Owners of marijuana-selling cafes in The Netherlands are urging their customers to vote for politicians who oppose new plans to rein in drug use.
The recently introduced "weed pass" laws are intended to halt sales in the coffee shops and close them altogether to foreign tourists.
Under the new system, coffee shops become member-only clubs and only Dutch residents can apply for a pass to get in. The cafes are limited to a maximum of 2,000 members.
At one shop in The Hague, a member of staff selling marijuana wears a T-shirt emblazoned with a modified Uncle Sam style poster calling on smokers to "Vote against the weed pass on September 12".
The online vote2smoke.nl campaign offers cannabis and marijuana users voting advice by showing which political parties support dumping the "weed pass", which came into force in the southern Netherlands earlier this year and is intended to roll out over the whole country in coming years.
Joep Oomen of the legalise cannabis movement says it is hard to know exactly how big the pot-smoking constituency is, but he estimates it at around half a million people in the nation of 16 million.
Basically the advice to them boils down to this: Voting for any political party on the left is good, and any party on the right is bad.
One champion of the smokers' lobby is Socialist Party leader Emile Roemer, a jovial 50-year-old former teacher whose party is expected to make significant gains at the September 12 election.
Speaking at a campaign event this weekend, he called the weed pass "incredibly stupid" and vowed to scrap it if he wins power.
Source: Irish Examiner, 04/09/12
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