Strong Dutch joints could well become a thing of the past and family doctors take to the street. Listed buildings are crumbling, food clichés are true and a chicken takes to the air.

Strong Dutch cannabis to be banned
Only two of today’s papers think the news that the government looks set to ban the sale of strong cannabis is worthy of their front pages. Ministers are to discuss the proposal on Friday.

De Telegraaf tells us the move follows an official report which concluded that cannabis with over 15 percent THC (tetrahydrocannabinol – the ingredient that makes people high) should be considered a ‘hard drug’ and therefore not allowed.

At this strength, it was argued, the risks of addiction and psychological problems were too high.

In the Netherlands, outlets called ‘coffeeshops’ are allowed to sell small amounts of cannabis to the public. De Telegraaf says that nearly three-quarters of all the cannabis products being sold in Dutch coffeeshops are over the 15-percent threshold.

The paper points out the anomaly that, although the sale of marijuana and other cannabis products is allowed, the supply of the drugs to coffeshops is still totally illegal.

The opposition D66 democrat party says that, if the supply remains criminal, it will be impossible for coffeeshop owners to ensure their stocks remain below the 15-percent level.

According to de Volkskrant, the Socialist Party’s criticism is more straightforward. “Terribly stupid and dangerous,” says one MP. “This will force a large number of users into illegality. From a public health standpoint, it’s far better to regulate and control use.”

Read the RNW coverage of the story

Family doctors’ demo
On its front page, nrc.next reports that family doctors are protesting today about a proposed cut of about 10 percent, or 132 million euros, to their collective budget. The paper reckons this amounts to around 20,000 euros per GP practice - the cost, for instance, of a part-time nurse - a typical member of a GP’s support staff.

In its coverage of the issue, nrc.next gives us a raft of facts, including that Dutch family doctors have seen their earnings fall in real terms over the past two decades. Nevertheless, they remain among the highest paid GPs in Europe, earning an average of 104,000 euros per year.

Trouw doesn’t stay on the fence. Its inside-page headline reads, “When doctors shout ‘Demonstrate!’, there’s something wrong”. It too gives us lots of figures, reminding us that GPs deal with 96 percent of all health problems at a cost of under five percent of our total healthcare expenditure.

Below its article on the GP’s demonstration, AD runs a piece on Dutch company Aegon which is introducing a special healthcare savings plan. The idea is that people will save for their health expenditure later in life. The paper tells us that an overwhelming majority of people expect basic health insurance to become a lot more expensive in the future, while the services provided under that basic healthcare package will be substantially cut.

Read the RNW coverage of the story

Listed buildings crumbling
On its front page, Trouw sounds the alarm about the state of buildings protected by local government. It says 20 percent, nearly 20,000 of them, are in a poor state of repair. The economic situation means there’s little money for much-needed work to be done.

Many of the buildings are private homes, but the rules for repairing the local government monuments are much stricter than for ordinary houses, pushing the price of the work up.

But unlike those buildings which are on the national monuments list, the repair costs are not deductible from tax. A report out today is calling for 325 million euros to be made available in subsidies and cheap loans for the owners of local government monuments to carry out repairs.

Food clichés ‘are true’
Today’s de Volkskrant gives prominent coverage to an official survey of food consumption from 2007 to 2010. The Dutch are apparently still eating too little vegetables, fruit, fish and roughage.

What’s more, many people aren’t getting enough of certain vitamins and minerals. A lot of the population still consume far too much saturated fat, with the result that many are overweight.

The paper says that the figures show that many of the clichés are true: for example, men eat too much meat and women eat a lot of cakes.

Roast chicken flies through the air
A falling chicken is given the front-page treatment by today’s AD. A 20-year-old student from Groningen has been fined 180 euros for throwing a roast chicken out of his third-storey window on Tuesday.

The poultry missile missed a baby in a pram by a hair’s breadth, says the paper, hitting the nearby pavement with a dull thud. The police were alerted and officers were easily able to locate the house from where the chicken had been launched.

The offending student owned up, saying it was a joke in honour of 4 October, Dutch Animal Day. The officers failed to see the funny side of the incident and gave him a hefty fine.