayor wants cannabis strength limit
Soft drugs should have a strength limit, says the mayor of the northern city of Leeuwarden. De Volkskrantreports that Mayor Ferd Crone wants a ban on the sale of cannabis with a high concentration of the active ingredient THC. THC levels in soft drugs on sale in Dutch coffeeshops have more than doubled in recent years, the paper says. Mr Crone is investigating whether he can introduce a strength limit in his own city without needing national legislation.

Local coffeeshop owners are sceptical. They told de Volkskrant it would be practically impossible to test all the cannabis on sale, and claim that anyway high THC levels don’t make the drug more of a health risk or more addictive.

The other paper to pick up on the story is populist de Telegraaf, which never wastes an opportunity to fulminate in its editorials against the decriminalised sale of soft drugs. The paper would like what it sees as a “more logical extension” of Mr Crone’s investigation: “stop tolerating soft drugs and ban the cultivation and sale of these extremely harmful products.” Dutch drugs policy, claims De Telegraaf, is “worse for our country’s name internationally than the statements by Wilders which leftwing politicians say harm our international position”.