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Drug Tourism and Vice Control in the EU Lead to Discriminatory Law and a Logically Flawed Legal Decision by the European Court of Justice ECJ

By Andis Kaulins

The control of human vices such as prostitution and drug abuse are major problems for legal systems because they often involve the border-line confrontation of legal bodies and law enforcement agencies with "normal" citizens whose behavior has run contrary to the law statutes in matters that often involve legal and moral principles about which there is a great deal of differing opinion in the populace.

Few areas of law involve so much "bad law" as the perplexing legal issues posed by "substance abuse", whether this be alcohol or marijuana. (We have posted before at LawPundit about the widespread failings of legal systems to deal intelligently with drug abuse problems in society.)

A case in point is recently found at the EU Law Blog
in the posting Cannabis, Coffee Shops, Non-Discrimination and Public Policy: Case C-137/09
regarding Case C-137/09 Marc Michel Josemans v. Burgemeester van Maastricht
of the European Court of Justice (ECJ),

a terrible legal decision which sets back about 2000 years the legal advances made in Europe since Law in Early Rome and the Republic, by which citizens of Rome in that Empire had one set of rights and foreigners another set of rights.

Not only has the modern developing concept of ius gentium -- the "law of nations" by which all people are subject to the same laws, citizens, non-citizens and foreigners alike -- been trampled under foot by the ECJ in Case C-137/09, but the entire principle upon which the European Union is based has been tossed aside.

The principle foundation of the the European Union and a Single Internal EU Market is EQUALITY of the Member States of the EU and its citizens, especially in economic matters. The "four freedoms" in the European Union provide:

"The core of European Union economic and social policy is summed up under the idea of the four freedoms - free movement of goods, capital, services and persons. Sometimes, they are also counted up as five freedoms, namely the free movement of goods, capital, services, workers and the freedom of establishment, but the difference is merely in denomination, they both refer to the same areas of substantive law."

To permit the sale of cannabis in coffee-shops in Maastricht to citizens of the Netherlands but to prohibit such sale to other EU citizens or foreigners turns European Law on its head and makes a mockery of the European Union.

We are not in favor of drug tourism, by the way, and it would be better to prohibit the sale of cannabis anywhere in the EU than to permit this terrible totally discriminatory decision to remain good law.

Full post as published by LawPundit on March 02, 2011 (boomark / email).