The tide is turning against the criminalisation of cannabis. Portugal, the Netherlands and several US states have to varying degrees decriminalised its use and now Copenhagen has decided to join the movement with a three-year trial to decriminalise the drug.

But while city officials envisage Copenhagen undertaking the world’s most ambitious decriminalisation project – both the production and sale would be legalised – large questions remain about what shape the so-called "Copenhagen Model" would actually take.

Many eyes were watching the legislative elections of 12 September in the Netherlands with regard to the future of the coffee-shop industry of that country. But the outcome, officially confirmed yesterday, delivers a substantive equality in the distribution of the 150 seats in the Second Chamber (Tweede Kamer) between the parties for and against the maintenance of the so-called “weed-pass”, introduced in the three southern provinces of the Netherlands: Noord-Brabant, Limburg and Zeeland.

On May 1st 2012, the “weed-pass” was introduced in Netherlands’ three southern provinces, Noord-Brabant, Limburg and Zeeland. As of 2013 the pass shall be obligatory all over the country. However, only two months into the new measure, the first results can already be gathered from the three “pioneering provinces”.

Yesterday I attended the workshop: "Modernising the global drug control system - Can Europe lead?" organized by the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) and the Global Commission on Drug Policy (GC).

Coffee-shop 'Easy going' in Maastricht closed its doors on Wednesday May 2nd after having its license suspended for one month due to the refusal of its owner, Marc Josemans, to deny entry to persons not residing in the Netherlands. About a dozen other coffee-shops in town closed in solidarity with Josemans’ civil disobedience.