Going Dutch on Smoking

The Netherlands has a reputation for being a very liberal nation when it comes to social mores. But it does have a conformist Calvinist history.

That might explain the peculiarity of a new smoking ban that went into effect today. The Netherlands, like other European nations and many U.S. cities and states, now prohibits tobacco smoking in restaurants and bars.

The tobacco ban also applies to Dutch "coffee shops," where the buzz certainly does not come from the coffee. These are licensed establishments that since 1976 exist for smoking cannabis. The new law means that coffee shop customers can smoke marijuana and hashish, but not tobacco

"That sounds a bit to me like going into a cafe and being able to buy a beer without being able to drink it there. But the cafe still lets you drink whiskey, rum, and vodka," Paul Wilhelm, the owner of the De Tweede Kamer coffee shop in Amsterdam, told Der Spiegel.

That's a problem for the coffee shops, the Guardian reports, because most of their patrons prefer their joints mixed with tobacco. Only 18 percent take pure cannabis. As a result, some 1,600 coffee shops are said to be up for sale on fears that business will decline as a result.

The Dutch Health Minister, Ab Klink, has defended the new policy, saying, "A positive side effect of the smoking ban may be that consumers who spend the whole day hanging out in coffee shops will find other things to do."