Amsterdam has banned the law which would make it illegal for foreigners to visit their famous cannabis cafes.
The Huffington Post reported that the mayor dropped the law just months after The Netherlands started to enforce it.
The Associated Press reported that the drug ban on tourists went into effect in three of the country's areas and was going to expand to the rest of the country by 2013.
Amsterdam's mayor, Eberhand van der Laan said to the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant that he made the decision based on the consequences that would happen because of the ban "including a revival of black-market trade. He also noted that the current system allowed for the government to monitor the quality of "soft" drugs and to limit access to the coffee shops to those 18 and older, something that would be impossible if the trade were again to become clandestine," reported The New York Times.
He noted that tourists will not simply stop doing drugs they will still look for them in Amsterdam and that will lead to "robberies, quarrels about fake drugs and no control of the quality of drugs on the market. Everything we have worked toward would be lost to misery," he said according to The New York Times.
The first phase of the ban occurred on May 1 and affected the South of the Netherlands. The mayor's decision is at the same time that Hollands government said they would allow local authorities to decide whether or not they wanted to impose the drug ban.
The laws around cannibis in The Netherlands are tricky and confusing. Technically cannibis is illegal in the Netherlands but the country decriminalized possession of less than five grams of weed in 1976, the AFP reported.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
