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Pechtold Expects Cannabis Ban Proposal Will "Blow Over"
NIS News | 12/06/2005

THE HAGUE, 06/12/05 - Administrative Reform Minister Alexander Pechtold is not impressed by the Lower House proposal to ban the use of cannabis at certain locations. "I have the feeling that this idea will blow over again," he wrote in his Internet weblog.

Pechtold, like Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner, opposes introducing a ban on smoking joints on the streets and in public buildings. The Lower House hopes the ban will reduce nuisance, but Pechtold observed that different people have different ideas about what smells pleasant and what stinks. "Chanel no. 5, a pipe, sweaty socks or cannabis. Personally, I find an ordinary cigarette the most unpleasant," he wrote.

The minister wonders whether the initiators of the ban, the conservatives (VVD) and small Christian party ChristenUnie, are really concerned about the smell or whether they are in fact seeking a method of keeping groups of young people out of public places. Calling the proposal symbolic, he said "cannabis smokers will seek sheltered places and become even more distanced from society, which seems to me to be the wrong objective. I have the feeling that this proposal will blow over."

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