As US states allow pot sales, Dutch reverse course

Published March 7, 2014 7:55am ET



MAASTRICHT, Netherlands (AP) — A young man at a bus stop hisses at a passer-by: “What you looking for … marijuana?” It’s a scene of street peddling that the Netherlands hoped to stamp out in the 1970s when it launched a policy of tolerating “coffee shops” where people could buy and smoke pot freely.

But Maastricht’s street dealers are back, local residents complain. And the reason is a crackdown on coffee-shops triggered by another problem: Pot tourists who crossed the border to visit the cafes and made a nuisance of themselves by snarling traffic, dumping litter and even urinating in the streets.

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