A new survey shows that almost two-thirds of Dutch towns ban drug use in public. Despite the national policy of ‘tolerance’ to certain soft drug use, municipalities are clamping down, especially where there is nuisance; 218 of the 355 councils ban drug use in places like parks, streets and public buildings – sometimes across a whole area, and sometimes in particular problem spots. In 2018 only 151 penalties were issued for drug use in public, totalling €31,000 – almost half of which were doled out in Rotterdam. Jon Schilder, professor of constitutional and administrative law at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said: ‘It is completely undesirable that “lower” governmental organisations make something prosecutable that the higher laws did not want to punish.’