A landmark court case began in the Netherlands on Tuesday against the owner of  the largest cannabis shop in Europe. He is accused of storing dozens of kilos of soft drugs in his shop, while only 500 grams are allowed. His lawyers say he was simply profiting from years of tolerance and neglect by the authorities.

The owner, 57-year-old Meddie W., opened his Checkpoint coffeeshop years ago in the centre of Terneuzen, a town near the Belgian border. Like many other coffeeshops in the Netherlands, W. could profit from a very tolerant policy on the sale and use of soft drugs. Terneuzen city council even offered him a more upmarket spot for his enterprise, outside the centre but within better reach of sufficient parking space and main roads.

Tourist attraction
With the Belgian border only minutes from Checkpoint, the coffeeshop soon proved to be a major attraction for drug tourists from Belgium and the north of France. On any given day, up to 2,500 ‘tourists’ would visit the city. The city council even put up road signs in French to show drug tourists the right way to Checkpoint.

But this also lead to problems, says Terneuzen Mayor Jan Lonink: “It got out of hand. There were many problems with public safety. Parking violations, vandalism, speeding – the people in our town simply didn’t want that anymore”.

Listen to an interview with Mr Lonink here.

Raid
The commercial success of Checkpoint came to an abrupt end in 2007 when the coffee shop was raided by police. Over 100 kilograms of hash and other soft drugs were confiscated, much more than the 500 grams that coffee shops are allowed to have in stock. Meddie W. is now accused of leading a criminal organisation and money laundering and could face up to eight years in prison. Checkpoint has been closed since the raid.

Turning a blind eye
Meddie W.’s lawyers now argue that the city council is partly to blame, as they allowed Checkpoint to grow so big and by turning a blind eye to what was actually going on for too long. But Mr Lonink denies his council was responsible.  “It was a joint decision by the police, legal authorities and us to follow this tolerant policy. When there was no regulation, there was a lot of illegal selling of drugs, a lot of crime and violence, so the city council decided to put an end to that”.

Silly condition
Soft drugs advocate Raymond Dufour of the Netherlands Drug Policy Foundation says the court case shows the current system does not work. “Coffeeshops are only allowed to have 500 grams of cannabis in stock,” he says. “Everybody knows that if you have 2,500 clients a day, you need more than 500 grams. It’s just a silly condition. Everybody in Terneuzen must have known this”.

Listen to Mr Dufour's reaction here.

At Tuesday’s court case, it became clear the Terneuzen authorities did have a suspicion that Checkpoint was stocking more than 500 grams, but that they never asked for an inquiry.

Normal city
Mr Lonink maintains that things have now changed for the better: “We are a normal city again. The drug tourists have gone. We still have one coffee shop, which attracts 500 people a day. I think that’s the way forward – small coffeeshops which are not aimed at tourists, but only at local clients. Just like any normal shop”.