There are 166 coffee shops in Amsterdam.

Besides Amsterdam’s many tourist attractions, the main attraction still seems to be coffee shops.

Amsterdam’s mayor, Femke Halsema, has published a report which shows that a third of foreign tourists would be less likely to visit Amsterdam if they couldn’t purchase cannabis in coffee shops. Mayor Halsema is considering banning tourists from buying cannabis in coffee shops in order to remove the overcrowding problem in the city. 

Only residents of the Netherlands with a passport would be allowed to enter 166 coffee shops in Amsterdam, in line with the rest of the country.

Joachim Helms, a Spokesperson for the Association of Cannabis Retailers in Amsterdam says efforts to keep tourists out of the coffee shops will push the drug trade on to the streets.

“Banning the tourists from the coffee shops now will have a major negative side-effect. That is that the people who still want to smoke cannabis – and that’s a lot of people – will go to buy it on the streets from street dealers.”

The city parliament still has to approve the new plans.