Dutch Pot Freedom Weakened

The de facto drug liberty in the Dutch city of Maastricht is getting weaker: The AP is reporting that, thanks to a bummer of mayor who took office in 2002, licensed "coffee shops" in that town will "begin fingerprinting customers and scanning their IDs this summer to help prove they're following rules governing such sales." (The rules include age and amount-per-day limitations.)

The chairman of the Coffee Shop Union (yes, there is such a thing) laments that "This is not something that we are doing willingly, but with pain in our hearts. We're very afraid we're going to lose customers over this, and to be honest we're even a little ashamed we're doing it, but the city of Maastricht has such harsh punishments that we don't feel we have any choice."

The mayoral crackdown has led to 11 of Maastricht's 26 licensed shops being shut down.

[Link via Rational Review.]