Dutch Cafes Face Trial Over Pot Sales to Foreigners

Even in tough times, local bluenoses don't want marijuana tourists

Owners and staff of three cannabis-selling cafes went on trial Wednesday in the southern Netherlands charged with selling weed to foreigners, in a case both sides of a heated drug debate in this border city hope will clarify the legality of a clampdown on so-called "coffee shops."

Maastricht is using new national legislation banning coffee shops from selling cannabis and marijuana to people who don't live in the Netherlands as a way of clamping down on what the local mayor says was a nuisance caused by hundreds of thousands of drug tourists driving into the picturesque heart of the city to stock up on weed.